30 Sales Discovery Questions That Get Prospects Talking
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Ever found yourself in the middle of a sales discovery call, frantically scribbling notes, only to realize you're not truly understanding your prospect’s needs? This common scenario highlights the critical need for asking the right questions—a skill that distinguishes successful salespeople.
Imagine a call in which, instead of a scripted sales pitch, you ask precise, open ended questions that reveal not just the prospect’s challenges but also their aspirations. This helps you showcase how your product solves the client’s unique problems, making them feel heard and valued.
Effective sales discovery questions can do this, and we’ll explore it in this blog. Ready to transform your sales discovery call into an engaging conversation that converts?
The Importance of Asking the Right Discovery Questions for Sales Success
Why are sales discovery questions for sales so crucial? In a world where 96% of prospects have already scoured the web for a potential solution before sales reps say "hello," the right questions are your first—and sometimes only—shot at standing out.
The value of precise sales discovery questions goes beyond just understanding needs; they help gauge the prospect’s potential as a long-term customer by:
- Discovering unspoken challenges and opportunities
- Building credibility through informed, insightful questions
- Highlighting how your product uniquely addresses specific pain points
- Providing the relevant insights to help them make an informed decision
Frameworks like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) and MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion) have long equipped sales professionals to structure effective sales discovery questions, laying a groundwork for identifying key buying process and influences.
However, these models are just starting points. You can create your custom approach that addresses and anticipates needs, positioning your product as the best solution. Whether you adapt existing frameworks or devise new ones, aim to tailor your sales discovery questions to align precisely with your strategic sales goals for truly impactful engagements.
Different Types of Sales Discovery Questions
Driving the sales discovery process effectively hinges on leveraging diverse types of sales discovery questions—each serving a unique purpose. We have categorized the critical types of sales discovery questions into Informational, Probing, and Strategic, shedding light on their distinct roles in identifying a prospect’s obstacles and specific business needs.
30 Best Sales Discovery Questions to Identify Prospects' Needs
Effective questioning in the pre-sales process unlocks your prospects’ actual needs. This stage lets you address immediate issues and uncover long-term opportunities, setting the stage for authoritative relationships. Explore key sales discovery call questions across Informational, Probing, and Strategic categories.
Informational Sales Discovery Questions
Start with these questions to build a foundational understanding of the prospect’s business context and immediate needs:
- Can you describe your current operational setup?
- What are the key challenges your team is facing right now?
- How does your typical customer lifecycle look?
- What solutions are you currently using, and how are they performing?
- Who are the decision-makers involved in this type of purchasing decision?
- What are your key business goals for this year?
- What is your budget range for solutions in this area?
- What changes have you seen in your industry lately?
- Are there any upcoming initiatives that might influence your needs?
- What are your expectations from a new solution at this stage?
Pro tip: Adapt these questions to include specific industry terms or recent developments that show you've done your homework. For example, if dealing with a tech company, ask, "How has recent technology advancement (like AI and ML) influenced your current operational setup?"
Probing Sales Discovery Questions
Probing effective discovery questions dive deeper to uncover the underlying issues or needs that are not immediately apparent:
- What specific features do you feel are missing from your current solutions?
- Can you describe a recent situation where your current system fell short?
- What are the repercussions of these challenges on your day-to-day operations?
- Which of the issues discussed is the most critical?
- How do these challenges affect your overall business goals?
- What criteria will you use to evaluate the success of a new solution?
- What’s your timeline for implementing a new solution?
- What are the biggest concerns your team has with adopting new technology?
- In what ways do you see a new solution fitting into your current workflow?
- What features would an ideal solution have for you?
Pro tip: Tailor probing questions to reflect insights gained from informational questions. For instance, if a prospect mentions high customer churn during the informational phase, you might ask, “Can you elaborate on how customer churn impacts your revenue targets?”
Strategic Sales Discovery Questions
With strategic sales discovery questions, you must focus on aligning your solution with the prospect’s long-term strategic goals:
- Where do you see your business in the next three to five years?
- What strategic goals are the most critical for your business right now?
- How could the right solution enhance your competitive edge?
- What long-term desired outcomes are you aiming to achieve with this solution?
- Are there any market trends you’re particularly concerned about or interested in leveraging?
- What metrics do you use to measure long-term success in your projects?
- What barriers do you foresee in achieving your long-term goals?
- What role do you see our product playing in your strategic plan?
- How important is scalability in your decision-making process?
- What do you seek in an ideal partnership with a solution provider?
