--- title: "Discovery Questions That Get Prospects Talking | Skipcall" description: "Situation, pain, impact, next step: the open questions that get a prospect talking in five minutes, the silence, the restatement, and the ones never to ask." url: https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr/discovery-questions language: en --- [Stage 4 · Discovery and listening](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr) # Questions that get people talking In discovery, the person who talks the most is not the one who learns the most. Good questions get the prospect talking about their situation, then about what it costs them. 6 min +50 XP 1/4 [Academy](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr) 0 % Rookie · 0 XP ## Open, short, one at a time An open question starts with how, what, when, in what way. It cannot be answered with yes or no, and it forces the prospect to describe. A closed question (“is that important?”) gets a polite yes and nothing else. In discovery, aim for four open questions to every closed one, and keep the closed ones to confirm what you understood. Short, because a three-line question already contains the answer you expect, and the prospect can tell. One at a time, because two questions in a row get a single answer, the one that suits the prospect. ## The sequence that works: situation, pain, impact, next step Questions have an order. Start with the situation: how things work today, who does what, with which tools. Then look for the pain: what gets stuck, what takes time, what annoys. Measure the impact: what it costs in hours, in missed meetings, in hires that do not produce. End with the next step: what the prospect agrees to do next, and when. Skipping the impact is the most common mistake. A prospect who has described their pain but not what it costs has no reason to move. “What does that add up to over a month?” is the question that turns an annoyance into a project. - Situation: “How do your reps organize their calls today?” - Pain: “What takes the most time in all that?” - Impact: “Over a month, what does that mean in conversations that never happen?” - Next step: “If we looked at this together for fifteen minutes on Thursday, what would you want to see?” ## Silence and restatement After an open question, stop talking. Three seconds of silence feel long on the phone, and those three seconds are exactly when the prospect decides to elaborate. If you fill the silence, you answer in their place and lose what they were about to say. When they finish, restate in one sentence: “So if I sum up, the problem isn’t the number of reps, it’s the time they lose before they talk to someone.” Restating checks that you understood, shows that you listened, and often earns an addition: “yes, and on top of that…”. ## The questions not to ask Some questions lose the conversation. “What is your budget?” in the first minute: the prospect has no project yet, so no budget, and the question puts them on the defensive. “Who decides at your company?” asked bluntly: it belittles the person you are talking to. “Are you interested?”: it invites an easy no. “Do you know our company?”: if the answer is no, you just lost ten seconds and some credibility. Budget, decision process and timing come later, once the pain and its impact are established, and they are asked differently: “How does this kind of decision usually get made on your side?” ## Key takeaways - An open question starts with how, what, when; a closed one gets a polite yes and nothing else. - Order matters: situation, pain, impact, next step. Skipping the impact leaves the prospect no reason to move. - After the question, three seconds of silence; after the answer, a one-sentence restatement. - Budget, decision maker and timing are asked later, and differently. - Write down the prospect’s words: they are worth more than yours. ## Check what you remember Question 1 of 4 One correct answer per question. The explanation appears after your choice. In what order should discovery questions follow each other? ## Go further - [Cold call discovery questions Thirty open questions sorted by stage of the conversation.](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/cold-call-discovery-questions) - [How to qualify leads on the phone The questions that tell you in five minutes whether the account deserves a cycle.](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/how-to-qualify-leads-on-the-phone) - [Sales call scorecard To check, on your own calls, the ratio of open questions.](https://skipcall.io/en/tools/sales-call-scorecard) A term you are not sure about? [The cold calling glossary](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/cold-calling-glossary)