By the time you’re on a discovery call, a significant portion of the outcome has already been decided. Not by you. By how much you know walking in.
The pre-discovery call is the work you do before the customer ever sees you. Most reps skip it, run a generic discovery motion, and wonder why their win rates look nothing like their top performers’.
Here’s what actually goes into a proper pre-discovery routine:
Read Three of Their Recent Public Signals
If they’re public, their earnings calls are a gold mine. If they’re private, their website press section tells you what they want the world to know. What do they say is their priority? What language do they use? What numbers do they cite?
Walking into discovery able to say “I noticed on your last earnings call the COO emphasized X — is that informing what we’re talking about today?” changes the tenor of the meeting immediately. You’ve moved from vendor-asking-questions to peer-who-did-the-work.
Know Their Competitors Better Than They Do
In medtech, this meant knowing which clinical study was published about the competitor’s device in the last six months. In telecom, which regulatory filing their competitor just made. In construction, which project their competitor just won.
Competitive awareness is not trying to sell against competitors in the first meeting — it’s showing the customer that you understand their market as well as they do. That’s a trust signal.
Know the Person
LinkedIn, a 5-minute Google, any podcast or interview they’ve done. You’re not trying to become their biographer. You’re looking for three things: what they’re known for, what they’ve said publicly about their current priorities, and who in your network might know them.
The last one is the most valuable. A pre-discovery call where you realize you share a past colleague with the prospect changes the first meeting’s entire register. Reach out to that colleague before the meeting — not during — to confirm what you think you know.
Map Their Org
Before the call, sketch what you think the buying committee looks like. You’ll be wrong — that’s fine. Being wrong with a specific hypothesis is infinitely better than being blank. The hypothesis lets you ask sharper questions: “I’d guess procurement gets involved at some threshold — is that right?”
Identify the Likely Silent Stakeholder
From industry pattern alone, you can usually guess who’s going to kill the deal late if you don’t manage them early. In medtech, probably IT or supply chain. In telecom, probably facilities or the network ops lead. In construction, probably the bonding company. In consulting, procurement.
Walking into discovery already hypothesizing who the silent stakeholder is lets you surface them in the first call instead of month three.
Pre-Write Your Hypotheses
The best discovery calls I’ve run — and the best I’ve watched others run — started with the seller walking in with three hypotheses: “Here’s what I think is happening. Here’s what I think is broken. Here’s what I think you’ve tried.”
Then the call becomes the customer correcting or confirming each one. That’s a consultation. It’s also wildly more efficient than asking open questions and taking notes.
The work takes 30 to 60 minutes per call. Most reps won’t do it because it’s unstructured and can’t be tracked in the CRM. Top reps will do it because the conversion delta is massive.
Three quality checks for your pre-discovery:
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Can you tell the prospect something about their business they don’t expect you to know? If yes, you’ve done enough research. If no, keep going.
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Do you have a specific hypothesis about why the meeting is happening now? Not the BANT version — the real version. Something changed, or they wouldn’t be talking to you. What was it?
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Do you know one question you’re going to ask that they won’t have heard from another vendor? This is the question that makes you memorable.
The discovery call that starts with “So, tell me about your business” is almost always run by someone who didn’t do their pre-discovery. It’s a signal to the customer that the seller didn’t do the work.
Do the work before the meeting. Walk in already 40% of the way through discovery. The rest of the meeting becomes useful for both of you.