Pro tip: Link these questions to long-term industry or economic trends to demonstrate foresight and alignment with the prospect's strategic thinking. Adjust questions to reflect this broader perspective, such as modifying the scalability question to include recent industry shifts, "Given the rapid evolution in [industry], how important is scalability in your strategic planning?"
How to Ask the Right Follow-Up Questions After a Discovery Call
Effective follow-up questions are crucial to deepening your understanding after initial discovery calls. They ensure you fully grasp the prospect's needs and can align your solutions more accurately. Mastering this art is about building on the initial responses with precision and empathy, turning a standard inquiry into a productive dialogue.
Tips for asking impactful follow-up questions:
- Listen actively: Pay close attention to the prospect’s initial answers and look for areas that require more depth or clarification.
- Be specific: Tailor your questions based on the information shared earlier, focusing on details that will help both parties understand the scope of solutions.
- Encourage open dialogue: Frame your questions in a way that encourages the prospect to share more about their experiences and expectations.
- Link back to key points: Relate follow-up questions to key points in your discovery call script to show continuity and thoughtfulness.
Examples of effective follow-up questions:
Example #1: If a prospect mentions dissatisfaction with their current software, you might ask, “Can you elaborate on the specific features that are causing issues, and how do these challenges impact your daily operations?”
Example #2: After discussing a prospect's business goals, a good follow-up could be, “You mentioned your goal to increase efficiency; could you specify what efficiency looks like in your day-to-day processes?”
How Storylane Enhances Your Discovery Call Productivity
Storylane transforms discovery calls into highly productive interactions by equipping you with valuable insights from an interactive product demo shared with prospects beforehand. As prospects explore features and functionalities, they reveal their priorities, enabling you to tailor your sales discovery questions effectively. This ensures that each question is highly relevant and impactful.
Additionally, these demos act as self-qualifying tools, educating prospects and confirming the product's relevance to their needs before the call. This preparation leads to more informed, engaged discussions, making each discovery call a strategic step toward conversion. Ready to see it in action? Start a free trial today!
FAQs
What is the difference between a cold call and a discovery call?
A cold call introduces your company to a prospect without prior contact, aiming to generate interest. Following initial contact, a discovery call seeks to understand the prospect's pain and needs and evaluate their fit for your product or service.
How to do a proper discovery call?
To conduct a proper discovery call:
- Research the prospect’s company and role
- Connect personally and acknowledge past interactions
- Focus on the prospect's pain, needs, and goals
- Understand their responses to tailor your approach
- Recap key points and outline the next steps
How long is a discovery call?
A discovery call typically lasts between 15 to 60 minutes. The exact duration can vary depending on the complexity of the prospect's needs and the depth of the sales conversation required to uncover essential information that will guide the successful sales process.
What is a discovery call checklist?
A discovery call checklist includes:
- Understanding the prospect's business and industry
- Identifying their objectives and any obstacles
- Assessing how your offerings can help
- Learning who decides and the criteria used
- Setting actions for moving forward, like a follow-up or product demo
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Related Articles
If you're in the market for demo automation software, you've probably come across Storylane and Navattic. This comparison should help you differentiate between both platforms to guide your purchase decision.
Why GTM teams prefer Storylane
At a high-level, customers prefer Storylane for the product functionality, versatility, ease-of-use, commercial model, and rate of innovation.
1. Product functionality
Before diving in, here’s a quick overview of core features common to both Storylane and Navattic — really, they’re table stakes for any modern demo automation platform:
- Self-serve free plan: Build your first demo on your own, for free
- Browser extension: Chrome extension for click-based capturing
- HTML/CSS demos: Clickable, editable HTML-based demo capture
- App integrations: Your usual suspects - CRMs, Slack, Zapier, etc.
- Demo analytics: Account reveal, performance metrics, intent signals, etc.
And with that out of the way, here are a few ways Storylane stands out from Navattic...
1.1 Flexible demo formats
Broadly, there are two formats of interactive demos:
- Image demos: Screenshot or video-based demos with sequential steps. Limited scope to control on-screen elements and interactions, but quick to create and load.
- HTML/CSS demos: Clickable demos that capture the product's look, feel, and interactions. On-screen elements such as text, data, and graphics may be edited.
In their own words, Navattic only specializes in top-of-funnel HTML demos. Storylane, on the other hand, is expressly designed for both demo formats — complete with auto-capture, annotations, guides, blurs, zooms, presenter videos, voice overs, and more.
What does this mean for you? With Storylane, you have the flexibility to pick between demo formats based on your needs: image-based guided demos for your website, video demos for email campaigns, HTML demos for sandbox environments, etc.
