Learn How To Ask Questions That Reveal The Real Why Behind Every Purchase

Deals don’t fall apart at the close—they fall apart at discovery. We explore how to turn a first conversation into a trusted partnership by asking questions that uncover the real why behind every purchase. Instead of checking boxes on a fact finder, we lean into open-ended prompts, permission questions, and a calm structure that makes prospects feel heard, respected, and eager to move forward.

We walk through the difference between data you need and meaning you can’t afford to miss. You’ll hear practical examples of open questions that surface motivation and context, closed questions that lock in specifics without pressure, and permission questions that lower defenses and transfer control. Along the way, we highlight timeless fundamentals popularized by Tom Hopkins and explain why they remain the backbone of modern selling—from enterprise deals to small business services.

By the end, you’ll know how to capture the details that matter, reflect them back in the prospect’s language, and shape recommendations that feel inevitable because they match stated priorities. This is discovery as the art of conversation: empathetic, structured, and focused on outcomes the buyer already wants. If your pipeline feels stalled or your proposals land with a thud, this is your roadmap to fewer surprises, faster decisions, and warmer yeses.

If you found this helpful, follow the show, share it with a teammate who needs a discovery boost, and leave a quick review so more listeners can find us.

Chapters

• 0:00 Why Discovery Matters
• 0:35 Show Welcome And Mission
• 2:22 Defining Discovery In Sales
• 3:01 Conversation Not Interrogation
• 4:18 Emotions Drive Buying Decisions
• 5:03 Open Vs Closed Questions
• 6:38 Using Permission Questions
• 7:11 Tom Hopkins Foundations
• 8:18 Turning Insights Into Recommendations
• 9:06 What’s Next And Sign Off

