Stage 3. Needs Discovery—Interest, Desire, Aspirations, and Afflictions

Structure this section of the meeting depending on the premise of the meeting. For example, if the premise is a presentation or product demo (e.g., best practices, how you’ve solved problems, research findings, product demonstration), then use this time to cover topics like:

• Company overview
• Background on the problem
• Typical solutions and their shortcomings
• Reasons why success or failure happens
• New research on the subject
• New approach/better approach/product demonstration
• Typical impact of failure and success
• Recommendations and actions to take
• Questions and discussion

It may seem counterintuitive that you can uncover needs by presenting, but it happens all the time. You stimulate thinking. For example, prospects often interject as you’re presenting common challenges, “Well, we have number one and number four all set, but if we could only figure out a way to do something about number two and number three we’d be in much better shape. After two years of trying to tackle them, we’re still at square one.”