CallPrep is a Chrome extension that prepares battlecards before sales discovery calls. It connects to Google Calendar, emails you a research briefing 24 hours before each meeting, and replaces roughly 45 minutes of manual prep with 60 seconds of automated research. This article walks through a discovery call preparation checklist you can use standalone or alongside CallPrep to move more deals forward.
A discovery call preparation checklist is a structured set of research tasks, talking points and strategic questions you complete before a sales discovery call. The best checklists cover prospect research, company context, pain point hypotheses and a clear agenda. If you follow a solid checklist consistently, you will close more deals.
I want to tell you about a call I absolutely bombed a few years ago. The prospect was a VP of Sales at a mid-size SaaS company. She had booked 30 minutes with me, and I showed up knowing basically nothing except her name and the company logo. I figured I could just "be conversational" and let the discovery unfold naturally. What actually happened was 28 minutes of awkward fumbling, generic questions she had clearly heard 100 times before, and a polite "let us think about it" that I never heard back from. That call cost me real money. More importantly, it cost me something harder to get back: her time and her trust.
That failure turned me into a preparation fanatic. Over the years I have refined a discovery call checklist that I would stake my pipeline on. Let me walk you through the whole thing.
Here is the uncomfortable truth. Most reps do maybe 5 minutes of prep before a discovery call. They glance at LinkedIn, skim the company homepage and call it good. Then they wonder why their conversion rates are stuck.
The problem is not laziness. It is that nobody ever gave them a repeatable system. Without a checklist, preparation feels vague and time-consuming, so the brain finds 1,000 reasons to skip it. "I already know this industry." "The call is only 20 minutes." "I am great at thinking on my feet."
The reps who consistently crush quota do not rely on raw talent during the call. They do their heavy lifting before the call even starts. When you already know the prospect's likely pain points, recent company news and the competitive landscape they operate in, you stop asking surface-level questions and start having real business conversations. That shift alone is what separates a 20% close rate from a 40% close rate.
Let me walk you through the actual checklist. I have broken this into 5 categories because different types of prep serve different purposes on the call itself.
1. Company Research
Read the company's homepage, About page and any recent press releases in the last 12 months. Check Crunchbase or TechCrunch for recent funding rounds, acquisitions or leadership changes. Note the company's employee count, annual revenue estimates and primary product or service line. Search for recent news on Google News or industry publications to surface any bankruptcies, lawsuits, mergers or major client wins in the last 6 months.
2. Prospect Research
Visit the prospect's LinkedIn profile and read their current title, tenure at the company and career history. Look at their LinkedIn post history for the last 30 days to find signals about their priorities, challenges or recent wins. Note their connection to your company (mutual connections, alumni network) and any shared interests. Search for recent quotes or interviews they have given to industry media. Check their company's org chart on LinkedIn or ZoomInfo to understand their role in the decision-making structure.
3. Pain Point and Competitive Hypothesis
List 3 to 5 pain points you believe the prospect's company experiences based on their industry, company size, recent news and the prospect's role. For each pain point, write 1 sentence explaining why you think they face it. Research 2 to 3 competitors the prospect's company likely compares themselves to and note how your solution differentiates. Draft 2 opening statements that reference a specific pain point or recent company news instead of a generic "I help companies in your space" pitch.
4. Call Agenda and Questions
Write a 1-sentence goal for the call (learn about their current solution, uncover budget availability, surface a specific pain point). Draft 6 to 8 questions that dig into their current state, recent changes, and future plans. Avoid questions you could answer by reading their website. Write 2 to 3 questions that reference something you learned in your research (a recent announcement, a LinkedIn post, a competitive threat) so the prospect knows you did your homework.
5. Pre-Call Setup
Add the call to your Google Calendar with a 15-minute prep block beforehand. Set a phone or browser reminder 24 hours before the call so you can review your notes. If you use CallPrep, the extension will email you a research briefing at that time with prospect bio, company overview, pain points, competitors and opening plays. Store your checklist and notes in a shared drive or CRM so you can reference them during the call. Pull up the prospect's LinkedIn profile and company website on a second monitor during the call so you can reference details without losing eye contact with the camera.
The checklist works because it forces you to make 3 specific shifts before you hit the call.
First, you move from generic to specific. Instead of asking "What are your biggest challenges?", you ask "I noticed you scaled your team 40% in the last year. How are you managing the tooling complexity that comes with rapid growth?" The second question shows you did research and gives the prospect permission to be honest instead of vague.
Second, you move from reactive to proactive. When you already know their pain points, recent news and competitive landscape, you are not scrambling to figure out what they care about. You are testing hypotheses. You are listening for confirmation or pushback instead of fumbling for the next question.
Third, you move from salesperson to peer. When a prospect sees you have done 45 minutes of research before the call, they treat you like someone worth their time instead of another vendor. That changes the entire dynamic of the conversation.
Most reps do not do this work because it feels like friction. They assume that being "conversational" and "authentic" means showing up unprepared. That is backwards. The best discovery calls I have ever had were with reps who knew more about my company than I expected them to know. That preparation was what made them feel like peers instead of salespeople.
The goal is to make this checklist a habit, not a project. Print it, bookmark it, or use CallPrep to automate the research half of it. The point is to never walk into a discovery call knowing less than you know right now, 30 minutes before you dial in.
If you do this work consistently, two things will happen. Your close rate will go up because you will have better conversations. Your pipeline will feel less stressful because you will stop winging calls and start winning them. That is not theory. That is what I have seen happen to every rep who actually commits to this.
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