'We're Just Looking'
Tom sells inventory management software to small manufacturers and distributors. On a discovery call with the operations director of a 90-employee distributor, he opens with the company's recent expansion into a second warehouse, then asks: 'What's your budget for this?' The director says, 'We haven't really set one.' Ten minutes later Tom asks, 'When do you need to have something in place?' The answer is 'Not sure - we're just looking at options.'
Tom takes this as a sign the deal is not real, so he spends the remaining 25 minutes demonstrating his three favorite features, then promises to 'send some information.' The director agrees politely. Tom marks the deal 'cold' in the CRM and does not schedule a follow-up. Six weeks later he sees the company announce a new e-commerce partnership and a warehouse automation project.
1. What did Tom fail to learn about the buyer's context, and why did his two questions produce poor answers?
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Buyer context has four practical parts: goal, plan, challenges, and timeline. Tom asked about budget and timeline - the two that sit furthest downstream - before learning anything about the other two.
Why the answers were poor:
- 'What's your budget?' is unanchored. The director has no shared definition of scope, so any number would be invented. Saying 'we haven't set one' is honest, not evasive.
- 'When do you need it?' asked before the buyer has articulated a problem gets a status answer ('just looking') rather than a date.
- Tom treated 'just looking' as disqualification. It is a signal that context is missing, not that no project exists.
What he missed: the trigger behind the second warehouse, how inventory moves today, where stockouts or counting errors occur, what that costs, who else is involved, and what a decision would require. The later announcement of an e-commerce partnership and automation project suggests a real initiative was forming while Tom marked the record cold.
2. Write four better questions Tom could have asked. For each, explain what it surfaces.
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'What's happening with the second warehouse that made inventory worth revisiting now?' Surfaces the trigger and the goal. It also tests whether this is a real initiative or idle curiosity, without asking the buyer to commit to a date.
'Walk me through how stock moves today, from receipt to shipment. Where does it break down?' Surfaces challenges and current process. Concrete stories give Tom the language and numbers he will need later in a presentation.
'When a stockout or a miscount happens, what does it cost you - in expedited freight, lost orders, or overtime?' Surfaces impact. It builds the business case in the buyer's own numbers instead of Tom's feature list.
'If you found the right fit, who else would need to weigh in, and what would they need to see?' Surfaces the plan and decision process - the CFO, the warehouse manager, IT - and reveals what evidence each stakeholder will demand.
Each question is open, tied to something the buyer already said, and does not require the buyer to commit to budget or a date before trust exists.
3. What should Tom do when the call ends, and how should he treat the opportunity afterward?
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He should not mark it cold, and he should not send a generic brochure.
Immediately after the call:
- Send a short summary of what he heard in the director's own words: second warehouse, current process, the specific breakdowns discussed, open questions.
- Propose a specific, small next step - for example, a 20-minute call with the warehouse manager to see the receiving process - rather than 'let me know if you'd like to talk.'
- Ask directly what would make this worth continuing to explore, so the director can name his own criteria.
Ongoing:
- Keep the account in a nurture track with content aimed at distributors adding locations or e-commerce channels, not generic product updates.
- Watch for intent signals - pricing visits, integration questions, new job postings for operations roles - and re-engage when one appears.
- Set a check-in tied to the automation project, which the public announcement confirmed is real.
Treating 'just looking' as a dead deal costs him a buyer whose context was simply not yet formed.