You will produce a discovery plan that combines a gap map with a SPIN question sequence.
Most meeting plans are a list of questions in the order the seller thought of them. That list works until the buyer says something unexpected in minute six, at which point the seller either abandons the plan or ignores the buyer, and both lose the meeting.
The plan you build in this exercise holds up better, because it is built around what you need to find out rather than the order you will ask in. It combines the two methods from this module: a gap map from lesson 3.2, Gap selling: current state, future state and the gap, and SPIN questions from lesson 3.1, SPIN selling: situation, problem, implication, need-payoff. Allow thirty minutes for the plan and another ten after the meeting.
Take a single page and draw three boxes: current state on the left, gap in the middle, future state on the right.
Fill them with what you expect, based on the research and hypotheses you prepared in lesson 1.2. Mark everything in this first draft as a guess. Use a question mark, a different colour, or brackets.
Here is Wei Ling's expected map before her second meeting with Marcus and his wife, Jia Hui.
Current state: (three bank accounts, no plan for which bills go where). (One missed loan payment.) (No savings since the wedding.) (Hospital cover through work only?) (Unsure what happens if either stops working?)
Future state: (Clear plan for bills.) (Saving regularly for a child's future.) (Feel covered if something happens.)
Gap: (A system for money between them.) (A savings habit.) (Understanding of what cover they have and lack.)
Some of this came from the first meeting, with Marcus alone. The rest is guesswork, and the items with question marks are the biggest guesses.
Go through the map box by box. For each item, write the questions that would confirm or overturn it.
Each part of the map has a matching SPIN type. Facts in the current state call for situation questions, and only where you cannot find the answer yourself. Problems get problem questions and impact gets implication questions, while the future state is what need-payoff questions are for.
Wei Ling writes these for the cover item, for example. Situation: "What cover do you each have through work or on your own at the moment?" Problem: "When you think about one of you being unable to work for a while, what worries you?" Implication: "If that happened, what would change for the household, month to month?" Need-payoff: "If you knew exactly what would happen in that case, how would that feel?"
Aim for two to four questions per item, and give extra space to implication questions, because they are the ones that tell you how large the gap really is. Lesson 3.3, SPIN and gap selling compared, explains why.
Decide in advance where you will stop and say the gap back to the buyer. Usually this comes after the implication questions on the main problem and before you talk about any solution.
Write the first words of that summary on the plan. Wei Ling writes: "So, from what you've both said, right now..." with space to finish it live. Writing the opening words means you will not skip the summary when you feel the pull to start recommending.
The summary also tests the map. If Marcus and Jia Hui say "yes, that's it," the gap is confirmed. If they correct you, the map was wrong in a useful way.
Run the meeting, or a practice version with a partner playing the buyer. Keep the plan open in front of you, and when the buyer goes somewhere you did not expect, go with them and come back to the plan afterwards.
Within an hour of finishing, take a fresh page and redraw the map using only what you actually heard. Anything confirmed loses its brackets, guesses that turned out wrong get crossed out, and anything new goes in where it belongs.
Wei Ling's redrawn map changed in two places. The missed loan payment mattered much less to Jia Hui than to Marcus. And the biggest item turned out to be one she had not guessed at all: Jia Hui's parents, who rely on her for part of their monthly expenses. That item went straight into the current state and changed the size of the gap.
A finished piece of work for this exercise has two parts. The first is a one-page plan with an expected gap map, its guesses marked, two to four SPIN questions for each item, and the opening words of the gap summary written in. The second is the redrawn map from after the meeting, with confirmed items, crossed-out guesses and anything new. Keep the two pages together, because comparing them over several meetings is how your hypotheses get better.
Choose the meeting you will plan for, real or practice, and set aside the thirty minutes before you start the activity below.
Write a one-page plan for a real or practice meeting using a gap map and SPIN questions, then redraw the map after the meeting.
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