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Discovery call role-play scenarios

Two discovery call scenarios you can run in your next session. Each has a situation, a private brief for the buyer and a short scoring guide. Judge the answers by your own method.

A salesperson talking through a discovery call at his laptop

What is a discovery call role-play?

A discovery call role-play is a practice sales conversation. One person plays a buyer with a hidden brief. The seller has to ask questions until they find a problem the buyer agrees is worth solving.

Where it fits in a programme

Run these after you have taught your questioning model and before learners practise a full call. Discovery is where most deals are won or lost, and it is the hardest part to rehearse alone.

What good looks like

  • Asks about the buyer’s situation before talking about the product.
  • Follows up on what the buyer said, not on the next question in the list.
  • Ends with a problem the buyer agrees is worth solving.

Scenario 1

Discovery with a guarded buyer

  • 10 minutes
  • Intermediate

The situation

The learner sells reporting software to mid-sized logistics firms. A contact passed on the name of an operations director, who agreed to a short call as a favour. She has not asked for anything.

The learner’s goal

Find one problem she agrees is worth a second meeting.

Private brief for the buyer

Maria, Operations Director at a 200-person logistics firm.

  • You have 15 minutes and you took this call to be polite. You already have a supplier and you are fairly happy with them.
  • Your real frustration: the month-end report takes your team three days and you check it by hand. You have stopped thinking of this as a problem.
  • Only talk about it if you are asked about your week or your team’s time. If you are asked about "pain points" or "challenges", say things are fine.

The buyer’s opening line

"Thanks for calling. I should say up front, we’re pretty well set with what we have."

What to look for

  1. 1 Accepts "we’re set" without arguing or pitching.
  2. 2 Asks about her work, not about problems.
  3. 3 Names the three-day report back to her and checks it matters.

Debrief questions

  • What did Maria say that told you where to go next?
  • When did you feel the urge to pitch, and what did you do?

Make it harder

Cut the time to eight minutes, and have Maria take an interruption half-way through so the learner has to recover the thread.

Scenario 2

Discovery with a buyer who talks but says little

  • 10 minutes
  • Starter

The situation

Same product. This time the buyer filled in a form on the website and is friendly and chatty. Ten minutes in, a new seller would feel the call is going well.

The learner’s goal

Find out who decides, and what it costs the business to leave things as they are.

Private brief for the buyer

Daniel, Finance Manager at a regional distributor.

  • You like talking and you are happy to describe your systems in detail. You find the reports slow and you say so freely.
  • You do not own the budget. Your director does, and she cares about audit risk, not speed. You only mention her if asked who else is affected or who would sign this off.
  • If the learner starts to describe the product, agree warmly and ask for a brochure.

The buyer’s opening line

"Great timing, I’ve been meaning to look at this. Let me tell you how we do things here…"

What to look for

  1. 1 Steers a friendly buyer without cutting him off.
  2. 2 Finds out who signs off before the call ends.
  3. 3 Gets one cost or risk in the buyer’s own words.

Debrief questions

  • What do you know now that you would need for a second meeting?
  • Which of Daniel’s answers felt useful but were not?

Make it harder

Have Daniel ask for pricing in the first two minutes. The learner has to answer fairly and still get back to discovery.

Common questions

How do you run a discovery call role-play?
Tell the seller who the buyer is and what they need to find out. Give the buyer a private brief with one thing to hold back, and tell them to share it only when a question earns it. Run the call for ten minutes, then ask the seller what they learned before the buyer reveals the brief.
How long should a discovery role-play last?
Ten minutes is enough. It is long enough for the seller to get past the first answer, and short enough to run twice in one session.
What should you score in a discovery role-play?
Score the questions the seller asks. Good things to pick are how often they follow up on an answer and whether the buyer agreed there is a problem. Tell the learner which ones before they start.

Build these scenarios on your method

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