---
title: "Listen to and Score a Prospecting Call: Exercise | Skipcall"
description: "A recorded prospecting call, eight observable criteria to tick, then the expert’s correction line by line: the exercise of a call review session."
url: https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr/listen-to-a-call
language: en
---
[Stage 4 · Discovery and listening](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr)

# Listen to and score a real call

You improve faster by listening to one call than by making ten. Provided you listen with a scorecard: observable criteria, not impressions.

8 min

+80 XP

3/4

[Academy](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/sdr)

0 %

Rookie · 0 XP

## Active listening means pointing to facts

“He lacks confidence” cannot be heard and cannot be coached. “He did not ask for permission in the first sentence” can be heard to the second and fixed on the very next call. Good listening looks for dated facts in the call: what the SDR said, what he did not say, and when the prospect’s tone changed.

Listen to the call once all the way through, without ticking anything: you hear the conversation the way the prospect lived it. Then tick the scorecard while replaying the passages that matter. A thirty-minute call review fits in this order: listen, score, keep one or two points to work on, not ten.

## The scorecard for this exercise

Eight criteria, all observable: clear introduction, permission or stated duration, reason for the call tied to the prospect, no product monologue before a question, at least one open question, a restatement, an open impact question, a precise and dated next step. For each one, you tick yes or no. The expert did the same, and you then compare criterion by criterion, with the line that proves each answer.

The call you are about to hear is played by two synthetic voices. It contains good practices and deliberate mistakes: an ordinary call, neither a disaster nor perfect, the kind you hear every day in a team.

## Key takeaways

- Useful listening points to dated facts in the call, not impressions.
- First listen all the way through without ticking, then the scorecard while replaying the passages that matter.
- Eight observable criteria: introduction, permission, reason, no monologue, open question, restatement, impact, next step.
- You leave a call review with one or two points to work on, never ten.

## Listen to the call, then score it

A seventy-second prospecting call, played by two synthetic voices. Listen to it once all the way through, then tick what the SDR did or did not do.

Tom Berger, SDR at Nexalis · Dana Whitfield, CFO at Vertuoz

0:00 / 1:13

### Transcript

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## Your scorecard

For each criterion, did the SDR do it? One call, eight observable criteria.

- Introduces himself clearly: first name, last name, company
- Asks for permission or states how long the call will take
- Gives a reason for the call tied to the prospect
- Avoids a product monologue before asking a question
- Asks at least one genuine open question
- Restates what the prospect says
- Digs into the impact with an open question
- Proposes a precise, dated next step

8 criteria left to score

## Go further

- [Sales call scorecard The full scorecard, by call type, with PDF export for your sessions.](https://skipcall.io/en/tools/sales-call-scorecard)
- [Call recording notice generator The voice announcement and privacy paragraph before reviewing real calls.](https://skipcall.io/en/tools/call-recording-notice-generator)
- [Cold call discovery questions The open questions the SDR in the call could have asked.](https://skipcall.io/en/blog/cold-call-discovery-questions)

A term you are not sure about? [The cold calling glossary](https://skipcall.io/en/academy/cold-calling-glossary)