What you'll get
- 4 copy-ready blocks
- 2 tables
- 8 min read
- Brief me on the account
- Write the questions
- Check the facts
- Sum up the call
How to use it
- Step 1: Gather what you already have: the account's own pages, your notes and the last message you sent. Paste text in, do not paste a name and hope.
- Step 2: Run the brief prompt in Part 1.
- Step 3: Run the questions prompt in Part 2.
- Step 4: Check every fact with Part 3 before you rely on any of it.
- Step 5: After the call, run Part 4 and add the result to your account notes.
Most call prep is done in the lift. This pack gives you four prompts that make the fifteen minutes count: a brief on the account, questions worth asking, a check on every fact the brief contains and a short note after the call. You paste in what you have read. The assistant does not look anything up for you here, never decides what is true and never speaks on the call.
Part 1: The brief prompt
Paste the prompt, then the text you have gathered under it. Use the company's own pages, a recent news item or your call notes. The more you paste, the less the assistant has to guess.
Brief me on the account
I have a call on [day] with [Name], [job title] at [Company]. I sell [what you sell] to [who buys it].
Below is text I have gathered about the company. Write me a brief with these parts:
1. What the company does, in two sentences.
2. What has changed there recently, if the text says so.
3. What this person is likely to care about in their role. Mark this as a guess.
4. Two things I could mention that show I have read about them.
5. Three things I do not know and should ask.
Rules
1. Use only the text below. Do not add facts from memory.
2. After every fact, put the source in brackets, for example [company site, About page].
3. If the text does not say, write "Not in the text". Do not fill the gap.
4. Keep the brief under 250 words. British spelling, plain words.
Text:
[Paste what you have gathered]Part 3 of the brief is the one place the assistant may reason beyond the text, and the prompt makes it say so. Treat it as a question to put to the person, not a fact.
Part 2: The questions prompt
Good discovery questions are specific to the person's function. If you have the question bank for the function, use it as the base and let the assistant adapt it.
Write the questions
Using the brief above, write me eight questions for my call with [Name], [job title].
Rules
1. Three questions about their situation, three about what is getting in the way and two about how a decision like this would be made.
2. Each question is one sentence. No question may contain a fact about the company that is not in the brief.
3. Do not ask anything that the brief already answers.
4. Open questions only. Nothing that can be answered with yes or no.
5. Put the question I should ask first at the top and say why in five words.Read the eight and strike out two. Eight is too many for a call. Keep the ones you can ask in your own words.
Part 3: The check prompt
A brief that reads well and is wrong is worse than no brief. Run this before the call.
Check the facts
Here is a brief I plan to rely on for a sales call.
For each factual claim, give me a row:
Claim | Source it gives | Can I check it in two minutes? How | Status (Checked, Unchecked or Doubtful)
Rules
1. Mark a claim Doubtful if it has no source, if it sounds general or if it is a number.
2. Do not mark anything Checked. Only I can do that, after I have looked.
3. List the three claims most likely to embarrass me if wrong, first.
Brief:
[Paste the brief]The assistant cannot mark a claim Checked, on purpose. You open the page, read the line and then change the status yourself. Two minutes on the top three claims is the whole point of this step.
Part 4: The debrief prompt
Write two or three lines after the call, while you still remember it. Then let the assistant turn them into a note.
Sum up the call
Turn my call notes into a note for the account file.
Account | Person and role | Date
Then four short parts:
- What they said about their situation, in their words where I wrote them.
- What they said is in the way.
- Who else they said is involved, with names or roles exactly as I wrote them.
- Next step, with a date and an owner.
Rules
1. Use only what is in my notes. If a part is empty, write "Not said".
2. Do not tidy a vague answer into a firm one.
3. Do not add anything about what they "probably" meant.
My notes:
[Paste your two or three lines]"Who else is involved" is the part that grows an account. A name or a role mentioned in passing is your next conversation.
Part 5: What to never trust, and a fifteen minute routine
Keep this list where the team can see it.
| Never trusted without a look | Why |
|---|---|
| Any number about the company | Figures drift, and a wrong one is remembered |
| Job titles and who reports to whom | Teams change faster than pages do |
| Recent news | The assistant may be reading something old |
| What the person cares about | It is a guess about a role, not about this person |
| Names of customers or tools they use | Check them on the company's own pages |
The routine, for the fifteen minutes before a call:
- Paste what you have into the brief prompt. (3 minutes)
- Run the check prompt and verify the top three claims yourself. (5 minutes)
- Run the questions prompt and strike out two. (3 minutes)
- Write the first sentence of the call in your own words. (2 minutes)
- Read the account notes from your last conversation. (2 minutes)
If you have less time, keep steps 2 and 5. They protect you from the two worst outcomes: a wrong fact and a repeated question.
Worked example (illustrative, not a real company)
Quaywise sells warehouse software. Sam Carter has a call on Thursday with Marcus Lee, head of IT at Northfield Logistics. Sam pastes the About page, a news item about a new site and his notes from an earlier message. All names and facts are invented.
| Step | What the assistant produced | What Sam did |
|---|---|---|
| Brief | Two sentences on the business, one line on the new site, three unknowns | Kept the unknowns, cut a guess about budget |
| Check | Marked the new site's opening date Doubtful | Opened the news item, found the date was a plan, not a fact. Changed the line |
| Questions | Eight questions, the first about how the new site's systems connect | Struck out two. Rewrote three in his own words |
| Debrief | A four part note after the call | Added Dana Whitfield, named by Marcus, to the account map |
Sam went into the call without the wrong date. Marcus mentioned Dana in the last five minutes, and the debrief caught her.
Five mistakes to avoid
- Pasting a company name and nothing else. The assistant fills the gap from memory, and memory is where the old facts live.
- Skipping the check. A brief reads the same whether it is right or wrong.
- Asking all eight questions. A call is a conversation, not a form.
- Reading the brief aloud. The person knows their own company. Use the brief to ask better questions, not to recite it.
- Leaving the debrief for later. By the next morning the second name is gone.
Why this works on named accounts
Common questions
Can I ask the assistant to find the information itself?
Some tools can search, some cannot, and what they find varies. We would still paste in the text you trust. If you let a tool search, run the check prompt on what it returns.
How long should call prep take?
Fifteen minutes is enough for most calls. For a Tier 1 account where the call may decide the year, spend longer on Part 3 and on your notes from earlier conversations. The assistant helps with speed. It does not replace knowing the account.
Is it safe to paste notes about a client or prospect?
Check what your tool does with the text you paste, using your plan's current help, and follow your company's rules on personal and client data. If you are unsure, leave out names and sort by hand.
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