A few years ago, I was asked to meet with an executive at one of our clients. When I asked the account team about the purpose of the meeting, they said the executive had questions about our pitch and wanted to understand the proposal better. They sent me the pitch deck and asked me to review it before the meeting.

As I went through the slides, I had a number of questions — things that didn’t quite make sense, gaps in the logic, and unclear value points. When I asked the account team for clarification, they admitted they hadn’t had time to dig into those details. The deal had moved so quickly that discovery was “not needed.” All they needed, they said, was the executive’s sign-off to move forward.

When I walked into the meeting, I didn’t get the warm welcome I expected. The executive was frustrated — visibly angry. Before I could even open my notebook, he told me my team had wasted weeks of his organization’s time working on something that didn’t matter to his business at all. The initiative we had proposed wasn’t connected to any of his priorities. It was the wrong conversation entirely.

That meeting ended quickly. It was a total loss. But it also taught me one of the most important lessons of my career: skipping discovery isn’t efficiency — it’s laziness disguised as speed. Without clear discovery and alignment to business value, every conversation risks wasting time, credibility, and trust.

The Illusion of Efficiency

Skipping discovery often feels like saving time. But that shortcut always comes with a cost. Without discovery, we build proposals based on assumptions — and every assumption carries risk. We over-engineer features that don’t matter. We present slides that don’t land. We answer questions no one asked. The result is a perfect presentation for the wrong problem — an illusion of progress that looks like momentum but leads nowhere.

Here are some of the most common excuses I’ve heard (and used myself) for skipping or rushing discovery:

• “I already know what the customer needs — I’ve sold to their competitors.”
• “We don’t have time for another meeting; procurement is waiting for the proposal.”
• “They just want pricing, not a full discovery conversation.”
• “They wouldn’t have reached out if they didn’t already know their problem.”
• “This deal is too small to warrant a deep dive.”
• “They already told us their pain point on the RFP.”
• “They’re busy executives — they don’t want to answer more questions.”

Each one of these excuses sounds logical in the moment, but every one of them hides the same underlying issue — the temptation to avoid the hard, unglamorous work of asking deep questions. In truth, discovery isn’t what slows deals down. Lack of discovery is.

Discovery doesn’t just uncover needs — it builds trust. It signals that we care enough to understand before we recommend. When customers see that we’re genuinely curious about their business, not just our product, they begin to open up. And if discovery kills the deal, then there never really was one. A deal that can’t survive honest questions wasn’t a qualified opportunity — it was just hope disguised as progress.

The Psychology Behind It

So why do smart, capable sales professionals skip discovery? Comfort and control play a role, but there’s more beneath the surface.

1. Fear of Rejection. Discovery often forces us to confront the possibility that the opportunity isn’t real or that the customer isn’t ready. Our brains are wired to avoid pain — and hearing “no” feels like rejection, even when it’s just clarity. So we tell ourselves the story that it’s better to move forward with what we know than risk discovering we’re wrong.
2. Confirmation Bias. Once we’ve built a mental model of the deal, we look for clues that confirm it instead of testing whether it’s accurate. Discovery requires humility — it forces us to challenge our own assumptions, and that can be uncomfortable.
3. Ego. We want to appear competent. Admitting we don’t fully understand the customer’s business can feel like weakness. But pretending to know erodes credibility faster than any admission of ignorance. Customers can tell when we’re guessing.
4. Need for Certainty. Discovery introduces ambiguity, and ambiguity feels unsafe. Our brains crave patterns, predictability, and closure — that’s why talking feels easier than listening. Talking gives us control. Discovery demands curiosity, patience, and trust in the process.

When we push through these instincts — when we stay in curiosity instead of certainty — we not only learn more, we earn more. Discovery isn’t just about information gathering. It’s about emotional intelligence — creating the safety for truth to emerge.

The Hidden Cost

The cost of skipping discovery isn’t always visible at first. You can still get deals. You might even hit quota. But the real losses show up later — in missed renewals, small deal sizes, and customers who never become advocates. When we don’t understand what’s truly driving a purchase, we end up competing on price instead of value, losing influence to competitors who ask better questions, and delivering solutions that meet requirements but not needs. It’s not just a lost deal — it’s a lost relationship. Selling without true discovery and business alignment also stretches sales cycles dramatically. Deals based on assumptions often drag on for 12 to 18 months or more as decision-makers hesitate, priorities shift, and justification weakens. In contrast, when you build alignment to business needs early through discovery, deals tend to close in 3 to 6 months. That’s not coincidence — it’s clarity. The clearer the business case, the faster people move.

The Business Case for Curiosity

Great discovery isn’t about gathering data; it’s about uncovering meaning. The best sales professionals think like anthropologists — exploring how people make decisions, what pressures shape those decisions, and what success looks like through the customer’s eyes. That understanding doesn’t just help you sell — it helps you lead. Because once you understand why a company cares, you can help them make a better decision, even if it’s not your product. And that’s the kind of integrity that keeps doors open for years.

Reframing Discovery as Value

We often think of discovery as a pre-sale activity — a box to check before the “real” conversation begins. But in reality, discovery is the real conversation. When done well, discovery builds trust faster than any slide deck, creates alignment around business outcomes, and helps customers discover their own clarity. It’s not about interrogation. It’s about collaboration — exploring together what’s possible.

Practical Exercise: Listening for What Isn’t Said

1. Pick one current opportunity — something in progress.
2. Review your last conversation notes and ask yourself: What assumptions am I making? What do I not know about their decision process, metrics, or motivation?
3. Schedule a check-in call — not to present, but to ask. Try questions like: “What has to happen for this to be considered a success for you personally?” “What other initiatives are competing for your attention right now?” or “If we didn’t move forward, what would happen?”
4. Listen for what isn’t said. The hesitation, the tone, the gap between words — that’s where discovery lives.
5. Capture insights immediately. Write down what you learned, what surprised you, and what changed in your understanding of the deal.

The goal isn’t to close the deal. It’s to understand the story behind it.

Closing Reflection

We all sell best when we know why a company is buying. Discovery isn’t a delay to progress — it’s the source of it. When we slow down to ask the right questions, we move faster later — with clarity, trust, and alignment. Because in the end, skipping discovery doesn’t save time. It just hides the cost until it’s too late.