Discovery call: how to run one, with an agenda, questions and follow-up

A discovery call is the first proper conversation with a potential buyer. Your job is to learn whether they have a problem you can solve, how they handle it today, what it costs them, who else is involved and whether a next step makes sense. The buyer should do most of the talking. A good call ends with a clear yes, a clear no or a scheduled next step, followed by a short written summary the buyer can forward to colleagues.

A worked example: route planning software for food distributors

Suppose you sell route planning software to regional food distributors. The director of operations at a distributor with about 40 delivery trucks replied to your email and agreed to a 30-minute video call next Tuesday. You know little about how their dispatch works. This example is hypothetical and used throughout the page.

Prepare for 20 minutes, not two hours

Preparation is for asking better questions, not for pitching harder. Before the call:

Read what the company says about itself. Website, locations, the kinds of customers they deliver to, recent news and job postings. A posting for two new dispatchers is a hint that routing takes a lot of people's time. Treat it as something to ask about, not a conclusion.
Check public filings if the company is public. A 10-K's Item 1 describes the business and Item 1A lists the risks the company considers most significant, according to Investor.gov's guide to reading a 10-K. Most regional distributors are private, so this step often does not apply.
Write down three guesses and what would prove each one wrong. For example: "Routes are planned by hand each night," "Late deliveries cost them customers," "Fuel is their biggest routing cost."
Decide what a good outcome is. In the example, a good outcome is a second call with whoever plans routes each night.

If the industry is new to you, sales discovery questions includes a short industry research step and a full question bank.

Open by agreeing on the agenda

Sandler Training calls an agreed agenda an up-front contract. Its article on meeting agendas lists five parts: a mutually agreed purpose, what the prospect wants from the meeting, what you want, the time you will spend together, and what both of you agree will happen at the end. It also suggests reconfirming the time at the start, because the prospect's plans may have changed.

In practice, the opening can take a minute:

Thanks for making time. I'd like to spend most of the 30 minutes understanding how you plan routes today and where it causes trouble. Is there anything you want to make sure we cover? At the end, we can decide together whether a second conversation makes sense or whether this isn't a fit. Do we still have the full 30 minutes?

If they now have only 15 minutes, cover less and book another time rather than rushing.

Ask about what happened, not what might happen

Questions about the future invite guesses. Questions about recent events get specifics. Ask the buyer to walk through real cases.

Topic	Question	What you learn
Current process	"Walk me through how tomorrow's routes get planned tonight."	Who does the work, which tools, how long it takes
Recent problem	"Tell me about the last day routes went badly wrong."	What failure looks like and how often it happens
Cost	"What did that day cost you, in overtime, credits or customers?"	Whether the problem is worth paying to fix
Past attempts	"What have you tried already, and why didn't it stick?"	Competitors, objections and internal politics
Trigger	"What changed that made this worth a call now?"	Urgency and timing
People	"Who else would care about changing this, and who signs off?"	The buying group and approval path

The trigger question matters. On its B2B buying journey page, Gartner says its research shows 99% of B2B purchases are driven by organizational changes. If you cannot find the change, the purchase may not happen soon.

Follow each answer with a simple prompt: "What happened next?" or "Can you give me an example?" Take notes in their words. If they ask for a demo, show only the part that relates to what they just told you, or offer to book a separate session with the right people.

Qualify the deal, including out

Many teams use a simple checklist such as budget, authority, need and timing. Use those as headings for your notes rather than as questions read aloud. "What's your budget?" on a first call rarely gets a useful answer. "How did you pay for the last tool your team adopted?" usually does.

Gartner describes B2B buying as a set of jobs that buyers revisit in no fixed order: problem identification, solution exploration, requirements building, supplier selection, validation and consensus creation. Knowing which job the buyer is doing tells you what help they need next. A director still confirming that routing is the problem needs different follow-up from one comparing three vendors.

If the fit is poor, say so. A clear no costs you one call. A vague maybe can cost you months of follow-up.

End with a next step on the calendar

Return to the outcome you agreed at the start. In practice that leaves three good endings: yes, no, or a defined next step. For a next step, book it before you hang up and ask who else should attend. In the example: "Could we set up 30 minutes with your night dispatcher next week so I can see the current process?"

Follow up the same day

Send a short summary while the call is fresh:

Thanks for the time today. What I heard: routes are built by hand each evening by two dispatchers, late deliveries cost you credits with restaurant customers, and the new cold storage site in March makes this more urgent. Next step: 30 minutes with Dana on Thursday at 10 to walk through a real night's plan. Did I miss or misstate anything?

Use their words, keep it short enough to forward and ask for corrections. Then log it in whatever system your team uses so the next call starts where this one ended.

When the right person will not take the call

Sometimes the person who replied is not the person who does the work, and the person who does the work is too busy to take a sales call. You can ask your contact for an introduction, or you can reach people in the same role at other companies to understand the job before your next call.

Instant Expert can find people who match a description, such as "dispatch managers at regional food distributors." You review who it finds, it sends your invitations, and you pay only for calls that get booked. If the call is about selling, say so in the invitation. The directory pages for operations professionals in food distribution and sales professionals in food distribution are one place to start. If you are deciding between this and a prospecting database, Instant Expert vs Apollo compares the two jobs.

Your next step

Before your next discovery call, write the opening agenda in two sentences, list the six questions from the table in your own words, and draft the follow-up email template. After the call, compare what you heard with your three guesses and note which were wrong.