Opening & rapport
Recap of prior call 1×Yes / No
Did the rep summarize what was agreed last call before moving forward? Restating creates shared context and signals follow-through.
"Last time we agreed you'd pull the active-member numbers and I'd send the migration brief. You shared the numbers — let's start there."
"Hey, thanks for hopping on. So today I wanted to walk through pricing."
Discovery
Pain identified — in customer's words 3× critical1 – 5
Did the customer say what hurts, in their own language, with a cost (time, money, frustration)? The rep's job is to elicit and reflect — not to project pain onto the conversation.
"We've been duct-taping a forum, a course host, and Slack for two years — cross-referencing three exports for any engagement question." Rep paraphrases back.
Rep asserts pain on customer's behalf: "I imagine your team is frustrated by the current setup, right?" Customer agrees vaguely.
Confirmed budget owner 2× importantYes / No
Did the rep identify who can authorize spend at the target price and where that budget would come from? Not a vague "yes we have budget."
"Got it — so decisions on this go to the COO with finance sign-off, and you'd carve it out of the training line. Anything else that needs to clear?"
"We have budget" / "I'd have to figure that out" — and the rep moves on.
Timeline asked (event-anchored) 2× importantYes / No
"When would you want this in place, and what's driving that date?" The event answers move deals; the dates without events drift.
Close & next steps
Next step committed (time + owner + outcome) 2× importantYes / No
"Thursday Apr 23 at 11am ET, you and Marcus, demo focused on migration." Not "I'll send something this week."
Used company values language 1×Yes / No
Replaced by "Pain identified — in customer's words." Low correlation with closed-won; noisy scoring.