This flexibility (coupled with the next set of differences) puts Storylane in an unequivocally stronger position when it comes to scaling demos across departments and use-cases.
1.2 Agentic demo automation with Lily AI
One of Storylane’s biggest differentiators against Navattic (and pretty much every other vendor in this category) is Lily, our demo automation agent. Broadly, Lily helps in two ways:
- Easier, faster demo creation for sellers
- Contextual demo discovery for buyers
Here’s a rundown of what you can do with Lily today:
- Create with AI: Generate or improve demos in seconds — complete with product-specific guides, prompt-based editing assistance, voiceovers, zooms, and more.
- AI Avatars: Pick from dozens of avatars or make one of yourself to generate studio-quality presenter videos. You have the option to manually record content in-app as well.
- AI HTML Editor: Customize HTML demo environments on the fly to meet ad hoc requirements. Edit text, images, and graphs with simple prompts — no code needed.
- AI Voiceovers / Translate: Choose from over 65+ voices (or record your own) and 25+ languages to expand accessibility and furnish your demos with a human touch.
As for discovery, think of Lily as a conversation product expert with as much information as your best sales person, available 24/7 to guide prospects through discovery and qualification. Coming soon.
Where’s Navattic at with all this? As it stands, they do not support any comparable features.
1.3 Demo Hub
Next up, we have Demo Hub: one of Storylane’s flagship features to address multiple buyer personas and use-cases in one place with galleries and playlists of demos. Galleries help marketers showcase a library of bite-sized product demos on their website (without overwhelming early stage prospects) while playlists help sales and presales teams share curated demo experiences with later stage prospects.
Navattic does not support any comparable feature to date. As it stands, Navattic’s response to Demo Hub is Demodash, an agency that charges as much as $2000 per demo to create demo centers for their customers.
1.4 Apps galore
Another key differentiator is Storylane's lineup of native apps. We’re the only demo automation vendors to support apps for Gmail, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Desktop (Mac).
- Try the Salesforce app, listed on the Salesforce AppExchange
- Try the HubSpot app, listed on the HubSpot marketplace
- Try the Gmail plugin
- Download the Storylane desktop app
These quality of life improvements are designed especially for sales teams to personalize and share demos without logging into Storylane (plus, easier change management is always nice).
You might be noticing a pattern here: To date, Navattic does not support this functionality — and given their focus on a limited set of use-cases, nor do we believe that they plan to. More on this next.
2. Versatility across GTM
Most demo automation vendors sell to a specific function. Saleo sells to sales. Consensus sells to pre-sales. And Navattic? Well they primarily sell to marketers. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach, it can be a limiting factor when you’re looking to scale demo operations across departments and use-cases.
Storylane is specifically designed for horizontal adoption across marketing, pre-sales, sales, and even customer success, product, and development teams. The differences in product functionality highlighted above (coupled with under the radar features such as secure demo sharing and personalized links for email campaigns) are testament to this claim.
3. Ease of use
As for which demo automation software is easier to use, we’ll let numbers do the talking.
"Storylane makes it much easier to organize content with its tagging system for chapters and sections. While Navattic allows labeling, it lacks searchability and filtering capabilities, which becomes crucial when managing multiple chapters. I particularly appreciate how Storylane structures chapters with their own dedicated build sections. In contrast, with Navattic, when I created an 80-step process, it stretched into one long, horizontal sequence that required constant scrolling back and forth. Storylane's more concise organization makes me much more excited to build out product demos” - A customer when asked about how Storylane compared to Navattic
4. Commercial models
Upon initial inspection, Storylane is (slightly) more expensive per plan than Navattic. A closer look, however, reveals that we offer several features in our lower tier plans. To name a few:
- Lily AI (Available in Storylane’s free plan onwards vs unavailable on Navattic)
- Account reveal (Available in Storylane’s $40/mo plan vs. Navattic’s $1000/mo plan)
- Demo translations (Available in Storylane’s $40/mo plan vs Navattic’s $1000/mo plan)
- Demo Hub (Available in Storylane’s $500/mo plan vs unavailable on Navattic)
- Offline demos (Available in Storylane’s $1200/mo plan vs. Navattic’s enterprise plan)
- Demo coaching (Available in Storylane’s $1200/mo plan vs. Navattic’s enterprise plan)
If you really think about it, this probably translates to better bang for your buck. But what about the whole “unlimited seats” deal? Sounds great, sure — but how sustainable is it really? As your organization (and demo requirements) start to scale, it’s unrealistic to expect the same support for a 5 seat plan as a 200 seat plan. Another reason why Storylane’s value-based pricing makes more sense for the long run.
