You will run a complete discovery meeting with a real or practice buyer and produce the written outputs.
You have now built every piece of a discovery meeting separately: the opener, the hypotheses, the question bank and funnels, the SPIN questions and gap map, the impact worksheet, the scorecard, the listening habits and note template, the summary and the next step, and you have tried each one on its own. The real test is whether they work together, in one meeting with one buyer, when you cannot stop to look anything up.
This project puts it all together. You will prepare, run and record a full discovery meeting, score it, send the summary, and review your own performance. Allow sixty minutes for the meeting and the written work, plus the time to book it.
Run a complete discovery meeting with a real buyer or a practice partner, from opener to next step, recording it if the buyer agrees. Afterwards, score the opportunity, write and send the discovery summary, note any corrections, and review the recording against the checklist below.
A real buyer is best, because nothing replaces the pressure of a real meeting. If you do not have one, use a practice partner with a brief, as in lesson 6.4, Run a recorded listening drill, but give them a fuller situation this time. Add who else decides and roughly what they could spend, and tell them to reveal those only when asked.
Prepare with hypotheses, a question plan and your note template.
Do your fifteen minutes of research and write two or three hypotheses, as in lesson 1.2. Draw an expected gap map and write SPIN questions against it, as in lesson 3.4, Plan one meeting using both frameworks. Pick two or three funnels from your question bank. Bring your impact worksheet from lesson 4.4 and a fresh copy of your note template from lesson 6.3. Read your opener from lesson 1.4 aloud once, both versions.
Wei Ling prepares this way for a first meeting with Sarah, a nurse in her early thirties who has just been promoted and wants to "finally get organised." Her hypotheses: Sarah has no clear plan for the extra income, she has cover through work but has never checked what it includes, and she supports someone in her family.
Then run the meeting from opener to next step. Ask permission to record at the start, alongside your request to take notes. "Would you mind if I record this so I can review it afterwards? It's only for me." If the buyer says no, take fuller notes and review from those.
During the meeting, let the plan guide you without running the meeting for you. Follow the buyer when they go somewhere unexpected, and come back to your funnels when the thread runs out.
Score the opportunity on your qualification scorecard from lesson 5.5, Build your qualification scorecard, the same day. Be strict about what counts as strong.
Write the discovery summary in the five-part structure from lesson 7.1, Write the discovery summary the buyer signs off, and send it the same day. When the buyer replies, write down every correction they make and what it changed. Wei Ling's summary to Sarah comes back with one correction: the family member she supports is her brother, not her mother, and he is starting university next year, which gives the whole plan a deadline it did not have before.
Play the recording back with your notes. Go through this checklist and mark each item yes, partly or no:
The opener covered time, purpose, the buyer's agenda and possible outcomes, and you paused after the agenda question You tested your hypotheses with questions instead of assuming them You went at least two layers down on one topic using the buyer's words, and closed each funnel with a summary The buyer put a number on the impact themselves, and you asked why now and what happens if nothing changes You found out how the decision will be made, and who else is involved You raised money after the impact, plainly You held silence after questions and after answers The meeting ended with a dated next step in the calendar, with the right people invited
Then write down two things to change next time. Pick the items marked no or partly that would have made the biggest difference to this meeting. Make each one specific enough to act on: "count to three after money questions" is better than "listen more."
Wei Ling's two: she skipped the decision question entirely because the meeting ran short, so she will put it on a card at the top of her notes. And she answered her own impact question twice, so she will practise that question aloud before her next meeting.
A finished project has five parts: the recording, or full notes if the buyer declined; the completed scorecard; the summary as sent, with the buyer's corrections noted; the marked checklist; and your two changes for next time. Keep it all in one folder, since this meeting can count as the first of the three that the final project asks for.
Book your meeting, or your practice partner, before you start the activity below.
Run the meeting, write the summary and scorecard, and review the recording against the course checklists, noting two things to change next time.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).