Score the Call, Not Just the Quarter

Nate: So I've been talking to an SE leader who built something I haven't seen anyone else do well. He's scoring individual customer calls — not just deal outcomes — on a one-to-five scale across two categories. And then he's aggregating those scores per deal and per SE over time.

Ava: Wait, scoring as in... someone listens to the call and rates it?

Nate: Not someone. The calls get recorded and transcribed, and AI evaluates them against a defined framework. Two categories. Compelling event — did the SE uncover the cost of inaction, the current state, the future state? And technical win — did the SE tie features to the customer's specific pain, or just run a product tour?

Ava: What kind of tool?

Nate: Conversation intelligence platform with a custom scoring rubric on top. One to five per category per call, rolled up across all the calls on a deal.

Ava: Welcome to Leading PreSales. I'm Ava.

Nate: And I'm Nate. Every episode, one idea, five minutes. Today: scoring the call, not just the quarter.

Ava: Okay, I have a hundred questions. Starting with the obvious one. Why not just look at win rates and attainment? Those are the numbers leadership cares about.

Nate: Because they're lagging indicators. By the time you see a bad win rate, the damage was done three months ago. You can't coach a Q1 loss in Q2. But if you're scoring calls in real time, you can see that an SE's compelling event score has been sitting at a two out of five for the last four weeks — and you can intervene BEFORE those deals stall.

Ava: So it's like checking your training metrics instead of just waiting for the race result.

Nate: Exactly. And here's what makes this SE leader's approach smart. He doesn't expect every call to score a five. That would be insane — a first discovery call won't cover everything. The power is in the aggregation. You look at ALL the calls on a deal and ask: by the time we're heading into a decision, do we have a strong compelling event score? Do we have a technical win? If both are high, that deal is in good shape. If one is weak, you know exactly where to focus.

Ava: I love the concept. But I have to be honest — my immediate worry is the human side. If I tell my twelve SEs that every call they make is being scored by an AI... that feels like surveillance. Big Brother watching every word.

Nate: He actually used that exact phrase. He said the tool is like a knife — you can make a beautiful sandwich with it, or you can cause real damage. And the difference is entirely in how you communicate and deploy it.

Ava: What did he do to get the team comfortable?

Nate: Transparency from day one. He told the team — this is a development tool, not a performance weapon. He showed them the rubric. No black box, no rankings. And critically — he went through the training himself first. Same sessions, same roleplays. When he asked the team to engage with the scoring, he could speak from experience, not just authority.

Ava: Did everybody buy in?

Nate: Not immediately. Some assumed the worst. But because he'd done the work himself, the pushback faded fast. You can't argue with a leader who's in the arena with you.

Ava: Leading by example. That matters more than people admit... Okay, so let's talk about those two categories. Why compelling event and technical win specifically? Why not, say, discovery quality or demo effectiveness?

Nate: Because they sit at the intersection of SE and AE responsibility, and that's where the real leverage is. The AE typically owns the MEDDIC framework — decision process, economic buyer, champion. The SE owns the compelling event and the technical win. When you score them separately, you're not stepping on each other's toes. You're saying: this is YOUR scorecard, and that is THEIRS. And then you look at the deal from both angles.

Ava: So neither role can hide behind the other. Compelling event score is a two but MEDDIC looks clean? SE has work to do. Technical win is a five but there's no champion? That's an AE problem.

Nate: And after a few months of data, you start seeing patterns across SEs. One person might nail the technical win consistently but score low on compelling event. That's a VERY specific coaching conversation. "You're great at showing the product. Now let's work on why the customer should care about changing."

Ava: That's so much more useful than "your win rate is low — figure it out."

Nate: Because the score isn't the destination. The coaching conversation it enables — THAT'S the destination.

Ava: What's the move?

Nate: Pick two categories that matter most for YOUR sales motion. Define what a one looks like and what a five looks like — write it down, make it concrete. Start scoring calls and aggregating per deal. And when you roll it out, lead with why. Show the team the rubric. Do the training yourself. Make it a development tool that happens to produce data, not a surveillance system that happens to coach.

Ava: Score the call. Coach the pattern. Win the quarter. I'm Ava.

Nate: And I'm Nate. See you next episode.