2 min lesson
Anatomy of a cold call
Work through this case. "In the mock cold call, what is the single goal you should be optimizing for from the first second to the last?" Say what you would do and why.
Step 1 of 3
A cold call is five short conversations stacked back to back. Most reps lose at the seam between two of them: they earn permission and then pitch at once, or they run good discovery and then forget to ask for anything.
If your loop includes a mock call, the interviewer usually plays a skeptical engineering buyer who has likely already heard of the product. They are watching whether you can move cleanly through the phases under pressure, and a flashy pitch earns you very little. Know the goal of each phase cold and the call stops feeling like improv.
Interactive diagram. Step through it with the Next and Previous controls below, or Tab to a region to read its detail.
Each phase has one goal; the meeting ask is the gate that turns the whole call into a booked meeting.