You will be able to run a full discovery meeting with a real or practice buyer and write up everything that comes out of it.
Wei Ling has a first meeting with Sarah, a nurse in her early thirties who has just been promoted and wants to "finally get organised." Both are invented, and you'll follow Wei Ling through the same project you're about to do yourself.
Over the earlier lessons you built each part of a discovery meeting on its own: the opener, hypotheses, your question bank and funnels, SPIN questions and the gap map, the impact worksheet, the scorecard, listening habits with the note template, and the summary and next step. You've practised every one of them separately. You haven't yet tested whether they hold together when one buyer sits in front of you for one meeting. The aim is to go from opener to next step without pausing to check anything, then score the opportunity, send a summary the buyer can correct, and review yourself against a checklist until you've found two specific things to do differently.
There are five pieces of work: prepare, run and record a meeting; score it; send the summary; and review how you did. Set aside sixty minutes for the meeting plus the writing. Booking the meeting takes extra time on top of that.
Try to get a real buyer. A practice meeting can't give you the pressure of one that counts. When no real buyer is available, work with a practice partner who has a brief, the way you did in Lesson 6.4, Run a recorded listening drill. Give them more to work with this time. The brief should also say who else is involved in the decision and roughly how much the buyer could spend, and your partner should keep both to themselves until you ask.
Spend fifteen minutes on research and use it to write two or three hypotheses, using the approach from Lesson 1.2. Next, sketch the gap map you expect to find and write SPIN questions to match it, as in Lesson 3.4, Plan one meeting using both frameworks. From your question bank, choose two or three funnels. Pack the impact worksheet from Lesson 4.4 and a clean copy of the note template from Lesson 6.3. Before you go in, read both versions of your opener from Lesson 1.4 out loud, once each.
Wei Ling's research left her with three guesses to check. Her first was that Sarah had no plan yet for the extra income. Her second was that Sarah had cover through work and had never looked at what it included. Her third was that Sarah was helping to support someone in her family. She went in planning to ask about each one and listen to the answers.
Run the full meeting, starting with the opener and finishing on the next step. Ask to record at the very start, in the same breath as asking to take notes. One way to put it: "Would you mind if I record this so I can review it afterwards? It's only for me." When a buyer says no, write fuller notes than usual, since those notes become what you review.
Use your plan as a guide for the conversation. If the buyer raises something you didn't plan for, go with them and explore it. Once they've said what they have to say on it, pick up your funnels again.
Before the day ends, score the opportunity on the qualification scorecard from Lesson 5.5, Build your qualification scorecard. Mark something strong only when the evidence from the meeting clearly supports it.
On that same day, write your discovery summary using the five-part structure from Lesson 7.1, Write the discovery summary the buyer signs off, and send it. Once the buyer replies, list each correction they made and note what it changed for you.
Sarah sent Wei Ling one correction. The person she helps support is her brother. Wei Ling had written down her mother. Her brother begins university next year, so the plan now has a deadline it didn't have before, and Wei Ling recorded both the correction and the new date.
Play the recording while reading your notes alongside it. Give every item on the checklist a yes, a partly or a no:
In the opener you covered time, purpose, the buyer's agenda and the possible outcomes, and you stopped and waited after asking about their agenda You checked your hypotheses by asking about them, instead of treating them as true On at least one topic you went two layers down or more, using the buyer's own words, and you summarised at the end of every funnel The buyer put a number on the impact themselves, and you asked why now and what happens if nothing changes You learned how the decision gets made and who else takes part in it You brought up money plainly, once the impact was clear You stayed silent after your questions and after the buyer's answers You finished with a dated next step in the calendar and the right people invited to it
Look at the items marked no or partly and pick the two that would have changed this meeting most. Write each one as something you can actually do next time. "Count to three after money questions" is a change you can carry out in the room, while "listen more" leaves you with no action to take.
Wei Ling's two came straight from her checklist. The meeting ran short and she never asked the decision question at all, so she'll write it on a card and put it at the top of her notes. She also answered her own impact question twice, so before her next meeting she'll practise asking it out loud.
Put everything in one folder. The finished project has five parts: the recording, or your full notes if the buyer said no to recording; your completed scorecard; the summary exactly as you sent it, with the buyer's corrections noted; the marked checklist; and your two changes for next time. The final project asks for three meetings, and this one can be the first.
Book your meeting, or your practice partner, before you start the activity below.
Run the meeting, write the summary and fill in the scorecard. Then play back the recording against the course checklists and write down two things to change next time.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).