How does the market research or consultative discovery process work?

Cormac Repman
1 hour ago
3 min read

We lead with curiosity, not a pitch. Instead of jumping into why your product is great, we ask targeted questions to understand if a prospect is even open to having a conversation. Only then do we book a 30-minute discovery call to dig deeper into their actual challenges and buying intent.

Why We Start With Questions

Most outbound SDR firms push a value prop from day one. We take the opposite approach. We're running lightweight research on behalf of your sales team, which means our first message is genuinely trying to learn whether someone is worth your time. This filters out tire-kickers before you ever get on a call.

The benefit for prospects is real too. They're not getting pitched. They're being asked if they face a specific problem or are open to exploring a category. It feels like a peer conversation, not a sales play.

The Initial Outreach

When we reach out to your target audience, our message contains 2 to 3 qualifying questions designed to reveal fit. These aren't generic ("Is your team looking to improve sales efficiency?"). They're specific to your ICP and designed to show we've done our homework.

A prospect either engages with the question or doesn't. If they do, we've just confirmed they're willing to talk. If they don't, we note that signal and move on. No false positives to clutter your calendar.

The 30-Minute Discovery Call

Once someone raises their hand, we book a dedicated meeting. During this call, we:

Deepen the conversation around the challenge we asked about initially

Ask 5 to 8 follow-up questions to uncover their current state, priorities, and buying timeline

Share context only if it's relevant to their situation

Document everything in a discovery memo you can hand directly to your sales team

This isn't a pitch meeting. It's a research conversation. We're collecting information that tells your sales rep exactly what problem to solve and when this buyer is likely to move.

What You Get Back

For every 100 outbound touches, we typically book 8 to 12 discovery calls. Of those, we qualify and send forward 4 to 6 meetings as genuine opportunities your team should pursue. The rest are useful data: we know why they're not a fit, what their timeline looks like, or which competitor they're currently using.

Each qualified meeting comes with a written discovery summary including the prospect's stated challenges, decision timeline, current solution, and any objections we surfaced. Your sales team walks in informed, not cold.

Why This Matters for Your Close Rate

Salespeople hate cold calls because they're starting from zero context. Our discovery-first model does that context work upfront. Your team gets handoffs of prospects who've already confirmed they have a problem and are open to solutions. That's why typical close rates improve 20 to 40% when you use qualified meetings instead of standard SDR leads.

You're not paying per outbound message or per call booked. You're paying for qualified opportunities that meet your buyer profile and come with documented research notes.

The Bottom Line

We ask first, pitch never. We book meetings only when someone has shown genuine interest in exploring a challenge you solve. Your sales team gets better leads, faster conversions, and meetings where the prospect is already predisposed to listen.

Ready to run this model for your business? [Book a call](https://cal.com/cormac/nurturance) to discuss your ideal customer profile and how we'd approach your market.