What Is Command of the Message? Complete Guide with Real Sales Examples
This blog is a tactical, example-filled breakdown of Command of the Message, showing sales reps how to run expert-level discovery calls that actually drive deals forward.

INTRO
As a sales rep trying to improve my discovery calls and sales process, I had commonly heard of Command of the Message, but never saw any meaningful resources online when preparing for interviews and/or trying to improve in my day job.
This blog fixes that. Below is a clear, practical, and complete breakdown of Command of the Message (with a full video guide) based on what I learned in Command of the Message training, and how I used it competitively in my deals.
Whether you’re interviewing at a company that uses Command of the Message, or you're trying to run better discovery calls, this is for you. Feel free to read below and/or watch the full video breakdown:
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
- How Command of the Message actually works during a sales call
- What elite discovery sounds like, with real question examples
- How to uncover urgency and align your solution without pitching too early
- Why most reps misunderstand the framework and how to do it right
CONTEXT: WHY THIS MATTERS
Command of the Message by Force Management is used by sales teams at some of the most respected companies in tech. Think Databricks, MongoDB, Snowflake, and more. But if you’re trying to prep for an interview or apply it on your own, you’ll find almost zero tactical breakdowns.
The bulk of the emphasis for their sales training is on how to run an effective 30 minute discovery call, uncovering the most critical parts of a deal which are focused more on uncovering value as opposed to product fit.
Following a call, they build up to a 'Mantra' email which summarizes all of the information you've uncovered and sets next steps for a deal.
Below is the full breakdown for how Command of the Message is used on a 30 minute sales discovery call.
PART 1: START WITH THE 'CURRENT STATE'
Before you talk product, spend the first 15 to 20 minutes learning where the buyer is today.
Do not pitch. Do not run a demo. Just ask questions that help you understand:
- What does the prospect do today?
- Why do they do it that way?
- How many teams use this?
- What does this tool/process/feature/etc... support in the organization?
- How big of a problem it is
As a real world example, when I sold databases, we had a deal where the CTO of an e-commerce company reached out because their database was crashing daily 6 weeks before Black Friday. They were expecting a 4x traffic spike throughout Black Friday and needed way to scale and handle the traffic. Most reps would start pitching.
Instead, I asked:
- Why is it crashing?
- Has it ever crashed in the past before the most recent crashes you mentioned?
- What happens when the database crashes?
- Does it impact others when it crashes?
- Are there any patterns you've noticed that cause it to crash?
- etc...
It's important to note that the current state is truly objective; you're not necessarily asking leading questions. Your goal is to truly develop a wholistic overview of the problem they are trying to solve, and how many people and processes it impacts.
PART 2: DIG INTO THE 'NEGATIVE CONSEQUENCES'
Now after you've actually fully understood the current state, you can then explore the negative consequences of the current state.
Here is the difference:
Bad rep: "Your system is crashing. Let me show you what we do instead of {INSERT COMPETITOR}."
Great rep: "If this doesn’t get fixed in time, what happens?"
There are tons of questions you can ask in this situation to better quantify the pain. In the e-commerce example I discussed previously (and in the video overview), once I understood the current state I asked questions to the effect of:
- You mentioned when the database crashes for 15 minutes, everyone has to stop what they're doing in your warehouse. What does that mean in a real sense for your business?
- Have you quantified that in terms of dollars?
- How many engineering resources are required to fix it?
- How often are they being pulled away from their other work to resolve databse issues?
- etc....
Through this line of questioning, the CTO admitted they had already gone through 2 DBA (database administrator) hires which cost over $200,000 on failed attempts to fix the issue. He also told me that 80 percent of their annual revenue came during the week of Black Friday.
Millions in revenue were on the line, two engineers had already failed to fix the problem, and leadership was in panic mode. All of that came from digging into the negative consequences only once I understood the current state.
PART 3: CLARIFY THE 'FUTURE STATE'
Once the current state and consequences are clear, you pivot to outcomes. Regardless of what the ultimate solution is, what would the ideal future state look like?
This is not where you pitch your product! Instead, ask:
- What would a successful outcome actually look like?
- If this problem is solved, what changes for you and your team?
In that same deal, the CTO was constantly pulling devs off product work to fix infrastructure issues. If we could stabilize the database, they could finally focus on shipping new features. That was the real win — and it made the price tag feel small by comparison.
PART 4: CLARIFY THE 'POSITIVE BUSINESS OUTCOMES'
Part 1 through 4 are largely focused on how to ask questions and uncover potential value, the last of which is uncovering the 'Positive Business Outcomes'.
Even if your product and/or service align well to the Future State, it's worth understanding if that is actually impactful to the business. You may be talking to an engineer who loves your prouduct, but in reality, even if they bought it it is only solving a $10,000 provblem and/or is not aligned to the executives' most important initiatives.
So instead of going right into your pitch based on what you know of the future state, probe into the potential positive business outcomes.
- If the database is on 24/7, how impactful is that to the business?
- If you didn't have to worry about the database crashing, what would it enable your team to focus their time and energy towards?
