This week: grade your last three sales conversations

This is a practice exercise for the week. It takes 30 minutes total and runs alone, no partner, no team.

Step 1: pick three.

Pull your last three sales calls that produced a real meeting transcript or a real follow-up email. Not warm intros, not “discovery for a referral.” Real first or second calls with a prospect where you were trying to advance a deal.

Step 2: run the rubric on each.

For each call, score yourself yes or no on the five honest questions:

1. Did I learn what the buyer is actually trying to do?
2. Did I tell them honestly whether we are a fit?
3. Did I name a specific next step?
4. Did I learn something specific about the buyer’s situation that I did not know going in?
5. Is the buyer better off whether or not they buy?

Write the scores down. Five lines per call.

Step 3: look at the pattern across the three.

Most reps score 2 or 3 the first time they run the rubric. The interesting part is not the individual scores but the pattern across the three.

If you scored “no” on question 4 (learning something specific) on all three calls, that is your practice list for the next month. The fix is concrete: in your next first call, replace your five discovery questions with one open one, and listen for ten minutes instead of two-minutes-each across five questions.

If you scored “no” on question 2 (honest fit) on all three, the fix is naming one specific condition or caveat on every demo. “We can do that, but with a three-week setup phase that requires X.” The honesty makes future trust easier, even if the deal does not close.

If you scored “no” on question 5 (buyer better off) on all three, the fix is one moment per call where you say something useful to the buyer regardless of whether they buy. A frame they had not heard, a reference to a competitor that does it differently, a question they have not asked themselves. That moment is the thing that makes the buyer remember you.

Step 4: pick one to practice.

One. Not all three. The next month works on one of the five questions, deliberately, on every call. At the end of the month, run the rubric again on three new calls. The score moves.

This is the entire solo-practice loop for sales. The hardest part is doing it on purpose. Most reps run it implicitly and never write down the scores. Writing them down is what makes the pattern visible.

A note from the team. Daily ripple for Sales, defined honestly. Full lesson at /blog/sales-defined-honestly.