Before a discovery call, spend ten minutes on five things: what they told you when they booked, what they sell and to whom, how they get customers, who they compete with, and what has changed for them recently. Then write down three things worth raising and three questions you could only ask because you looked. That is the whole job. More is usually procrastination, and less means the first ten minutes of the call go on facts you could have read.
1. Their own answers
Start with what they told you. If your booking form asked about budget, timing and what they want fixed, those answers are the best research you have: they are in their words and they are recent. Read them twice. The three questions a booking form should ask covers what to collect, and everything below builds on it.
2. What they sell, and to whom
Their homepage, their about page and their pricing page, in that order. You are after four facts, and a company that hides its pricing has told you one of them: it sells to larger customers, or wants a conversation first.
- Product: what they sell, in one sentence you could say back to them.
- Customer: who buys it, and whether that is a business or a person.
- Price: a number if it is public, and how they sell if it is not.
- Stage: a team page, a careers page or a funding note tells you more than any database.
3. How they get customers
If they spend on ads, the ads are public. Meta's Ad Library and Google's Ads Transparency Center show what a company is running and roughly how long each ad has been live, and an ad still running after 30 days is probably working. How to see what ads a company is running walks through both.
The code on their homepage tells you the rest. A Meta Pixel or a Google Ads tag means they track paid traffic, Shopify or WooCommerce means they sell online, and Klaviyo or HubSpot names the email tool. Free browser extensions will list these for you.
4. Who they compete with
Search for the company's name with the word competitors and read the first page; most categories have two or three names that come up every time. Then check their ads too. A rival running twice as many ads, or leading with a different offer, is worth knowing before someone on the call asks what you would change.
5. What changed recently
A new market, a new product, a funding round, a wave of hiring. Their news page, their careers page and a news search cover it. A change is usually why a company books a call now rather than six months ago, and naming it is the quickest way to show you understand why they are here.
Turn it into three and three
Research nobody uses is just reading. Before the call, write down two short lists.
- Three things worth raising. Specific, checkable and theirs: their longest running ad and its offer, a gap between their price and a rival's, the market they are about to enter.
- Three questions only research could produce. Not what do you do, but whether the trial they lead with at home is the offer they want in the new market.
Doing it for every call
Ten minutes is easy for a few calls a week. At twenty or thirty, preparation is the first thing to go, and it tends to go on the calls that mattered most. Setupp's pre-call research does steps two to four on its own when someone books: it reads their website, counts their ads on Meta and Google, lists the longest running ones, names up to three competitors, and writes a brief with three points and three questions.
It starts from the company's domain, never from a personal address, and looks up nothing about the person. Pair it with a score on every booking and you know which calls to prepare for hardest before you open any of them.