Script a prospect call that earns the meeting

Use this when a rep is about to call one named person and needs the words. It produces a one-page script every line of which traces to a fact in that account's research.

It is the script for one named person on one call — not a reusable template, not a call-scoring rubric, not an email or LinkedIn sequence.

The whole call is 2–3 minutes and it sells the meeting, not the product. Anything discovery-grade stays out of the script.

Before you script

1. Load the account research and the contact's role, tenure, and the KPI they were hired to move.
2. Check the CRM for prior contact. A logged call makes this a follow-up — acknowledge the last conversation, lead with something new, do not restart the pitch.
3. Check for a warm route: a referral, a mutual connection, a prior touch, an event. If one exists, it leads the opener and nothing else competes with it.
4. If the contact is marked not-interested or already in an opportunity, stop and confirm with the rep before writing anything.
5. On a second attempt or a conservative-industry prospect, open the matching reference before writing a line — the wrong frame is the most common way this script wastes a rare live connect.

Build the script

Opener — one or two sentences. With a warm route, name it first: the referrer, the connection, the shared context. Cold, it has to make the prospect feel this was researched, and it is about me inside the first breath. Never a greeting followed by a pitch. End on a question that invites more than yes or no.

Relevance frame — two to three sentences. Pick the one signal that most directly indicates movement on the KPI this person owns, and describe the problem it implies — accurately enough that they hear their own situation read back. Not a feature. Not the product. When two signals compete, rank by how directly each maps to a KPI this person owns; break a remaining tie toward the most recent, most time-bound one — it carries the most "why now". Expect two or three angles per persona before one lands. See references/worked-examples.md.

Proof point — one sentence. One named customer in a comparable situation, stated as an outcome not a capability ("their reps stopped writing follow-ups by hand," not "we automate follow-ups"). No named match → drop it rather than force one. Never invent a customer or a number.

The ask — one sentence, one ask. Sell the meeting. A specific, low-commitment next step beats "do you have 30 minutes" — a short working session, a teardown, a peer benchmark.

Objections — two or three, the ones this prospect is most likely to raise given their seniority, company stage, and industry. State each as they would say it; answer in one or two sentences that acknowledge without conceding and end with a question. Method and library in references/objections-and-branches.md; read references/from-live-dialing.md before a conservative industry or a second attempt.

Voicemail — 75 words maximum, ~30 seconds. First name, one specific reason for the call tied to their role or company, your name, one next step. No performance percentages, no "just reaching out."

End with the contact block: best number, LinkedIn URL, email, and which channel to lead with.

What good looks like

• The frame names the problem behind a KPI the prospect personally owns, not a pain the company has in the abstract. The average script describes the company's situation; a good one describes this person's mandate.
• Delete the opener and the rest still stands on the frame and the ask. If it collapses, the personalization was decoration.
• The prospect can answer two questions 20 seconds in: why is this person calling me, and why now.
• The frame is in the prospect's own language and never names the solution category — in conservative industries the category word ("software", "the platform") triggers a reflexive no.
• As a rough read on the live call: a short time-to-first-question and answers longer than yes/no mean they are leaning in; past three minutes the call has drifted into selling the product — pull back to booking.
• The mediocre version opens with a greeting and a company intro, pitches a capability instead of an outcome, and could be read to anyone in the segment.

After the call

Mark the frame with one word: landed, fell flat (a flat correction or no reaction), or not reached. Over a dozen calls a pattern shows — which signal types land for which persona. Let that bias the signal you lead with next time; once you have the rows it outranks instinct.

Rules

• MUST trace every line to a specific fact in the research; no invented signals, customers, or numbers.
• MUST make why you and why now answerable from the script alone. No why-now signal → say so in the header line, do not manufacture urgency.
• MUST lead the opener with the warm route whenever one exists.
• When signals compete, rank by KPI-ownership first, recency second — never average them into a vague frame that fits several.
• If the prospect meets the frame with a flat correction ("that's not really our situation"), do not defend it — drop straight to the ask. A wrong frame argued is the call lost.
• NEVER open with a greeting followed by a pitch.
• NEVER try to close the product on the call — the only goal is the meeting.
• Keep the whole call to 2–3 minutes; anything discovery-grade stays out.
• Voicemail is 75 words or fewer, one ask.