Latest / Sales Leadership with Fexingo: Quota Carriers, Sales Managers, and Revenue Teams / Why Top Reps Use Pre-Call Planning Checklists
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this moment that happens on almost every sales floor, and it drives managers crazy: a rep walks into a discovery call cold, wings it, and then wonders why they lost to a competitor who actually looked the prospect up on LinkedIn beforehand. Luna: Right. And the crazy part is, that rep probably spent the night before doom-scrolling Twitter instead of spending fifteen minutes on a pre-call plan. Lucas: Exactly. So today I want to talk about pre-call planning checklists. Not the generic 'know your product' stuff — I mean a structured, repeatable template that top enterprise reps actually use. There's a study from Gong that looked at thousands of discovery calls and found that reps who wrote down a call plan beforehand were twenty-three percent more likely to advance the deal to the next stage. Luna: Twenty-three percent — that's not a marginal edge. That's like switching from a flip phone to a smartphone. Lucas: Right. And yet most reps skip it. They think they can 'just wing it' because they've done a hundred calls before. But the research says otherwise. So let's break down what a high-quality pre-call checklist actually includes. I'm going to use a framework that I've seen work at companies like Salesforce and HubSpot. Luna: Okay, I'm taking notes. What's the first thing? Lucas: First is territory research. Before you even pick up the phone, you should know the prospect's industry, company size, recent news, and any major initiatives they've announced. Not just the company homepage — look at their investor relations page, their recent job postings, their press releases. If they just hired a new VP of Sales, that tells you they're probably scaling and might have budget. Luna: That's a lot of prep. Do you really need to do that for every call? I mean, if you have forty calls a week... Lucas: Fair pushback. But the point isn't to spend an hour on each. The best reps spend about ten to fifteen minutes. They have a template that prompts them to check specific sources. Indeed, a HubSpot study found that reps who spend at least ten minutes on pre-call research are forty percent more likely to hit quota. It's a force multiplier. Luna: Okay, so territory research is step one. What's step two? Lucas: Step two is stakeholder mapping. Who's on the call? What's their role? Are they a decision-maker, an influencer, or a blocker? And crucially — what's their personal win? The finance person cares about cost savings; the operations person cares about efficiency; the CEO cares about revenue growth. If you pitch the same way to all three, you're wasting everyone's time. Luna: Right. So you tailor your talking points to each person's priorities. That seems obvious, but I bet most reps don't actually do it. Lucas: They don't. And if you look at Gong's data, the calls where the rep specifically addressed each stakeholder by name and tied their value prop to that person's metrics had a thirty percent higher conversion rate. It's one of the biggest differentiators between top performers and average ones. Luna: That's huge. What's next? Lucas: Step three: qualification criteria. Before you go into the call, you should have a clear list of what you need to learn to determine if this deal is real. MEDDIC or BANT or whatever framework you use — write the questions down. For example: Does this person have budget authority? What's the timeline? What's the decision process? If you don't have those answers by the end of the call, you're not qualified. Luna: So the checklist keeps you from getting lost in the conversation and forgetting to ask the critical stuff. Lucas: Exactly. And step four: objection preparation. Think of the three most likely objections you'll hear. Is it price? Is it timing? Is it 'we're happy with our current vendor'? Write your responses out. Not word for word, but have the structure ready. That way, when the objection comes, you don't freeze — you have a framework to pivot. Luna: I've seen reps who are great at objection handling on the fly, but that's rare. Most people need to rehearse. And the checklist forces that rehearsal. Lucas: Right. And step five: competitive landscape. Who else is in the deal? If you know you're up against a specific competitor — say, you're selling a CRM and the prospect is also looking at Microsoft Dynamics — you should have a competitive analysis ready. Know their strengths, their weaknesses, and where you beat them. Then, during the call, you can position yourself against them without badmouthing. Luna: That's smart. Though I've seen reps over-prep on competition and neglect the prospect's actual needs. How do you balance it? Lucas: Great point. The checklist should be a guide, not a script. The prospect's needs come first. But if you've done your research and you know the competitor is weak on integration, for example, and the prospect just mentioned they're worried about integration, you have a natural opening. The checklist just keeps those insights top of mind. Luna: Okay, so that's five steps. Let me recap: territory research, stakeholder mapping, qualification criteria, objection prep, competitive landscape. Anything else? Lucas: One more: call objectives. What's