acct-discovery-questions git:20261011.dce569cA

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---
name: acct-discovery-questions
description: Builds discovery call questions for one account in SPIN order, with a coverage grid to complete after the call and the two or three things you must learn. Use for "run acct-discovery-questions", "discovery call questions", "discovery questions", "SPIN questions", "questions to ask a prospect", "prepare my discovery call", "what should I ask in discovery", "implication questions", part of the Claude for Account Executives Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Discovery Call Questions

## When To Use
You talk about your offer before you know what the problem costs the customer. Run this before a discovery meeting or call. It answers: which questions will show you the customer's problem, what it costs them, and how they will decide?

## When Not To Use
For the objective, the advance and the logistics of the meeting, run Sales Call Plan. Once the customer has given figures, run Cost of Inaction to lay them out. For a two-minute phone call, the two questions in Call Talk Track are enough.

## Inputs
- Your Account Research Brief, or what you already know, so no question asks for something you could have read.
- Your offer in a few lines: the problems it answers.
- The format and length of the conversation.
If you have none of this, I start from the account name and a description of your offer, and mark the output as a first draft.

## Approach
SPIN, from Huthwaite International's research on sales calls (huthwaiteinternational.com), orders the questions: situation, problem, implication, need-payoff. Their own summary notes that successful sellers limited their situation questions. I prepare the questions in that order and check them against a plain coverage grid of what you should know when you leave. It prevents two failures: presenting before you know the problem, and turning discovery into an interrogation.

## Workflow
1. I ask at most three questions: what do you already know about the customer, which problem does your offer answer most often, and how long will the conversation last.
2. Situation: few questions, only on what your research does not say. Each one I can answer from the brief is cut.
3. Problem: the difficulties and dissatisfactions your offer can address, as open questions that do not name the offer.
4. Implication: for each problem, what it leads to (delays, workload, risk, cost), so the customer measures the cost themselves. At least one per problem; this is where a deal gets its urgency or shows it has none.
5. Need-payoff: what solving it would be worth, in their words, against staying as they are. Then one question that invites a commitment to a next step.
6. The coverage grid, six cells, each "learned" with its source or "to learn" with its question: need, stakes, budget as a range and asked indirectly, timeline (evaluation, decision, start), decision roles, alternatives including doing nothing. You complete it after the call; it is never read aloud during it.
7. I mark the two or three things you must learn in this conversation. For a short call I say so plainly: full SPIN is too heavy, keep two problem questions and one implication question.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Discovery Call Questions
[Account] · [date] · [format, length]
## Questions in SPIN order
| Type | Question | What it should reveal |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | [question] | [what the brief does not say] |
| Problem | [question] | [difficulty] |
| Implication | [question] | [consequence for the customer] |
| Need-payoff | [question] | [value of solving it, in their words] |
| Commitment | [question] | [possible next step] |
## Coverage grid (complete after the call)
| Cell | Learned (source) | To learn | Question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Need / Stakes | [fact] | [gap] | [question] |
| Budget (range) | [fact] | [gap] | [indirect question] |
| Timeline (evaluation, decision, start) | [fact] | [gap] | [question] |
| Decision roles / Alternatives | [fact] | [gap] | [question] |
## Must learn in this call
1. [point]
## Decision
[You] choose the questions before the call on [date] and complete the grid the same day.
```

## Done When
- No situation question covers a fact you already have.
- Every problem has at least one implication question.
- Every grid cell is "learned" with a source or "to learn" with a question.

## Quality Bar
- No question names your offer before the need-payoff questions.
- "Decision roles" means roles in the decision, never a portrait of a person.
- Questions to ask in your own words, not a text to read.
- Budget and timeline cells hold what the customer said; nothing is estimated for them.
- You qualify the need and the deal, never the person across the table.

## Next
Run acct-cost-of-inaction (Cost of Inaction) to lay out what the customer told you the problem costs.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).