How many of last month's first calls deserved your hour?
A worksheet for founders of B2B companies who still run every first conversation with a new account. In about 30 minutes you list last month's first calls, test each one against five written facts, and work out the share of your call hours that went to calls failing at least one of them.
How do you audit founder-led sales calls?
List every first call from the last 30 days with the hours each took, including preparation and follow-up. Test each call against five facts: a person in the buying group, an account on your written list, a need in their own words, a lawful basis for contact, and no open deal. Divide the hours on failing calls by all call hours, and note which fact failed most.
What do the sources behind the audit say?
Chaque chiffre renvoie à la page dont il provient, afin que vous puissiez le vérifier avant de le reprendre.
| Ce que disent les données | Source |
|---|---|
| 60% of surveyed Swiss scale-ups name sales as their top operational challenge, ahead of access to growth capital at 37%. The sample is companies with 30 or more staff, or CHF 20 million raised, or CHF 5 million in revenue. | Swiss Scale-Up Report 2026, Deep Tech Nation Switzerland with startupticker.ch, Swisscom Ventures and SIX Swiss Exchange (September 2026) |
| Swiss UWG Art. 3 para. 1 let. o treats mass advertising by telecommunication without prior consent, a correct sender or a free opt-out as unfair. | Federal Act on Unfair Competition (UWG), SR 241, Swiss Federal Chancellery, Fedlex (consolidated 3 January 2025) |
What's in the audit
- Two fill-in tables: one for last month's first calls and the hours each took, one for testing each call against the five facts
- The pass and fail test for each fact, written for a founder's own calendar
- The arithmetic, with every formula shown and a worked example
- What to change this month, depending on which fact failed most often
- A one-line pipeline statement for your board, filled in from your own numbers
- The split between what a founder keeps and what can be handed off, with the sources behind it
Who the audit is for
For the founder or CEO of a B2B company of roughly 5 to 30 people who runs every first call personally, sells to a list of a few hundred to a few thousand companies, and gets asked about pipeline at every board meeting.
Who it's not for
If a seller on your team already runs discovery and you join only later calls, give the audit to them, since the hours it measures are theirs. If you sell to consumers or to an open market of tens of thousands of buyers, the five facts still read well but the account-list test will not fit your situation.
A look at the first step
The example uses round numbers to show the arithmetic and comes from no real company.
A first call is the first substantive conversation with a new account, whoever started it. Count the hours honestly, including preparation, the written answers you sent afterwards and any demo you built for that account. A founder who lists 12 calls at 2 hours each and finds 4 that pass all five facts has spent 16 of 24 hours on calls that failed at least one, which is 67%. The audit shows what to do in each case, depending on which fact failed.
Questions about the audit
What counts as a first call?
A first call is the first substantive conversation with a new account, whoever started it. Follow-up calls on a deal that is already moving do not belong here. Count the hours honestly, including preparation, the written answers you sent afterwards and any demo you built for that account.
What if I ran fewer than ten first calls last month?
One month is a small sample. If you ran fewer than ten first calls, treat the percentages as unreadable and look only at which fact failed most often, then repeat the audit next month with the same rules before you change anything expensive, such as a hire.
Is anything I type into the worksheet sent to Torke?
No. The worksheet works on paper and in your browser, where nothing you type is sent to us. The form on this page stores only your email address, the resource you asked for and the page you came from, in a database in the EU, for up to 395 days.
Get the audit by email
One email with the link, from vincent@torke.tech. The worksheet works on paper and in your browser, where nothing you type is sent to us.