How to Run a Sales Discovery Call (Full Mock Call + Breakdown)

All right, so I'm going to run through a live discovery call using a discovery call assistant that we built at higher levels. And I'm going to walk you through how I structure the conversation from the credibility statement, the problem narrative, the question funnels, and transition to the next steps. I'm going to take you through the process. So some quick context before we jump in. I work at a company called Capital Sites selling financial management and EPM software. And I'm meeting with a controller at Blue Rock Bank, a regional bank that's growing through acquisition and nothing in their eyes is broken yet, but they're starting to feel the cracks across their close process. So I'm going to run straight through this call without stopping and then we'll break it all down together at the end. So I'll see you in there. Hey, John, good to meet you. How's your week going so far? Things have been busy this week. We're trying to close the books. So it's a little hectic, but we're getting through it. I'm sure they have been. That's part of why I reached out. So yeah, looking forward to the discussion. I can kick things off. So my name is Connor Murray. I've been with CapitalSight for about three years now, and I'm part of the financial and banking applications team here. So we work with a lot of regional banks like BlueRock, and it's often because they're going through either a finance modernization as they grow, especially when legacy on-prem systems start to strain the close reporting, planning processes, areas like that. So just to give you some context, we're usually focused on areas around modernizing that record to report process and also simplifying data integrations for banks that are growing through acquisition. And then we're usually working toward outcomes around either consolidated tooling over time, accelerating the close process, improving the overall speed and confidence in reported numbers. There's more than that, but those are usually the areas we focus on. So yeah, curious if any of that resonates and would love to get an introduction from you as well and just hear more about what you're specifically focused on. And then we can go from there if that sounds good. Sure, Connor. I'm happy to share. but as we dive deeper, one thing on my mind, I'm concerned about automating the account reconciliation piece. It's quite complex for us. Yep. We'll touch on that for sure. But do you want to just share more at a high level about what your record to report process looks like today, some of the tools involved end to end, and then we can kind of go in into it from there and kind of narrow down where we might be able to help out. Absolutely. So at a high level, we've got our GL on that legacy system. Planning happens in PlanFlex, a lot of Excel. RECs are manual with our homegrown tool. Reporting split between Excel and FinSec. Closing technically works, but it's getting more fragile. So that's the lay of the land. Got it. Those are some of the tools we hear a lot with regional banks. So I guess it would be helpful. Can you walk me through how that process looks like when transactions are recorded and then how they ultimately flow into the close today? Sure. In short, we record in the GL, export data into Excel for planning, and then manually reconcile in our tool. After that, we feed it into FinCite for reporting. The close is slower each quarter, but it gets done just with more manual work. Got it. And what parts, I know you mentioned it briefly there, but can you tell me more about which specific parts of the close and reconciliation process are still handled manually in spreadsheets versus a tool like Recon Pro? So the more complex or unique reconciliations, those not covered by rules, are in spreadsheets. Recon Pro handles standard or recurring matches, but manual intervention is needed for exceptions. Closed adjustments, those final tweets, happen in spreadsheets too. Okay, that's helpful context. I appreciate you sharing. I guess from your lens, where does the closed process tend to slow down the most and how much time is that costing your team it's really around those manual reconciliations and last minute adjustments i'd say it's adding an extra few days to a week each cycle got it and what happened you mentioned adjustments what happens what does that process look like when adjustments are needed late in the closed process so when adjustments pop up late we identify them in excel then we manually feed them back into the system or update reports. It's just a lot of back and forth and coordination to ensure everything lines up. Understood. And I know you mentioned it's getting slower quarter after quarter. I actually saw that BlueRock underwent an acquisition within the last year. I'm curious if that's factoring into it, if some of the data hierarchies and some of the challenges between integrating that acquisition have slowed down or caused the bottlenecks to be even more apparent in your closed process. So I guess what that looks like, and also whether there's acquisitions planned in the future, if that's still a part of the company's strategy going forward. Yes, the acquisition definitely added complexity. Different data structures slowed things down. And as far as future strategy, more acquisitions are likely. So that's top of mind for us. Makes sense. And just diving deeper into that, too, because this is an area we focus on with a lot of regional banks that are growing through acquisition. What are some of those specific areas you've noticed that are most challenging when it comes to closing the books and reporting, but having these different data sources and data hierarchies? What's causing the biggest slowdown in your eyes? It's aligning different charts of accounts and data formats between the old and new entities. The mapping takes time, and we're often reworking reports to fit everything. Okay. And do you think if acquisitions are a part of the bank strategy moving forward, do you your team could handle another acquisition right now are things working well enough or are you pretty much hands tied just trying to integrate this first one you just made honestly handling another right now would be a stretch we'd get it done but the current process would definitely strain even more we'd likely need to rethink or improve before scaling yep and that's something if we were to set up some sort of next step here and either meet with uh solutions architect or even demo down the line that's definitely something we can show you and how we help kind of centralize some of those data hierarchies um but i'd also love to hear in your eyes like in an ideal world how would the record to report process work and what are kind of some of the specific areas you would prioritize and want to see if you were to take on a new project or implement a new tool like capital site ideally it would be more automated with fewer manual touch points. I'd prioritize integrating planning, reconciliations, and reporting in one place, streamlining close and improving visibility without all the manual handoffs. Yep. That's something we can definitely focus on. And we work on tool consolidations with regional banks all the time. We usually do it in phases. And I guess compared to today too, if we were to move on to some sort of trial in the future, I like to have an idea of what criteria and metrics are important to you so that we actually have those defined before committing time and resources to actually proving it out in a trial. I guess compared to today, what would you view as an