Call Prep Template: A One-Page Plan for Every Sales Call (+ Example)

CALL PREP: [Account] / [Date and time] / [Call type: discovery, demo, review]

1. OBJECTIVE
   Next step I'll ask for: [specific meeting, person or action + date]
   Call is a success if: [what I must learn or agree on]

2. ACCOUNT SNAPSHOT
   What they do: [one line, in their words]
   Recent change: [trigger, with source]
   Current setup: [tools or process they use today]

3. PEOPLE
   [Name, title]: cares about [goal]; likely stance [for, neutral, against]
   [Name, title]: cares about [goal]; likely stance [for, neutral, against]

4. HYPOTHESES
   H1: [We believe X is true because Y]
   H2: [We believe X is true because Y]

5. QUESTIONS
   To test H1: [open question]
   To test H2: [open question]
   To find timing: [question about deadlines or events]
   To map the decision: [question about who else is involved]

6. LIKELY OBJECTIONS
   [Objection]: [acknowledge, respond, ask]

7. NOTES AND OUTCOME (fill in after)
   What we learned: [ ]
   Agreed next step: [ ]

Call Prep Template Example: Northwind and Halden Freight

Here's the template filled in for a fictional discovery call. Sam Ortiz at Northwind, which sells freight quoting software, meets Maya Chen and Priya Nair at Halden Freight.

CALL PREP: Halden Freight / Tuesday 10:00 / Discovery

1. OBJECTIVE
   Next step I'll ask for: 45-min workflow review with Priya's pricing
   team, next week, with two real spot requests on screen.
   Call is a success if: we confirm how quotes are built today and
   who signs off on new tools.

2. ACCOUNT SNAPSHOT
   What they do: regional LTL and spot freight, Midwest, 40 trucks.
   Recent change: 3 pricing analyst roles posted this month (careers page).
   Current setup: quotes built in spreadsheets, emailed as PDFs.

3. PEOPLE
   Maya Chen, VP Operations: cares about on-time delivery and team
   workload; likely for (she replied to our email).
   Priya Nair, Pricing Lead: owns the spreadsheets; likely neutral,
   may see a tool as a threat to her process.

4. HYPOTHESES
   H1: Spot quotes take hours, so Halden loses loads to faster brokers,
       because they're hiring analysts instead of fixing the process.
   H2: Priya's team rebuilds the same lane rates by hand every day.

5. QUESTIONS
   To test H1: 'When a spot request lands at 9am, what happens before
                the customer gets a price?'
   To test H2: 'How much of a typical quote is rebuilt from scratch?'
   To find timing: 'When do the new analysts need to be productive?'
   To map the decision: 'Who besides you two would weigh in on a change?'

6. LIKELY OBJECTIONS
   'We're hiring to fix this': 'Makes sense. Is the goal more people
   quoting, or each person quoting faster?'
   'Our lanes are too custom': 'Fair. Which lanes are the hardest?'

7. NOTES AND OUTCOME (fill in after)

Notice what's missing. There's no feature list and no slide plan. A discovery call is for testing hypotheses, so the page is built around questions.

Writing Hypotheses That Make Discovery Sharper

A hypothesis turns a vague call into a test. Use one sentence with three parts: what you believe, why you believe it, and the question that checks it.

• Be specific enough to be wrong. "They need efficiency" can't be tested. "Quotes take half a day because they're built by hand" can.
• Ground it in evidence. Every hypothesis needs a reason: a job post, a reply, a page on their site, a pattern from similar customers.
• Write two, not five. Two strong hypotheses fill a 30-minute call. Five turn it into an interrogation.
• Welcome being wrong. "Actually, quoting is fine, our problem is capacity" is a great outcome. You learned the real pain in minute ten.

Borrow from your best customers. The pains your current customers had before they bought are your best source of hypotheses. Pull the questions that test them from a bank of discovery call questions and adjust the wording.

Planning the Next Step Before the Call

The objective field asks for the next step first because it's the one most reps improvise. Pick the strongest step you can justify, and a fallback.

1. Best case. A meeting with more people, such as the pricing lead or the economic buyer, on a set date.
2. Good case. A working session on their real data or process.
3. Fallback. A specific follow-up, like a short recap with a one-pager, and a call on a set date.

Always name a date. "Let's reconnect soon" is not a next step. "Thursday at 2pm with Priya" is. Larger deals also need the decision-process questions from a MEDDIC template built into the Questions field.

After the Call: Turn Prep Into Notes

The prep doc does double duty: fill in section 7 within an hour and it becomes your call notes, your CRM update and the draft of your recap email.

• Mark each hypothesis. Confirmed, wrong or unclear, with the prospect's own words where you can.
• Log the next step. Date, attendees and what you promised to send.
• Note new people. Anyone mentioned on the call goes into the People field for next time.
• Send the recap the same day. Two short paragraphs: what you heard, what happens next.

Keep the old prep docs. Before the next meeting, the last prep doc is the fastest briefing you'll find. For bigger deals, roll them up into an account research template so the whole team can see the account.

Writing fresh questions for every account is the slow part. Edithly's discovery call questions come from reading the prospect's website, each with what to listen for, so you spend your prep time on the hypotheses and the people, not on a blank page.