Sales Discovery Call Checklist

Used properly, this is a coverage check, not a script. You're confirming you understood the things that matter, not marching through them in order while the buyer waits for you to finish typing.

If a call fails the second list below, the fix is almost never more questions. It's staying on one of them longer.

Before the call

Preparation isn't reciting a funding round back at someone. It's arriving with a specific idea of what might be hard for this company, so the buyer has something to correct rather than a blank page to fill.

• What does this company actually do, in a sentence I could say out loud without notes?
• What's changed recently: growth, hiring, funding, a new leader, a new market?
• What is this person responsible for, and what would they be measured on?
• What's my hypothesis about what's difficult for them, and what would prove me wrong?
• Why did this meeting get accepted? What did they think they were coming to?
• What would make me conclude there's no deal here, and am I genuinely willing to say it?
• How long have I got, and what's the one thing I most need to understand in that time?

In the first two minutes

Worth handling deliberately rather than by habit, because these thirty seconds set what kind of conversation it is.

• Say what you'd like to understand and why
• Say what happens at the end depending on what you find, including that it might not be a fit
• Ask what they want out of the time

After the call: the honest self-check

Run this within a few minutes of hanging up, before the call turns into a tidy memory. The point is to catch what was missed while there's still time to go back and ask.

• Can I describe their problem without using our product's language?
• Do I know who else in the business feels this, and how it shows up for them?
• Did I find the consequence, or only the complaint?
• What did they tell me that I couldn't have guessed from their website?
• Where did I move on when I should have asked one more question?
• Did they learn anything about their own situation, or did they only tell me things?
• Do I know what would have to be true for this to actually go ahead here?
• Is the next step we agreed the one that fits what I found, or the one I always propose?
• If I had to argue against this deal existing, what would I say?

What to do with the gaps

Two or three blanks is normal, and they're the agenda for the next conversation. Going back with "there's something I didn't ask properly" costs nothing and tends to be received well, because it reads as someone trying to understand rather than someone trying to close.

If the same blank appears across most of your calls, that's a behaviour to work on rather than an oversight, and it's the kind of thing worth taking into coaching with a recording attached.