105. From LinkedIn Connection to £2M Pipeline in 90 Days: The Enterprise Discovery System™
+ 3 Questions that Unlocked a £2m Discovery Call
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In today’s email:
From LinkedIn Connection to £2M Pipeline in 90 Days: The Enterprise Discovery System™
The 3 Questions That Unlocked a £2M Discovery Call
Growth Partner Insight: How to Turn Client Confusion Into Deeper Partnership
From LinkedIn Connection to £2M Pipeline in 90 Days: The Enterprise Discovery System™
“Please contact Head of Estates.”
Five words on LinkedIn → £2M pipeline opportunity with A2Dominion.
Here’s the four-phase discovery system that turned a cold connection into my biggest contract opportunity of 2024.
Discovery Call #1: The Context Layer
I positioned my call with the Head of Estates as market research, not sales: “I’ve worked with smaller housing associations for nine months. I want to understand how to work with bigger players like A2Dominion. No pitch—just picking your brain on waste services, tenders, and supplier evaluation.”
Five minutes in, he dropped the clue: “We’re starting a year-long trial. We’ve tried to understand bulk waste volumes across 40 schemes. We reached out to providers, but they haven’t presented the right solution.”
Deeper into the conversation, I extracted the context:
Business Model: Bulk waste embedded in cleaning/grounds contracts across four lots running through 2028. Subcontracted at 10-15% management fees.
Financial Scale: £1.2M visible annual spend, estimated £2M total. Individual collections costing £200-300 with zero visibility into weights or itemisation.
Core Problem: “We get pictures, but no weights. Some items—a fridge, freezer, furniture—we’re paying £200-300. Tipping yards charge £250-300 per ton.”
Zero data. Zero accountability. Zero environmental reporting.
Then he introduced me to the Performance Manager running the bulk waste project since 2021.
The 6-Week Silence (And Why It Worked)
I sent an intro email. No response.
Sent a follow-up: “Can I grab 10 minutes this week?”
Still nothing.
Most BD dies here. But the Performance Manager had lived with this problem since 2021. Three years. My six-week wait was nothing.
Six weeks later: “Apologies for not responding. I thought I had. How are you fixed for next Tuesday at 11am?”
I sent the calendar invite immediately.
Discovery Call #2: The Emotional Layer
Three years of wrestling with bulk waste, his frustration poured out:
“I started the business plan in 2021. Twice now, I’ve run procurement to bring on external contractors. Both fell flat.”
First Attempt (2021): Full business plan, fleet requirements, van calibrations, cost modelling. COVID shifted priorities. Project scrapped.
Second Attempt (2022-2023): Full procurement. Many providers. Selected a third-party contractor from their cleaning network. At contract signing: “They’d never had a contract this size. Said it wouldn’t be a problem. Then jumped out at the very end.”
Back to square one.
The Decision Criteria:
Financial Transparency: “If a resident asks, ‘You charged £4,000 in 2022—can we have a breakdown?’ I can’t do that.”
Environmental Data: A2Dominion is committed to boosting fly-tipping recycling from 60%, reducing Scope 3 emissions and demonstrating social value—zero visibility from current suppliers.
Service & Communication: “What can we do to improve our customers’ journey? Communication to the customer and A2D is vital.”
Decision-Making Authority: “I’ve been given sign-off. If I were comfortable with a proposal, I could start procurement next week.”
Stakeholder structure: Performance Manager leads, Head of Estates supports, and one executive director approves—a three-person decision unit.
Pilot structure: Single supplier, 40 schemes, 6-12 months. Successful pilot gets grandfathered into full waste contract without formal tender—potentially 2-5 years at £1.2-2M annually.
The Enterprise Discovery System™
This opportunity revealed a four-phase framework:
Phase 1: Referral-Based Market Research (Context Layer)
Get introduced through credible referrals
Position as an intelligence gatherer, not a seller
Extract org structure, budget authority, and high-level pain
Request an introduction to the actual decision maker
Phase 2: Decision Maker Deep Dive (Emotional Layer)
Uncover specific problems, financial impact, and previous attempts
Let them vent about past failures
Discover what competitors got wrong
Map fundamental success criteria (vs stated requirements)
Phase 3: Strategic Positioning (Differentiation Layer)
Mirror their exact language
Position capabilities against revealed needs
Differentiate based on competitor failures
Show understanding of their specific context
Phase 4: Systematic Persistence (Timing Layer)
Value-added follow-up without pressure
Stay top-of-mind when timing aligns
Respect enterprise timelines (weeks/months, not days)
Be ready when they’re ready
Your Turn:
Pick one stalled enterprise prospect in your pipeline. Run this four-phase discovery system over the next 30 days:
Map their organisational context and get introduced to the problem owner
Uncover their emotional frustrations and past failed attempts
Position against what didn’t work before
Persist with a weekly value for six weeks
One £2M opportunity changes everything.
A 1-page summary + The Enterprise Discovery System PDF + discovery call script templates I use are included in Growth Lab Pro → Upgrade here.
