Conversation starters and discovery questions

Don't open with the product.

"Positive Pay" is a feature name. It means nothing to a business owner until they understand the problem it solves. Open with the product and you're selling. Open with their situation and you're consulting.

The opener and discovery questions.

Start by understanding how the business actually moves money:

"Walk me through how you handle payroll, invoicing, and payments. Are you using ACH or checks for most transactions?"

Then surface risk awareness:

"We're seeing an increase in business payment fraud this year, especially payroll and invoice fraud through ACH. Have you experienced anything like that?"

Then plant the solution as a question, not a pitch:

"What if you could review every ACH or check payment before it cleared, so only payments you've actually authorized go through?"

That last question describes Positive Pay without naming it. The business client pictures the benefit before they hear the feature.

Let them arrive at the solution.

The strongest treasury conversations end with the business client saying some version of "so how does that work?" That's the moment to name Positive Pay and explain it. You've let them pull the solution toward themselves instead of pushing it at them.

If you name the product in the first two minutes, you've skipped the part that makes them want it.

The transition to recommendation.

Once they've described their payment process and acknowledged the risk, transition cleanly:

"Based on what you've told me, here's what I'd recommend. You're running [checks / ACH / both]. Positive Pay lets you verify those before they clear. Most of our business clients use it primarily for [the lane they described]. Here's what it would look like for you."

The recommendation is specific to what they just told you. That's the difference between a consultation and a brochure.

What's next.

Lesson 3.3 handles the objections that come after the recommendation.