Edit: Recently, Navattic has also started capping their seats per plan. Goes to show that as a commercial model, the whole unlimited seats approach probably didn't work out as intended.
And there you have it! Both Navattic and Storylane are leading demo automation softwares — but when you break it down, it’s hard to argue against the latter. Storylane's objectively in the clear for most buying considerations: functionality, versatility, ease-of-use, and commercials.
5. On innovation - What’s next?
It may not feel like it (especially to us), but demo automation has only been around for a handful of years. As a category, we’re still in nascent stages. Unlike with established verticals such as CRMs or project management tools, it’s on younger companies like ours to innovate and push the envelope in these “early days” of demo automation.
Nitty-gritty comparisons aside, it’s worth sharing that Storylane has been at the forefront of this since day one. With category-first initiatives like self-serve PLG, Demo Hub, and more recently, Lily AI — innovation continues to be at the heart of our business. If you decide to go with Storylane, we hope the question “what's next?” excites you as much as it excites us!
From day one, our mission has been to simplify B2B buying and selling. When we launched in 2021, we recognized that product demos – a key touchpoint in most customer journeys – generated undue friction for buyers and sellers alike. From both a creation and discovery stand point, demos fell flat in terms of ease-of-use, accessibility, and scalability. This gap is exactly what we set out to close with Storylane.
A trip down Storylane
Storylane's growth has always been marked by industry-first innovations. We began by introducing interactive demos in 2022. The goal was to help teams build quick and simple demos for a range of marketing and sales use-cases. Soon enough, this put us on the map as the fastest, easiest-to-use demo automation tool in the market.
Next, in 2023, we became the first self-serve platform in our category. Here, our goal was to democratize access to demo automation for marketing, sales, and presales teams of all sizes. Today, we work with over 3000 companies ranging from early-stage startups to industry giants such as Microsoft, Gong, and Cognism.
Last year, in 2024, we recognized that one demo wasn’t going to cut it. After all, B2B purchase decisions involve multiple buyer personas, use-cases, and product lines. In such cases, it only makes sense to share multiple, context-specific demos with prospects.
After much anticipation, we launched Demo Hub; another category-first innovation designed to share multiple demos as galleries or playlists.
In 2025, Storylane goes agentic
We’ve done well to get to where we are today — but we know there’s still a ton of scope to simplify B2B buying and selling for everyone involved. We realize that:
- Sellers prefer spending their time on qualified, high-intent deals — not demo operations
- Buyers expect self-guided, context-specific product discovery — with minimal sales intervention
And so, in our attempt to address these all-too-common gaps in the buying experience, we're thrilled to announce Storylane’s boldest innovation yet: Lily, your demo automation agent.
Meet Lily: Your demo automation agent
Lily is a demo automation agent built for both buyers and sellers. She represents a fundamental shift in how we’ll be thinking about demo creation and discovery going forward, bringing in an agentic approach to Storylane’s existing line of demo automation products.
To start with, here’s what's in it for demo creators
1. Create with AI: Simply capture your product with Storylane's browser extension and leave the rest to us. Lily will create and optimize demos in a single click — complete with product-specific guides, annotations, and voiceovers.
2. AI Avatars: Pick from dozens of avatars — or make one of yourself. Share a script and generate studio-quality presenter videos in seconds. No camera, edits, or redos needed.
3. AI Voiceovers: Speak your audience’s language — literally. Generate studio-quality voiceovers in over 60 diverse voices and 25 languages.
4. AI HTML Editor: Customize demos on the fly to meet your prospect's unique needs. Edit text, images, and graphs with just simple, code-free prompts — Lily does the rest.
But wait…there’s more
All this? Just the beginning.
In March, Lily will evolve to support autonomous, contextual demo discovery for buyers. Imagine prospects exploring your product, right on your website, through intelligent conversations with Lily — getting exactly the information they need, when they need it — without any of the friction associated with traditional sales touchpoints.
In short, Lily will be a 24/7 tour guide — equipped with as much product knowledge as your best sales rep — to support buyers with contextual, self-serve product discovery.
Looking ahead: sales enablement & beyond
As we launch Lily, we're more committed than ever to our founding mission: eliminating friction in B2B buying and selling. We believe agentic demo automation represents the next frontier in B2B sales enablement, moving beyond static product demos to intelligent product experiences.