The 3 Questions That Unlocked a £2M Discovery Call
After 30+ enterprise discovery calls with housing associations and construction buyers, I’ve noticed a pattern:
Leading with budget, timelines, and procurement loses deals.
Asking these three questions uncovers the emotional drivers that actually close contracts.
Here’s what worked on the A2Dominion opportunity:
Question 1: “What have you tried before that didn’t work?“
Every enterprise buyer has a graveyard of failed solutions. Make them the tour guide.
The Performance Manager’s answer revealed: → The SME contractor who backed out at contract signing → The COVID-derailed business plan in 2021 → Three years of procurement attempts with zero wins.
Why it works: Buyers relax when you acknowledge their struggle. Stop being “another vendor” and become the person who understands why solutions fail. Their past failures become your positioning roadmap.
Question 2: “What would make this a home run for you personally?”
Enterprise contracts aren’t just business decisions—they’re career decisions.
The Performance Manager’s answer: → “I’m really passionate about getting this over because I see these costs day in, day out.” → Resident impact: Tenants struggling with the cost of living, demanding transparency → Personal frustration: “If a resident asks for a breakdown, I can’t provide it.”
Why it works: Technical requirements get you shortlisted. Personal stakes get you selected.
Question 3: “Walk me through your ideal next steps.”
Stop pitching your process. Let them design it.
The Performance Manager’s answer: → Stakeholder structure: 3-person decision unit (Performance Manager, Head of Estates, one exec) → Format: In-person presentation, not Teams → Timeline: “If I’m comfortable, I could start procurement next week” → Authority: “I’ve been given sign-off to get the budget and get on with it”
Why it works: You cut 90% of the guesswork. No more “let me send you a proposal and follow up in two weeks.” Execute their playbook, not yours. Close deals faster because you’re aligned from discovery, not the proposal stage.
Your 10-Minute Action:
Before your next enterprise discovery call:
Research their past: LinkedIn, case studies, press releases
Write these three questions in your notes (verbatim—don’t paraphrase)
Let them talk for 20+ minutes: Your job is extraction, not presentation
The Pattern: The best enterprise discovery calls feel like venting sessions, not vendor pitches. When buyers talk for 70% of the call, you learn what competitors missed—and exactly how to position to win.
That’s how “Please contact Head of Estates” became £2M in pipeline.
Growth Partner Insight
“Your Invoices Are Wrong”: How to Turn Client Confusion Into Deeper Partnership
Enterprise clients don’t stop evaluating you after contract signature. They check every invoice.
I spoke with a Quantity Surveyor on a year-long construction project we’re servicing:
“We’re getting invoiced for 7-8 tonnes every week. I’m approving £1,500-2,000 with no real proof of the weights we’re getting charged.”
He wasn’t angry. He was confused.
My first instinct? Defend the tipping tickets.
Here’s what I did instead:
The Confusion:
“We’re past the heavy phase—it should be plasterboard off-cuts and packaging. I can’t see how these skips are that heavy.”
I could have said: “The tipping tickets confirm the weights. That’s what we collected.”
Technically true. Completely unhelpful.
Instead, I asked: “Walk me through the project phases. What waste types would you expect at each stage?”
The Breakdown:
Heavy Phase (January–May): → Masonry, metal, stud work
→ Expected: 5-8 tonnes/week
Light Phase (July onwards): → Plasterboard, packaging, pallets
→ Expected: 2-3 tonnes/week
Then he said: “From July onwards, I’d expect 2-3 tonnes max. We’re still getting invoiced for 5-7 tonnes every week.”
The gap was clear: we were charging for 5-7 tonnes, while he expected 2-3. Either our data was wrong, or his expectations were.
The Solution:
Instead of defending the numbers, I committed to transparency:
Waste transfer sheets: Updated with every tipping ticket (same-day uploads)
Waste type breakdown: Collection-by-collection itemisation (metal vs. plasterboard vs. general)
Photographic evidence: Photos of skip contents before collection
The QS: “From a service point of view, it’s excellent. It’s just the weights—whatever you can do to help.”
The Growth Partner Principle:
Most vendors hear “your invoices are wrong” and defend the data.
Growth Partners hear “I don’t understand what’s happening” and ask Discovery Question 1: “What are you expecting to see?”
When you understand their expectations first, you can either: → Confirm their data (builds trust)
→ Explain the gap (educates the client)
→ Uncover hidden problems (creates partnership opportunities)
Your Next Move:
The next time a client questions your invoicing, pricing, or performance data:
Resist the urge to defend: “The numbers are correct” shuts down the conversation
Ask what they expected: “Walk me through what you thought this would look like”
Commit to transparency: Show them the data in the format they need to understand it
Discovery doesn’t stop when you win the contract. It continues every time a client says, “I don’t understand.”
That’s it for today. Hope you can put this straight to work.
— Matt
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Love this perspective; framing the initial outreach as market research rather than a direct pich is a masterclass in human psychology, almost like you're debugging their needs before even writing a line of code for a solutin.