acceptable improvement in terms of how long it takes that record to report process? I know you said you're probably adding on a couple extra days or even weeks at times with the current one. What would be kind of an acceptable improvement in your eyes? If we could cut it down by at least a few days, ideally a full week, that would be meaningful. I'd want to see consistency and fewer late adjustments too. So shaving that time off would be the goal. Yep, and that's what we work on with customers is measuring that accelerated close process. So how many days can we actually shave off the process, the number of account wrecks that are automated, and the number of adjustments that are needed, things like that. So it's helpful that you just give me an idea of what's important to your team and what you'd be focused on measuring. So high level, just to give you how CapitalSight works with regional banks on this, we usually do it in phases and we start with account recs at the base. That's usually the first use case we tackle. We prove that out in a trial, get up and running and live on par with what you're doing today. And then we kind of move into planning as a phase two and reporting from there. And I can tell you about how we've done so with other banks, but I just wanted to give you an idea because also we'd want to probably bring in, if we were to set up a next step here, someone from the VP, someone from the planning team as well to get their perspective on the planning side of the process. And then once we're all aligned, we can start tackling account recs as that first use case. Got it, Connor. One thing I'd still want to address before we go too far is my concern with automating the account reconciliations. They're complex, so I'd want to be sure we aren't losing control there. Yeah, we would definitely do that in a very careful, measured manner. That's something I'd want to talk about with my solution architect first before even kicking off any sort of demo or trial. I can give you an example of how we've worked with other banks that have had that same concern. usually in that trial period, we spend time setting up the workflows and the automations for some of those low impact account recs that are pretty routine and repeatable. Because once we get those in place and we prove it out and we see that it's working hands off, we're able to roll it out from there to some of the other trickier one-off account rec use cases. So we actually usually, I just worked with a bank actually where we spent the first four weeks the trial setting up that 10 and automating those and then it only took another four weeks after going live on that to get the remaining 90 up and running so we'd obviously have to see what that looks like in your environment but just to give you an idea of how we do it with customers we usually start small measured prove it out and then expand to the rest of your environment very quickly after that that's helpful to know it gives me some confidence that it's not all or nothing and that we have control so i appreciate that let's see where we take it from here yeah and one thing i want to level set on too before setting up a next step here is our pricing and implementation structure i just want to make sure you have an understanding of it and it lines with your expectations so we're usage based you're able to start as small as you'd like and we prove out the most valuable quickest hitting use cases and you're able to expand over time as as we deliver that value and you feel more comfortable with the platform. So we usually price for account recs based on the number of account recs that are automated per month. And here's the price point for that. You can see it on the screen. And then from an implementation standpoint, again, we usually accomplish as much as we can in that trial period and help you feel confident about going live after that and rolling it out to the rest of the use cases. And you have us and the support team. And sometimes we bring in outside implementation partners as support as well. So we could talk about that in the trial, but I just want to make sure this aligns with your expectations, what you're seeing on the screen here before we start talking about setting up a next step and bringing in other members of your team, things like that. That makes sense. Seeing that it's usage-based and phased feels reasonable. I appreciate the clarity that I'm aligned on understanding that model. Cool. So yeah, I know we're coming up on time here too, I guess at a high level, a lot of what you shared does line up how we we work with regional banks, especially around the account X, the planning and the reporting use cases and banks going through acquisitions as well. So I guess from my perspective, a good next step would be to follow up with one of our solution architects. And the goal there would be to map out your current setup in a bit more detail than we did here and translate what that would actually look like in a capital site environment. And if you can bring on your planning counterpart as well, I think that would be very helpful to get their input from that part of the process. And then from there, if it still makes sense, we can talk about putting together a more tailored demo for your broader group based on some of the specific requirements and use cases we talked today and with the folks on your planning team. So that's what I'd recommend. Let me know if that sounds good and if there's anything you'd want to add on top of that. That sounds like a solid plan. I've got no additions. I've aligned. Let's do that. I'll bring in the planning counterpart and we'll map things out with your architect. We can take it from there. Sounds good. And I guess while we're on here too, do we want to just pull up calendars and get something scheduled? We can always move it based on the planning folks schedule, but I'm looking at next Thursday morning, 10 to 11 AM. That looks open on your end. That timing works on my side. Let's tentatively hold that. And I'll confirm once I check with the planning team. All right. Sounds good. Sounds good. I'll send that out and I'll send a recap to yourself to share with the planning folks and kind of just talk about what we covered today and what the plan would be for that call. But yeah, I'll send that out. Good meeting you today and looking forward to the conversation next week. Likewise. It was a great conversation. I'll look out for that recap and I'll be ready for next week's discussion. Sounds good. Have a good one. Until then. You too. Thanks, Sean.

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In this video, I run a full live B2B discovery call and show exactly how to structure a discovery call from start to finish. You’ll see how to open the call, ask the right discovery questions, uncover real pain points, and move the deal toward clear next steps.

TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Intro
0:39 Discovery Call Opening (Credibility Statement)
1:52 Problem Definition and Priority Narrative
2:42 Discovery Questions and Question Funnels
9:30 Deep Dive Discovery and Objection Handling
11:30 Next Steps and Closing (Transition Statement)

📌 ABOUT ME:
I’ve worked in enterprise software sales for 8+ years across SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise and currently work as an Enterprise Account Executive. I’ve coached hundreds of SaaS and B2B reps. This channel helps sales professionals build repeatable systems and perform at a high level.

LinkedIn → https://www.linkedin.com/in/connor-murray-cm/

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