- How do you think leadership would prioritize us if they heard our database never crashed?
- etc...
This allows you to confirm how much your prospect(s) know about the actual impact to the business. There are lots of tools that can help them do lots of things. But is that going to get the attention of a VP or Executive with a multi-million dollar budget? If not, it doesn't mean your deal is dead, but it's likely a sign that you need to work into the account and multi-thread to find others who can validate if it's a significant enough problem to continue into a deal cycle.
But with that being said, with the time you have remaining, you can transition towards a potential demo, and/or high level conversation about your product.
PART 5: IDENTIFY REQUIRED CAPABILITIES
What they actually need in a solution?
- If we could only test two or three things to validate that weresolve the issue, what would you need to see to feel confident?
- etc....
In the e-commerce example, the CTO said they needed fast migration, scalable infrastructure that worked under pressure, and support for their limited internal team. That became the basis for my demo and my follow-up plan, and also for the below questions where we better defined success metrics.
PART 6: DEFINE SUCCESS METRICS
This is where you get clarity on how they will judge success.
- How much traffic would we need to scale to support and demonstrate that we can handle in a trial?
- We're not going to be able to migrate an entire database, have you thought how much data we could migrate to prove it's successful?
- What other metrics are you using today to define success/failure of your current database? Any that we should use in the trial?
You might hear things like:
- Zero downtime during peak traffic
- We want to migrate a 10th of our data to see if we can run a complex query against it.
- We use uptime and throughput to judge the success of our database and severity of issues
Now you have a scorecard. You can start to build your demo and/or trial around these metrics (likely on a future call).
It's important to note that you should always stress test these metrics with other stakeholders. Just because a senior engineer says something is important, it doesn't mean they have the full picture.
PART 7: POSITION YOUR SOLUTION
This is where you connect the dots.
You do not walk through a product tour. You tie specific features to specific pains or outcomes they mentioned earlier.
Examples:
"You said your team lacks time and expertise. Here’s how our UI and support handles that directly. You actually can treat this database almost identically to your current solution due to this feature... etc..."
"You told me 4x scalability is the biggest risk. Let me show you how we handle that automatically without manual tuning."
When done effectively, you're not 'selling' or 'convincing' anyone of anything here. You've done effective discovery and are actually able to show them the most valuable parts of your platform specific to their needs.
PART 8: DIFFERENTIATE FROM COMPETITORS
Now the question becomes: Why your solution?
You do not need to trash other vendors. Just show why your approach fits the problem better and naturally fit into the conversation how you do it different than other vendors. It's also fair to ask if they are considering other competitive products. If they get offended you ask, you can simply tell them you are asking so you can best show some of the differences, though you encourage them to evalute other solution.
PART 9: USE PROOF TO BACK IT UP
Finish strong with proof points.
You have already told the story. Now reinforce it with social proof and data.
Examples:
"One client had the same migration challenge. They reduced downtime by 90 percent and hit record revenue the same quarter."
This part should not feel like a pitch. It should feel like a confirmation that they are headed in the right direction.
CONCLUSION: COMMAND OF THE MESSAGE IN 2025 AND BEYOND...
Command of the Message is a solid framework — especially for newer reps who have never been trained to ask the right questions or structure a real discovery call. It gives teams a shared language and raises the floor across the board.
That said, in today’s landscape, with so much free information and tooling available, it’s not revolutionary. If you’re an experienced rep with a strong track record, you probably already do 80 to 90 percent of this naturally. It’s a good refresher, not a game-changer.
For most companies, it’s a way to standardize the GTM motion across the entire enterprise and give underperformers a clear path to follow. For top performers, it’s more of a checklist than a breakthrough. Valuable to know, easy to replicate, but it left me wanting more with regards to how to actually most effectively use it with modern sales GTM tooling, AI, etc... which could drastically optimize the implementations of these frameworks.
FAQ
Q: What is Command of the Message?
A: It is a sales framework focused on discovery, qualification, and alignment. Reps use it to uncover the buyer’s current state, consequences, desired outcomes, and required capabilities before introducing their solution.
Q: Who uses Command of the Message?
A: Companies like Databricks, MongoDB, and Snowflake train their sales teams on it. It is common in high-growth tech companies that sell complex products.
Q: How do I prepare for a Command of the Message interview?
A: Practice running a mock discovery call. Focus on asking thoughtful questions, clarifying business pain, and aligning your product to what the buyer needs.
Q: Is Higher Levels or their B2B Training Offerings Affiliated with Command of the Message or Force Management?
A: No. Higher Levels and its training programs are not affiliated with Force Management or Command of the Message. This article reflects Eric's personal experience and opinions, not those of Force Management.
Q: Is this only for enterprise deals?
A: No. SDRs use it to qualify better. Mid-market AEs use it to shorten cycles. Enterprise reps use it to close complex, multi-threaded deals.
TL;DR
- Command of the Message is a sales framework focused on structured discovery
- Spend most of your call understanding pain, not pitching features
- Let the buyer define what success looks like, then show how you deliver it
- Use proof and metrics to back up your story and drive the next steps