Discovery call prep

Discovery Call Prep

A discovery call only earns the next step if the rep walks in with sharp hypotheses and leaves with the information needed to qualify and tailor the pitch. The costly failure this skill prevents is the "friendly call that goes nowhere": forty-five pleasant minutes, no pain quantified, no decision process mapped, no next step on the calendar - a slot burned and a deal that silently dies.

Operating procedure

Follow the steps in order. Research must precede hypotheses (hypotheses come from signals, not imagination), and hypotheses must precede the question plan (each question exists to confirm or kill a hypothesis).

Step 1: Gather inputs

Collect from the rep before doing anything else. Where an input is missing, use the default and label it a guess.

1. Prospect company name and the contact(s) on the call, with titles.
2. Call number (first or second) and how the meeting was sourced (inbound, outbound, referral) - inbound calls start with more permission to go deep.
3. The rep's product and the one or two problems it most credibly solves.
4. Any CRM history with the account. Default: none.
5. Call length. Default: 30 minutes.

Step 2: Research the company and contact (20-minute cap)

Pull exactly these five things: (1) company size, revenue range, and growth trajectory; (2) the contact's role, tenure, and recent activity - posts, interviews, job listings; (3) any visible pain signal - layoffs, reorgs, new product launches, pricing page changes; (4) the tech stack they advertise or reveal through job listings and integrations pages; (5) existing relationship history in the CRM.

Do not spend more than 20 minutes. The output is the one or two signals most relevant to the rep's solution, not a dossier.

Step 3: Build the hypothesis stack

Write two to three hypotheses as falsifiable statements: "They are probably struggling with X because Y." Each must be specific enough to be wrong. "They have pain" is not a hypothesis. "Their ops team is manually reconciling data because they outgrew their current tool six months ago" is.

Every hypothesis gets at least one question in Step 4 designed to confirm or kill it.

Step 4: Write the question plan

Prepare five to seven questions in three layers: situation (confirm context), problem (surface pain and urgency), and impact (quantify the cost of the status quo). Weight the plan toward problem and impact - situation facts already known from research should not burn call time. Flag the two most important questions to protect if the call runs short.

Check the plan against qualification coverage. Between this call and the next, the rep needs the MEDDICC/SPICED elements; at minimum this call must attempt four of them:

• Pain (Identify pain / Pain): what hurts, in their words.
• Impact (Metrics / Impact): the cost of the status quo in hours, dollars, or risk.
• Decision process: always include "Walk me through how you would evaluate and decide on something like this."
• Critical event / timeline: "Is there a date or event this needs to be solved before?" No critical event usually means no deal this quarter.

Economic buyer, decision criteria, champion, and competition can wait for call two - but note which are still unknown on the prep sheet.

Step 5: Set call goals

Define exactly two to three outcomes the rep must leave with: a qualified or disqualified verdict, a specific pain confirmed or killed, and an agreed next step with a date on the calendar. A call that ends without a dated next step did not go well, regardless of how friendly it felt.

Step 6: Fill and deliver the prep sheet

Populate the template below and hand it to the rep as the single pre-call artifact.

Talk-time and in-call discipline

Bake these into the prep sheet notes:

• The prospect should talk 60%+ of the call; the rep stays under 40%. If the rep is monologuing, the plan failed.
• Ask, then shut up. After an impact question, tolerate at least 3 seconds of silence before rescuing the prospect.
• No pitching before pain. If the prospect asks for a demo early, park it: "Happy to - let me make sure I show you the right thing. Two more questions first."

Template: discovery prep sheet

DISCOVERY PREP - [FILL: account name] / [FILL: contact, title] / [FILL: date]
Sourced: [FILL: inbound / outbound / referral]   Call #: [FILL]   Length: [FILL] min

RESEARCH SIGNALS (top 2 only)
  1. [FILL: signal + source]
  2. [FILL: signal + source]

HYPOTHESIS STACK (falsifiable)
  H1: They are probably struggling with [FILL] because [FILL].
  H2: [FILL]
  H3 (optional): [FILL]

QUESTION PLAN (5-7; * = protect if short on time)
  Situation:  [FILL]
  Problem:  * [FILL: tied to H1]
  Problem:    [FILL: tied to H2]
  Impact:   * [FILL: quantify cost of status quo]
  Impact:     [FILL]
  Process:    "Walk me through how you'd evaluate and decide on something like this."
  Timeline:   "Is there a date or event this needs to be solved before?"

QUALIFICATION COVERAGE (mark after call)
  Pain [ ]  Impact/Metrics [ ]  Decision process [ ]  Critical event [ ]
  Still unknown for call 2: [FILL: economic buyer / criteria / champion / competition]

CALL GOALS (2-3)
  1. Qualify or disqualify against [FILL: criterion]
  2. Confirm or kill H1
  3. Book next step: [FILL: specific step] by [FILL: date]

TALK-TIME TARGET: prospect 60%+ / rep under 40%

Deliverable

Produce a completed discovery prep sheet containing the two research signals, a two-to-three hypothesis stack, a five-to-seven question plan with the two protected questions flagged and MEDDICC/SPICED coverage marked, and two to three call goals including a dated next step.

Do NOT

• Do not prepare more than seven questions - long lists turn discovery into an interrogation and crowd out follow-ups, which is where the real information lives.
• Do not spend call time confirming facts research already answered; it signals laziness and wastes the prospect's patience.
• Do not write vague hypotheses ("they have pain"); if a hypothesis cannot be proven wrong, it cannot direct a question.
• Do not let the rep demo or pitch before pain and impact are on the table - early demos anchor the conversation to features instead of problems.
• Do not count "I'll send over some info" as a next step. A next step has a date and both parties on it.

Quality bar

Before the prep sheet ships: every question maps to a hypothesis or a qualification element; the two protected questions are marked; decision-process and critical-event questions are present verbatim; the next-step goal names a concrete step and date; research took 20 minutes or less; anything guessed is labeled a guess.

Escape hatches

If research turns up nothing useful, lead with a lightweight agenda-setting opener: "I did some homework but I want to hear it from you - what does the world look like from your seat right now?" If a new contact was added to the call late, spend the first segment entirely on understanding their role before advancing any hypothesis. If the deal is already qualified and the conversation is about closing mechanics, hand off to closer-sales-script; if the prep is for a product demo, pair with demo-script.