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Discovery is about learning the details of what the client wants so you can make a good, complete recommendation that the prospect is going to accept. It's also the most important step in building your professional, building relationship of trust. That's what it's all about. Discovery is a continuation of the process. Well, the whole sales process is, but discovery for sure is a place where you're continuing to build that professional relationship. Welcome to the Commission Code Podcast. We're here to help you overcome the challenges that most of us face in our business from time to time. You know, it seems like feeling like you're on a plateau and you can continue to grow your business or maybe feeling overwhelmed trying to begin's moving, and yet it seems like you're always working. Or maybe you've done quite well for a while, but you know, nothing seems to be working anymore. Well, we want to help you solve those problems and many more. Our objective is to provide you with practical solutions so you can grow your business and have more time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. My name is Morris Tims, and I'm going to be your host for this show. It's been years, okay, decades really in the corporate world teaching business owners how to increase their revenue and use professional sales process tools and run their business more effectively and efficiently. I started my own consulting internal business about seven years ago again, so I'm helping my clients do just exactly that. Put more revenue, increase their revenue, and have more time to enjoy the fruits of their labor. I gotta tell you, I'm having more fun than ever helping people build successful businesses. So, with all that said, let's get on with today's episode of the Commission Code for Your Success. Welcome to Friday. We're here, T G I F, all those kind of good things. Like, like uh, you know, Friday means the end of the week for those of us out here, you know, building our own business. Chances are we're gonna work all the weekend too. But anyhow, welcome to Friday. Hope you have a great one. Today we're gonna talk about the second major step in the sales process, and that's called discovery. Discovery comes during or immediately after the initial conversation. Our objective is to find out exactly what the prospect wants and most importantly, why that is important to them. That's our objective. We need to learn that. We got to discover that. And to do that, yeah, ask questions within the course of conversation. In other words, it flows just like any conversation you might have with somebody that you'd like to become friends with, right? We've talked about this before. In contrast, uh discovery is not an interrogation where you're bombarding the prospect with one question after another. Many times salespeople will have a a form, a template, uh a discovery form, or what we used to call a fact finder. And if if you just go down one question after another on that fact finder, and most of them are at least they used to be, most of them were data kind of questions, boy, it feels like you're being interrogated. It doesn't feel like we're having a conversation. And the point is, most of the important stuff is not the data, it's the why. It's the feeling, it's the emotion behind it. Because, and you one of those things you'll hear me say over and over again we buy based on emotion and we justify that purchase based on fact. So, as a good professional salesperson, you need to find out what the emotion is behind the decision to make this purchase or or not make the purchase. So that's what I'm talking about. You want to mix those things up and mix them together. So when you're in that initial conversation with somebody that you don't know yet, you get to know them by asking them questions and answering questions they ask. You begin to find points of commonality as you do so. Then you begin to build empathy and most importantly, trust. Yeah. Discovery is about learning the details of what the client wants so you can make a good, complete recommendation that the prospect is going to accept. It's also the most important step in building your professional, building relationship of trust. That's what it's all about. Discovery is a continuation of the process. Well, the whole sales process is, but discovery for sure is a place where you're continuing to build that professional relationship. And the key is those relationships are based on trust. So, what questions do you ask? Well, you ask a lot of open-ended questions that can't be answered with just a yes or no or a number or a fact. What do you think about this? What's most important to you when it comes to your children's education? What's most important to you about this trip that you're going to take? What's important to what's most important to you about upgrading your your car? Whatever, whatever the case may be. Or you might even say, hey, do you find that upgrading your car is an important thing for you? Why? Gee, what else? Well, tell me more. All those are good open-ended questions that will allow the client to dig a little deeper, the prospective client to dig a little deeper and get to the emotions and the the real why for what they want and why they want it. Closed-ended questions like gee, so how much is your mortgage? Or uh what day do you want to arrive at this destination? Closed-ended questions are used to gather specific facts and to lead the conversation and the prospect in the direction you want them to go. What's the most important thing you want this product to do for you? Should it be this or should it do that? Which one of these is going to be best for you and your business? So, can you give me an idea of what your budget is for this project? Permission questions are also great because they help reduce tension that might exist. Is it okay if I take notes? I don't want to miss anything. May I ask a few questions to help me know exactly what we can do to be of help to you? Would you mind if we look at the specific site? Anytime you ask a permission question, you turn control over to the prospect, and many times that allows them to relax and drop what might be some possible defensiveness. You can find out a lot more about asking and answering questions if you just Google Tom Hopkins. Tom's book, How to Master the Art of Selling, was first published in 1980, but it is not old hat. It is foundational information that can help you today. The concepts and ideas that Tom shares there are just as important to professional sales right now as they were when he first wrote it. That book has taught me a lot. And it and boy, howdy, it was one of those things that kept me in business. Tom Hopkins. Google it. See him on YouTube, buy his book. I'm telling you, we've used what Tom taught us during that period of time to help many salespeople reach a high level of professionalism. In fact, I was consulting on a job in India with a very large company over there, and they liked the idea so much. We got the entire Tom Hopkins system for that company and went over and helped them implement it into what they do on a regular basis. Learning more about discovery is really all about the art of asking questions, and it becomes really the art of conversation. As you get into more and more and more about discovery, you'll learn more about the types of questions and the kinds of questions to ask. And it will help you because that's the information you need to provide your client, your prospective client, with a recommendation that's going to solve their problem. And when you show them that recommendation and it takes into consideration all of the why and the what that you learned during discovery, that's going to make them want it even more. And it'll make them put them in a position where they can choose to buy. Next time we're going to wrap it up with recommendations, presentations, and helping people make a decision. Well, we may not be able to do that all in one Friday podcast, but we will get to all of those things. Have a great weekend. Best wishes. Well, that does it for this episode of the Commission Code Podcast. This is the place where we want to help you find the Commission Code to success in your business. Remember, go to Morris Sims.com for more information. And in the meantime, hey, have a great week. Get out there and meet somebody new, and we'll see you again next time right here on the Commission Code. Best wishes, I'm Morris Sims.