Practise layered questions, silence and note-taking in a recorded role-play, then review the recording.
Run one practice discovery meeting with a partner playing the buyer, record it, and then play it back. Hearing yourself on a recording is different from reading about listening. The playback shows you habits you can't notice while you're talking.
When people play back a practice meeting for the first time, three things usually surprise them. They talked more than they thought. They moved to a new topic quickly. And they often filled a silence that the buyer was about to fill. The exercise takes thirty minutes: about five minutes to brief your partner, twenty minutes for the role-play, and the rest for review. It brings together the opener from module 1, the question funnel and follow-up layers from module 2, and the listening, silence and notes from module 6.
You need someone who can play a buyer. A colleague is ideal, but a friend will do. Write your partner's brief on a card, and don't read it yourself.
The brief has two parts. The surface complaint is the problem the buyer mentions early and freely. The hidden root problem is the one underneath it. The buyer reveals it only if you ask good follow-up questions, listen to what they skip, and give them silence. Tell your partner to answer honestly but not to volunteer the root problem. In a good brief the hidden problem can be reached, but it isn't obvious.
Your partner may not be sure how to play the hidden part. If so, suggest they pause or go quiet when the conversation gets near it, as real people do. Lesson 6.1, Hear what the buyer does not say, describes how people behave near a sensitive topic, and your partner can use it as a guide.
Wei Ling, an adviser practising discovery with a colleague, wrote this brief (she and her figures are an invented example). The buyer is a 34-year-old teacher. The surface complaint is that they feel they should save more but never manage it. The hidden root is that their younger brother has borrowed money from them three times this year, and they haven't told their husband. Her colleague was to raise it only if the adviser noticed hesitation about family or asked gently where the money goes.
Record audio on your phone, or video if you can. Run the meeting as if the buyer were real, and take notes in the template from Lesson 6.3, Take notes without losing the room. During the twenty minutes, aim to use:
your four-part opener from Lesson 1.4, Write and rehearse your discovery opener at least one wide-to-specific funnel from Lesson 2.2, The question funnel: from wide to specific at least two follow-up layers on one topic, using the buyer's own words silence after every answer, counting to three, as in Lesson 6.2, Use silence instead of filling it notes in your template, with signals in the margin
If something goes wrong, keep going. Real meetings don't restart, and your mistakes are what you'll learn from in the review.
Play the recording back with your notes and a pen beside you. You're checking three things.
The first is talk time, roughly how much of the meeting you spent speaking. You don't need a stopwatch for every sentence. Note each stretch where you spoke for more than half a minute without a pause, and add them up. There's no correct figure to hit. What matters is whether the buyer did most of the talking, and how your share changes from one recording to the next.
The second is follow-up questions against topic changes. A follow-up question goes down into the buyer's previous answer instead of across to a new topic, as defined in Lesson 2.1, Open, layered and follow-up questions. Count your follow-ups and your topic changes, and write both numbers down. A conversation with more follow-ups than topic changes is usually going in the right direction.
The third is whether you found the hidden problem. If you did, find the moment it came out on the recording and listen to what you did just before. If you didn't, ask your partner where they were waiting for you to go, and listen to that part again.
On her first recording, Wei Ling spoke for long stretches explaining how savings plans work, which she had promised herself she wouldn't do. She asked six follow-up questions and changed topic eleven times. She didn't find the hidden problem.
Her colleague pointed her to the moment it had been within reach. When Wei Ling asked where their money goes each month, the "teacher" said, "Oh, you know, family things," and paused. Wei Ling filled the pause with her next question, which was about insurance. She hadn't noticed it during the meeting, but it was obvious on playback.
She recorded the drill again a week later. This time she counted to three after that answer, and the brother came out within a minute.
When you finish, you'll have the recording and a short written note with three items: your talk time, your follow-up count against your topic changes, and whether you found the hidden problem, with the moment it came out or the moment you missed it. Keep the recording. Comparing it with your next run of the drill tells you more than either recording alone.
Before you start, find a partner, write their brief on a card without showing it to anyone, and set up a quiet room.
Run a twenty-minute role-play and record it. Then write down your talk time, your follow-up count and whether you found the hidden problem.
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