How to prepare for a discovery call: research, opening line, questions

There are two ways to prepare for a discovery call. You can read about the prospect: their company, their funding, their team. Or you can read what the prospect says to their own customers: their website.

The first tells you about the company. The second tells you how they sell, in their own words, and where those words go quiet. That's where the useful conversation is.

This post is a ten-minute routine built on the second kind: research the prospect's website, write a one-page prep sheet, open the call with one sentence from their page, and ask the questions their page doesn't answer. We can't publish a prospect's site, so our own homepage, klarnio.com, plays the prospect, using Klarnio's audit of it from 5 October 2026. Every quote below is taken word for word from that page and that audit.

Part 1: Pre-call research, in ten minutes

Do it in three passes, on the page that does their selling: the homepage, or the page their ads point to. If those are different pages, compare the two. Use a phone, so you see the first screen at the size a phone visitor does.

Minutes 0 to 3: read the first screen as their customer

Read only what's visible before you scroll. Then write down, in one sentence, what you'd think this business does if that was all you saw. If you can't, that's the first thing to ask about.

For klarnio.com, the first screen is a headline and a line under it:

"Your website has 30 seconds to say something worth acting on."

"Klarnio reads your page the way a first-time visitor does, then shows you the exact sentences to change."

The headline fails all three tests, which is why it's on the prep sheet below. The line under it passes: you know what Klarnio does before you scroll.

Minutes 3 to 6: list what's on the page

Now scroll the whole page and count: headings, buttons and links, prices, forms. Give it three minutes. It stops one avoidable mistake: asking about something the page already shows.

For klarnio.com, the count was 26 headings, 18 buttons and links, 7 prices (the four plans, plus the cost of the alternative the page compares against) and a form. So "Do you show pricing on your site?" is not a question for this call. The page has four plans with prices on them.

Minutes 6 to 10: find the gaps

Check the page against the three questions every first-time visitor brings: Is this about my problem? Can I trust it? What happens after I say yes? Mark every one it leaves unanswered. Our website audit checklist lists the checks under each.

For klarnio.com, the audit found five gaps. The page never says what happened that sends a visitor there today, never puts a cost on leaving the problem alone, never says who answers once someone pays, never shows what month three looks like, and never follows one page from its first score to its second. In the audit's words, the last one:

"The re-audit card shows a first score and a deliberately empty second card, so no one on the page has ever travelled from before to after."

Those five gaps are your questions. More on that in Part 4.

Part 2: Write a one-page prep sheet

Ten minutes of research is only useful if you can see it in one glance during the call. Put it on one page with six lines. Here is the prep sheet for klarnio.com:

1. What they say they do, in their words: "Klarnio reads your page the way a first-time visitor does, then shows you the exact sentences to change."
2. Three sentences from their page that fail: "Your website has 30 seconds to say something worth acting on." · "The same page, said properly." · "How many pages do you fix a month?"
3. The gaps: why a visitor comes today, what waiting costs, who answers after payment, what month three looks like, a before and after.
4. The line to open with: one sentence from line 2, asked as a question (Part 3).
5. The questions: one per gap (Part 4).
6. The first fix you'd suggest: the hero headline, replaced with "Paste your URL and get back the exact sentences on your page that are not working, in two to three minutes."

The three sentences in line 2 are section headings or the headline. The audit marked each one as failing all three tests: a visitor can't picture it, nobody could prove it wrong, and any competitor could say it. Headings are the place to look first: they're what you see when you scroll without reading.

Line 6 is the one you hold back. Bring it out at the end, when they ask what you'd do first.

Part 3: The opening line

The first two minutes of a discovery call have three jobs: thank them, confirm how long you have, and say what you'll cover. Keep that to a few sentences. Then open with something that could only be about them: a sentence from their own page.

Take one sentence from line 2 of the prep sheet and ask about it. Each of the three tests gives you a different conversation starter. From the klarnio.com heading "The same page, said properly.":

1. The picture question: "Your page has a heading, 'The same page, said properly.' What should a visitor picture when they read it?"
2. The proof question: "Your page says 'The same page, said properly.' How would a visitor know that's true?"
3. The only-you question: "Could a competitor put 'The same page, said properly.' on their own site, word for word?"

Pick one, not three. Choose the one whose answer you can follow up: if they explain what a visitor should picture, you're already talking about their customer.

Two openings to avoid:

1. A score or a verdict. Both start a debate; a question starts a conversation.
2. Your credentials. Spend the first minute on them. If they want your background, they'll ask.

For more openers, and how to find the sentence to use, see sales discovery questions, written from the prospect's own website.

Part 4: The questions

Ask one question per gap, and only for gaps you actually found. For klarnio.com that's five questions. Three of them:

1. "Think of the last three customers who got in touch. What had just happened for each of them that week?"
2. "After someone pays, who do they talk to first, and how quickly?"
3. "Think of a customer who's been with you for a while. What's different for them now?"

While they answer, listen for facts. A number they mention, a response time, a customer's story: each one is something their page could say and doesn't. Write those down word for word. They go into the proposal.

After the call: write the proposal from your notes

Write the proposal while the answers are fresh. The research and the answers map straight onto it:

1. What you found: the gaps from Part 1, in the audit's words.
2. The scope of work: one line per failing sentence, with the replacement.
3. What you need from them: every fact they couldn't give you on the call.

Our web design proposal template walks through each section, filled in from the same audit.

The routine, in one list

Copy this into your call notes:

1. Read their first screen on a phone. Write what you think they do in one sentence.
2. Count the headings, buttons and links, prices and forms.
3. Mark the gaps under the three visitor questions.
4. Write the prep sheet: their words, three failing sentences, the gaps, the opener, the questions, the first fix.
5. Open the call: thanks, time, agenda, then one sentence from their page as a question.
6. Ask one question per gap. Write down every fact they give you.
7. Hold the first fix until they ask what you'd do first.
8. Write the proposal while the answers are fresh.

Do the research part faster

Steps 2 and 3 are what Klarnio does. Paste the prospect's URL: while it runs, it counts what's on the page. The report then lists the gaps under each visitor question with the audit's notes, and quotes the sentences that fail. You still write the prep sheet, and you still run the call.

We're deciding whether to build the next step: Call Prep. The prospect books a call and types their website, Klarnio audits it, and a brief like the prep sheet above, with the gaps, the questions and the line to open with, arrives before the meeting. It isn't built yet. If you'd use it, join the waitlist.

Frequently asked questions

Audit a prospect before your call

Paste your prospect's URL into Klarnio. In two to three minutes you get both scores, the gaps under each of the three visitor questions, and the exact sentences on their page that a visitor won't act on, quoted word for word. Where a rewrite needs a fact the page doesn't give, it leaves a blank rather than inventing one.

It's free, needs no account, just your email.