Why does every sales call start from zero?

Consultancies should turn their repeated general explanations into accessible pre-call content to preserve scarce sales time and make discovery calls more useful, while keeping client-specific judgment and validation in the human conversation.

By Margarita Sánchez

· 5 min read

Table of Contents

If you run a small consultancy, you probably know the first half of your discovery calls by heart. The prospect describes their situation. You explain how the problem usually works, why the obvious fixes don't stick, what the real options are and what each one costs. Somewhere around the half-hour mark, the actual conversation starts: the one about their case.

You've given that explanation dozens of times. You give it well. And every time, it disappears when the call ends.

The knowledge that lives in one head

That explanation is valuable precisely because it isn't written down anywhere. It's what you learned from years of projects: which clients succeed, which shortcuts backfire, what people misunderstand at the start. Ikujiro Nonaka, who spent his career studying how companies create knowledge, called this tacit knowledge: "highly personal," "hard to formalize and, therefore, difficult to communicate to others" [1].

Tacit knowledge is what makes a firm good. It's also what makes it hard to grow. As long as the explanation lives in the founder's head, the founder has to be on the call. And sales time is already scarce: in Salesforce's survey of 7,775 sales professionals, reps said they spend just 28% of their week actually selling [2]. In a five-person consultancy, that "rep" is usually a partner who also delivers the work.

What happens when you write it down

Nonaka's point was that firms grow their knowledge by converting it: from tacit (in someone's head) to explicit (in a form others can use). For a consultancy's content, that means taking the explanation you give on every call and turning it into something a buyer can read before the call.

When that works, the call changes. The prospect arrives knowing how you see the problem, what the options are and why you work the way you do. The first half of the call becomes a short check ("Did that match your situation?") and the conversation starts where it used to end.

This is also why this kind of content is easier to write than people think. You're not inventing anything. You're recording something you already say, then shaping it.

The honest objection: some things can't be written down

Nonaka himself was clear that this is hard. Converting tacit knowledge, he wrote, "means finding a way to express the inexpressible" [1]. Judgment about a specific client, read in the moment, doesn't fit in an article.

Buyers know this too. In a 2026 Gartner survey of 645 B2B buyers, 69% said they prefer to validate AI-generated insights with sales reps [3]. People still want a person to confirm that the general answer applies to them.

So the goal isn't to replace the call. It's to stop spending the call on what could have been read. The general explanation goes into content; the judgment about their case stays in the conversation, where it's worth the most.

How to extract it, in four steps

  1. Audit the friction. Look at your last ten discovery calls (recordings, notes or memory). What did you explain in almost all of them? What did prospects misunderstand at the start? Make a list. The items that show up most are your first pieces.

  2. Interview the person who knows. Usually the founder or a senior partner. Three questions work well:

  3. - "In a recent complex project, what decision did we make that looked wrong at first, and why did we make it?"

  4. - "What mistake do clients usually make before they come to us, and what rule do we follow because of it?"

  5. - "When a client is choosing between us and another option, what decides whether it goes well or badly?"

  6. Turn the story into a principle. For each answer, write three parts: the situation the client was in, why the usual approach didn't work, and the rule you apply now. The story makes it credible; the principle makes it useful to someone else.

  7. Publish it where the buyer will find it, and send it before calls. A piece that answers the first half of your discovery call is most useful in the confirmation email for that call.

A small example

Say you run an engineering firm and every first call includes ten minutes on why fixed-fee bids on underdefined projects usually end in change orders. That's one article: the situation (client wants certainty on price), why the usual approach fails (the scope isn't known yet, so the price is a guess either way), and your rule (a paid discovery phase before a fixed fee). Send it before the next call and see whether those ten minutes come back.

Where this fits

Writing down what you already explain is the most direct way out of the treadmill described in You post every week. So why isn't your pipeline moving? It's also the fastest way to find your first topics, which is what Stop asking what to write about. Ask what your buyer can't decide. covers in more detail.

If you want a head start, our free diagnosis looks at what your buyers ask before deciding and whether anyone in your market already answers it well.

Sources

Questions this piece answers

Why does every sales call start from zero?

You've given that explanation dozens of times. You give it well. And every time, it disappears when the call ends. As long as the explanation lives in the founder's head, the founder has to be on the call.

How can I turn my consultancy's expertise into content that saves time on sales calls?

For a consultancy's content, that means taking the explanation you give on every call and turning it into something a buyer can read before the call. When that works, the call changes. The prospect arrives knowing how you see the problem, what the options are and why you work the way you do. The first half of the call becomes a short check ("Did that match your situation?") and the conversation starts where it used to end.

How do I identify what content my consultancy should create first?

Look at your last ten discovery calls (recordings, notes or memory). What did you explain in almost all of them? What did prospects misunderstand at the start? Make a list. The items that show up most are your first pieces.

How do I extract tacit knowledge from a founder or senior partner and turn it into useful content?

Usually the founder or a senior partner. Three questions work well: "In a recent complex project, what decision did we make that looked wrong at first, and why did we make it?" "What mistake do clients usually make before they come to us, and what rule do we follow because of it?" "When a client is choosing between us and another option, what decides whether it goes well or badly?" For each answer, write three parts: the situation the client was in, why the usual approach didn't work, and the rule you apply now. The story makes it credible; the principle makes it useful to someone else.

Should consultancy content replace sales calls?

So the goal isn't to replace the call. It's to stop spending the call on what could have been read. The general explanation goes into content; the judgment about their case stays in the conversation, where it's worth the most.

When should I send content to a prospect before a discovery call?

Publish it where the buyer will find it, and send it before calls. A piece that answers the first half of your discovery call is most useful in the confirmation email for that call.

Want your buyers to find you like this?

Start a conversation Or see the questions your buyers ask first

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