the one thing you want to achieve by the end of this call? Is it to schedule a demo? Is it to get a referral to the economic buyer? Is it to get them to agree to a trial? Write that down. Every call should have a clear 'ask' or 'next step' that moves the deal forward. Luna: Yeah, otherwise you end up with a lot of 'let me think about it' and no action. So that's six components. Now, I'm curious — what's the most common mistake reps make when they do use a checklist? Lucas: The biggest mistake is treating it as a rigid script. They rattle off questions without listening. The checklist is there to remind you, not to control the conversation. The second biggest mistake is over-preparing for the wrong things. Some reps spend twenty minutes researching the company's history from ten years ago, but they don't know who's on the call today. Focus on the current stakeholders and their immediate pain points. Luna: What about the third mistake? Lucas: Not updating the checklist after each call. The best reps iterate. They'll note what worked and what didn't, and adjust their template for the next call. Sales is a learning process. If you use the same checklist for every single call without variation, you're not adapting to what the market is telling you. Luna: That makes sense. So the template is a living document. I think a lot of managers could benefit from coaching their teams on that. Instead of just saying 'use a checklist,' they should review it with the rep before and after calls. Lucas: Absolutely. And that's actually where this podcast comes in. We've been doing these episodes for over a hundred now, and the feedback we get is that they help sales leaders and reps sharpen their craft. We deliberately don't run ads on these shows, because we want the content to be purely useful, no commercial breaks. If you've gotten value from episodes like this one, and you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a simple way to keep this entirely listener-supported. Luna: Yeah, it's a small gesture that makes a big difference for us. We appreciate every single person who chips in. It allows us to stay independent and focused on what matters: actionable sales insights. Lucas: Exactly. So back to the checklist. Let's talk about how to implement this on a team. I've seen managers try to roll out a mandatory checklist and get pushback from reps who feel micromanaged. What's the right approach? Luna: I think the key is to frame it as a tool for the rep's success, not as a compliance thing. Show them the data — that twenty-three percent increase in deal advancement — and let them choose to adopt it. Some reps are resistant because they think it slows them down, but once they see the results, they usually come around. Lucas: Right. And you can start small. Pick one part of the checklist — say, stakeholder mapping — and ask reps to fill that out for their next five calls. Then review together. That's a low-friction way to build the habit without overwhelming them. Luna: I like that. And then you can gradually add more components. Over a quarter, they'd have a full pre-call planning habit. Lucas: Exactly. Another tactic: use the checklist during team ride-alongs. When a manager listens to a rep's call recording, they can evaluate how well the rep followed the checklist. That makes coaching concrete. Instead of saying 'you should have asked more qualifying questions,' you can say 'your checklist had three qualification questions — you only asked one. Let's work on that.' Luna: That's a great coaching moment. And it takes the guesswork out of feedback. Lucas: Right. So to sum up: pre-call planning checklists aren't busywork. They're a competitive advantage. The best reps use them because they know that fifteen minutes of prep can save hours of follow-up later. And the data backs that up. Luna: I think we should provide listeners with a sample checklist template. Maybe something they can adapt today. Lucas: Good idea. Let's sketch one out quickly. On your notepad: Section one — Territory Research: company size, industry, recent news, key initiatives. Section two — Stakeholder Mapping: name, role, influence level, personal win. Section three — Qualification: budget, authority, need, timeline, decision process. Section four — Objections: list three likely objections and your planned response. Section five — Competitive Landscape: main competitor, their strengths and weaknesses, your differentiators. Section six — Call Objective: specific next step you want to secure. Luna: That's clean. And you can put it in a spreadsheet or a note-taking app. The format doesn't matter as long as you actually use it. Lucas: Exactly. One final thought: the best checklists are short enough to fit on one page. If it's more than that, reps won't use it. Keep it to six to eight items max, and make each item a prompt, not a full paragraph. Luna: Great advice. I'm going to share this with my own team. I think the stakeholder mapping part is the most overlooked, and it's probably the most impactful. Lucas: Agreed. Alright, that's our episode on pre-call planning checklists. If you want to support the ad-free mission of this show, again, it's buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. And if you have a sales topic you'd like us to cover, reach out. We read every message. Luna: Until next time, keep closing.