What Should You Ask First on a Sales Call?

Rob Snyder says the first question on a sales call should be why the other person took the call. A sales call has two steps, pull discovery and then a conceptual pitch. Real pull means the buyer will rip the offer out of his hands and convince him to let them buy, so he stays leaned back, excited to chat, and looks to see if he can help.

He thanks them for the time and asks why they took the call, since they hear from a lot of people. In the ideal case they name the reason themselves. They mention AI agents, say they looked at his website, or describe something they have been waiting on, and they fill out the whole pull framework right there. Follow-up questions come only after that ideal answer. Most of the time, the reply to the opening question is that they do not know, he reached out, and they are excited to hear what he has to say. He turns their words into the agenda, confirms they can cover it, and asks whether it sounds good so he gets a thumbs up.

After the thumbs up he asks whether he can ask a few questions to understand their context before the agenda items. Permission is what earns the right to do discovery. The questions stop feeling like an interrogation, and people actually share something. When the call feels like an interrogation, they share nothing.