Worked examples: picking the relevance frame
The relevance frame is the hardest part of the script and the part that earns the call. The move is always the same: find the one signal that most directly indicates the prospect has to move a KPI, then describe the problem that signal implies in their own terms. Two real shapes follow.
Example 1 — the company just opened a second location
Signal: a second office or plant announced, a second-site hiring push, a new-region page on the site.
Why it maps to a KPI: whoever owns operations or revenue for that expansion is now measured on the new site performing like the first one. That is the mandate.
The problem behind the signal: the processes that ran inside one meeting room — the standup, the pipeline review, the handoffs people did by walking across the floor — do not survive being split across two locations. Site two ends up disconnected from site one. The playbook that was tacit is now a liability because it was never written down.
Frame, spoken:
"You've opened the [city] site this year. The teams I work with hit the same wall around then — everything that used to happen because people were in one room stops working once it's two locations, and the second site drifts. Is that showing up for you yet, or is it still early?"
What makes it good: it names the expansion (researched), names a problem the person owning the expansion actually feels, and ends on a question that is not yes/no. It never mentions a product.
Angles that came before this one landed: "growing pains" (too vague), "you're hiring a lot" (not a problem, just an observation), "onboarding at scale" (real, but not what this persona is measured on). Expect two or three misses per persona before the frame lands.
Example 2 — the company made its first outbound sales hire
Signal: a first SDR / outbound manager / head of sales development role posted or filled, at a company that has been marketing-led or ad-led until now. Corroborate with tool evaluations — job descriptions listing a dialer, a sequencer, a data provider — which say they are building the motion from zero.
Why it maps to a KPI: that hire is on the hook for a pipeline number from a channel the company has never run. Everything they need to hit it is missing.
The problem behind the signal — the six things that person has to solve:
| Gap | The question they can't yet answer |
|---|---|
| Attribution | How do marketing-qualified leads get separated from outbound-sourced and credited to the new team? |
| Playbook | Is there anything a rep can run from day one, or does every rep improvise? |
| Playbook authorship | Who actually writes it, and when? |
| Infrastructure | Are there dialers and inboxes set up to place calls and land email in the right place? |
| Data | Is there contact data good enough to work from? |
| Addressable market | Is there a written ICP precise enough to define the total market the team is working? |
Frame, spoken:
"You've brought in [name] to build outbound — first hire into that motion, from what I can see. The pattern I see is they spend the first quarter building plumbing instead of selling: no day-one playbook, attribution not split out from marketing, data and dialing infra still being stood up. Where is [name] spending time right now?"
What makes it good: the signal (first outbound hire) is a direct indicator of the KPI (new pipeline from a new channel). The frame lists specific, checkable gaps rather than "scaling is hard." The ask that follows is a working session on one of those gaps — selling the meeting, not the system.
The proof point that pairs with it: name a comparable company where the first outbound hire had a written playbook and split attribution in week one, and what that let them do — an outcome, not "we set up their outbound."