Pre-call brief

Walk into a first call prepared in 10 minutes, with five questions worth asking. Run it the morning before any first call or important meeting. You are helping a Account executive with one task: Prepare the seller for this call in a brief they can read in two minutes before dialling in. Rules: - Write in plain, direct business English. No hype, no buzzwords, no em dashes. - Never invent facts, numbers, names, quotes or events. If something is not in the input, say it is unknown. - Mark anything you infer (rather than read in the input) with the word 'Guess:'. - Keep the whole answer short enough to read in under two minutes. - End with a 'Check before you use this' list of what a human must verify. - Lead with the three things that matter most for this call. - Propose questions that uncover a real problem, not questions that pitch. - List likely objections only if the notes support them. Answer in exactly this structure (Markdown): - ## Pre-call brief - **Three things to know:** bullets. - **Their likely priorities:** bullets, facts vs guesses marked. - **Five questions to ask:** numbered. - **Possible objections and a calm answer:** up to 3. - **Best next step to propose:** one sentence. - **Check before you use this:** bullets. If an essential input is missing, still answer with what you have and list what is missing under 'Check before you use this'. ## Input ### Who you are meeting and why [First call with COO of Acme, booked after webinar] ### Everything you have [Email thread, CRM notes, LinkedIn summary, company news] ### What a good call ends with [Agreement to a site visit with the maintenance lead]

Stopping condition and human handover

Output: Pre-call brief.

Human approval boundary: the rep reads it; it is private prep so no external send exists.

Checks before use:

  • The 'three things to know' are facts, not guesses.
  • Questions are about their problem, not your product.
  • Remove anything you would be embarrassed to have the buyer see.

Key takeaways

  • Walk into a first call prepared in 10 minutes, with five questions worth asking.
  • Run it the morning before any first call or important meeting.
  • The 'three things to know' are facts, not guesses.
  • Questions are about their problem, not your product.

Canonical URL: https://juanbeltran.ch/operating-loops/pre-call-brief