To our customers who've been part of this journey – thank you. Your feedback and trust have been instrumental in shaping not just Storylane, but the future of demo automation. And to those considering how to make their demo experience more effective and engaging – welcome to the era of agentic demo automation.
The future of product demonstrations is here, and we couldn't be more excited to help you tell your product's story in ways never before possible.
This time last year, we spoke about product-market fit and our journey to democratize demo automation. 2024 was about building upon that vision and momentum – and wow, what a ride it's been!
Over the past 12 months, we grew our revenue by 2.5x, expanded to over 16k teams, shipped a new feature every four days (yes, you read that right), and hosted our very own awards show. But let's back up a bit and explore how it all unfolded.
Shipping at warp speed
From day one, our goal has been to eliminate friction for software buyers and sellers with accessible demo automation products. In 2024, we doubled down on this commitment with over a hundred (100!) product releases, both big and small. Here are some of our favorites:
- Demo Hub: Build demo libraries that address multiple use-cases and buyer personas in a centralized gallery or playlist view. This was certainly our biggest launch of the year.
- Personal video & AI voiceovers: Bring an engaging, personalized human touch to interactive demos with Loom-style video recordings and AI voiceovers.
- Offline demos: Address the all too common challenges associated with unreliable, expensive WiFi at in-person events and conferences by downloading demos for offline use.
On the PLG front, we implemented convert CTA buttons, an advanced demo editing toolkit (blur, crop, screen layout, etc), as well as deeper analytics and lead attribution functionality, among others. All in all, the tremendous efforts from our product and engineering teams translated into serious business growth.
Growth that speaks volumes
In our previous review, we were thrilled about tripling our growth and establishing Storylane as a leader in the demo automation space. Looking back at 2024, we're humbled and so, so excited to see this momentum continue.
- Revenue grew by 2.5x
- Expanded to 16k+ teams
- Brand search tripled (3x)
- Website traffic surged by 20x
- Our ACV increased by 50%
- Last but not least, we acquired a company! - Storylane acquires PreSkale, expands into presales
Each one of our customers validates our vision and pushes us to innovate further. This year, we're particularly proud to welcome industry giants such as Microsoft, Pearson, Nasdaq and Silicon Valley Bank to our growing list of enterprise customers. Needless to say, we feel the love ❤️
- 60 million+ mins spent watching Storylane demos, 10x more than last year
- 85k+ Storylane demos created
- 5 million demo views per month, 4.7x more than last year
Making some noise (the good kind)
Go-to-market was all kinds of fun in 2024. There’s just way too much to cover, but here are a few highlights that helped us stand out in an increasingly competitive demo automation category.
- Website redesign: Our website went through a complete overhaul earlier this year. This revamp – complete with bright colors and bold styling – reflects our move upmarket.
- Demo-led SEO: What started off as an experiment, Storylane’s demo-led SEO BLEW UP in 2024. Our podcast with Exit Five on the topic has gone on to become their most popular post in the community!
- An eventful year: We took the show on the road at Product Marketing Alliance Summit, Exit Five’s Drive, SaaS Open, G2 Live, and a handful of other fantastic events — a great chance to connect with our community and beyond.
- Customer reviews: Our customers have been incredibly supportive, with over 500 G2 reviews. Out of 145,000+ products. and over 2,100 categories, Storylane was the only demo automation platform in G2's top 100 fastest growing products!
- PreSkale acquisition: Storylane’s acquisition of PreSkale comes at an exciting time, marking our strategic expansion into the presales market in 2025. Read all about it here.
A few more initiatives that helped us make a lot of noise: Demo Dundies (our spin on conventional webinars, themed around The Office’s Dundies), product marketer affirmation cards (a deck of painfully relatable affirmations for our friends in product marketing), and Demo Kitchen (our recipe book inspired series of customer case studies).
40+ Storylaners and counting
As our team continues to grow, we've maintained the supportive, high-performing culture that's been our foundation for four years. This year, we welcomed our first People Success hire and celebrated team achievements with offsites in Bengaluru and Bali.
What’s cooking in 2025
If you thought 2024 was exciting, wait till you see what we've got in store for 2025! We're all set to take demo automation into sci-fi territory with first-of-its-kind AI functionality. We can’t spill all the beans just yet but picture this: an AI demo agent to polish, scale and show you personalized demos.
To our team, customers, and the entire Storylane community - thank you for being part of this journey. We're just getting started, and we couldn't be more excited about what's ahead. Here's to another year of pushing boundaries and helping you create amazing demos!
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