Mateo Gonzalez

Plan a Sales Discovery Call With Questions That Qualify

Build a 30-minute discovery call plan: hypotheses to test, staged open questions, follow-ups for vague answers and signals to disqualify.

At a glance

Best for: Founders doing their own sales and newer B2B reps who want to run discovery calls that qualify properly instead of turning into demos.
Tested on: Claude · Opus 5.5
You fill in: productprospectknown
You get: Opening line "I've blocked 30 minutes. I'd like to spend most of it understanding how rotas and agency cover work across your seven homes, and at… (full result below)

sales

startups

meetings

Prompt

Build me a question plan for a 30-minute discovery call. I want to understand the prospect's problem well enough to decide honestly whether we're a fit, not to pitch.

What we sell: {{product}}
Prospect: {{prospect}}
What I already know about them: {{known}}

Give me:

1. Three hypotheses about their situation, each with the question that would confirm or kill it.

1. The question plan in 4 stages: current situation, the problem and its cost, how they'd decide, next steps. Use 3 open questions per stage and mark the one per stage I must not skip.

1. For the 3 most important questions, a likely vague answer and a follow-up that gets to specifics (numbers, names, dates).

1. Two disqualifying signals: answers that mean I should say we're not the right fit.

1. A one-sentence opening that sets the agenda and asks permission to ask questions.

Avoid leading questions ("Wouldn't it be great if..."), yes/no questions, and anything I could have found on their website.

Fill in

{{product}}: What you sell, the main outcome, and the pricee.g. Rotaflow: rota and timesheet software for multi-site care homes, £6/staff/month
{{prospect}}: Who you're meeting: role, company and sizee.g. Operations director at a group of 7 care homes, about 420 staff
{{known}}: What you already know from research or earlier contacte.g. Came from our agency-spend webinar, uses spreadsheets, hires a rota coordinator per home

Example input

product: Rotaflow - staff scheduling and timesheet software for multi-site care homes. It builds rotas that meet staffing ratios and flags agency-staff overspend. £6 per staff member per month.
prospect: Operations director at a group of 7 residential care homes in the Midlands, about 420 staff.
known: They booked the call after our webinar on agency spend. Their job ads show a "rota coordinator" at each home. In the webinar chat they said they use spreadsheets plus a separate payroll provider.

1.3k0

Generated Outputs (1)

3 hours ago

Claude

Opus 5.5

3 hours ago

Generated Output

Opening line
"I've blocked 30 minutes. I'd like to spend most of it understanding how rotas and agency cover work across your seven homes, and at the end we can decide together whether a demo is worth your time. OK if I start with some questions?"

Hypotheses

1. Agency spend is their biggest pain, and it comes from late gaps in rotas. Ask: "When you use agency staff, how far in advance do you usually know you'll need them?"

1. Each home builds its rota differently, so head office has no single view. Ask: "How do you see staffing across all seven homes today?"

1. Payroll errors from spreadsheet timesheets cost more time than rota building. Ask: "Walk me through what happens between a shift ending and that person being paid."

Question plan (* = don't skip)

Current situation

• *Walk me through how next week's rota gets built at one home, start to finish.

• What does each rota coordinator spend most of their week on?

• Where do the seven homes do things differently?

Problem and cost

• *What did agency staff cost across the group last quarter, and what was the target?

• When a rota falls short of the required staffing, who finds out, and when?

• What have you already tried to bring agency spend down?

Decision

• *If you changed how rotas work, who else would need to agree, and who signs off the budget?

• How have you bought software for the group before?

• What would make this a priority this year rather than next?

Next steps

• *What would you need to see in a demo to know whether this fits?

• Who should be in that demo?

• What timing works around your inspection or budget cycle?

Follow-ups for vague answers

• Agency cost: "Quite a lot." Follow-up: "Roughly, per home per month? Even a range helps."

• Rota process: "It works, mostly." Follow-up: "When did it last go wrong, and what happened?"

• Decision: "I'd make the call." Follow-up: "Has finance ever blocked something you approved? What happened?"

Disqualifying signals

1. Agency spend is under control and falling. At £6 x 420, about £2,500 a month, you'd have little to save them.

1. They're locked into a group-wide workforce system through a contract that won't be renewed for 2 or more years.

Why it works

Starting with three hypotheses makes the call a test, not a script: each question has a job. The "must not skip" marker protects the questions reps drop when time runs short, usually cost and decision process. Vague answer plus follow-up pairs prepare you for "it's a bit of a problem" and push towards numbers you can build a case on. Disqualifying signals give you permission to walk away early, which saves both sides time. The ban on website-findable questions stops you wasting the prospect's time.

When not to use it

Less useful for simple, low-price sales where a self-serve trial answers the questions. It's also not a substitute for knowing your product's limits: if you can't tell a good fit from a bad one yourself, the disqualifiers here are guesses. For complex enterprise deals with many stakeholders, you'll need a plan for each person.

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