Ask questions and shut up. Gong's analysis of more than half a million calls found the sweet spot is somewhere around eleven to fourteen questions, spread through the call rather than fired off at the start, and the best calls surface three or four real business problems. Aim for a talk to listen ratio near forty six to fifty four, which will feel like you are barely talking. Open by stating the purpose of the call, the benefit to them and a check that it works for them, then dig into what happens today and what it costs. Do not demo until you know what to demo, and end with a specific next step and a date, not "I will send something over".
3 hand-picked resources, 3 link-checked. Pick how you want to dig in.
Why we picked it The single best forty minutes for a founder who has never sold anything. Bosmeny walks through the whole arc from the first prospecting email to building an enterprise sales team, using what he actually did at Clever.
On Y Combinator by Tyler Bosmeny conference talk
Open ycombinator.com →Why we picked it Gives you numbers to aim at on your next call instead of vague advice: roughly 11 to 14 questions, spread through the call rather than front-loaded, covering three or four business problems. Drawn from 519,000 recorded B2B calls.
From Gong Labs by Chris Orlob short read
Open gong.io →Why we picked it Covers ICP definition, the PBC structure for running a sales call, pilot design and weekly forecasting in one place, with templates for the call scorecard and the forecast model. The most useful single page for a founder building their first process.
From First Round Review by First Round Review with Emery Rosansky long read
Open review.firstround.com →How running a sales process and closing reads from a different seat.
The same ground, over in Money, pricing & model, our Starting Up track.
The same ground, over in Money, pricing & unit economics, our D2C track.
