Chapter 07Don't say a word

The pre-interview is the qualifying call. It runs fifteen minutes, it exists because someone said yes to a spotlight, and it works for one reason: I hand the other person the floor in the first ten seconds and I don't take it back until I know whether there's a fit. My own introduction comes last. The full version comes a week later, after their episode is done.

Every sales instinct I had for twenty years said the opposite. Open strong, establish credibility and tell them who you are before they drift. So when founders ask me how I start these calls, I give them the instruction that runs against all of that:

So as soon as you start the call, you first don't say a word. You say, nice to meet you. This is about the show. We only have 15 minutes together. Do you mind? Let's do some Quick introductions. Would you like to go first? And after you speak, I'll tell you a little bit about myself and the show, and we can both decide if there's a fit.

That's the whole opener. Everything after it is what happens once they say yes.

Fifteen minutes, on purpose

Look at my calendar on a weekday and you'll see a wall of short blocks. Most of them are pre-interviews. The person on the other side got an invite to my show and booked a slot. They think they're auditioning for a podcast. They are. I'm also finding out whether they could buy from me, invest with me or partner with me.

Because I can fit 50 pre-interviews in a day. So imagine talking to 50 managers in a day.

Fifty is a big day. Thirty is normal. The math only works because each block is short, and the short block does a second job: it tells the other person, politely, that we're getting straight to it. I fought that at first. A fifteen-minute call felt rude, like I was rationing my time. Then I flipped it:

but then I do call out the urgency of the call just because it's 15 minutes, and that's also by design. And I used to hate it, but now I love it.

The guest gets something out of this too. They walk into the taping knowing my rhythm and knowing what I'll ask. The pre-interview takes the nerves out of the show. For me, it's a filter. I said it plainly to a founder once, voicing both sides:

15 minutes you quickly assess whether they're qualified prospect for you while also obviously making them feel comfortable about the podcast

So the same fifteen minutes does two jobs, comfort for them and qualification for me, and neither one needs me to talk.

You go first

I start with nice to meet you and one line of small talk if there's something real to say, like where they're dialing in from or something in their profile. Then I name the time and ask the question.

I go, look, we don't have a lot of time. Let's do some quick introductions. Would you like to go first? So I feel like the less I say, the more I can get them to say up front. That's the first win I'm looking for.

The first win. Before any question about budget or need, I want them talking. And almost everyone takes the offer, because they came for an interview:

I always open the door for them to go first. 80%, 90% of the time, they're usually like, oh yeah, sure. And they jump right into it.

And there's also already this pretext that they're coming on the show, so they're ready to kind of put their best foot Forward, they start talking about themselves.

Notice what the show does here. On a normal sales call, the buyer is guarded. They know you want something, so they give you as little as they can. On a pre-interview they want to impress you. You're the host. They pitch themselves for ten minutes and hand you everything a discovery call tries to dig out.

Sometimes they push back and insist you go first. Fine. Don't fight it:

And if somebody's like, no, no, no, I want you to talk first, then okay, then start talking. But 9 out of 10 times, I'll always get them to start talking first.

When you do go first, keep it to a few sentences about the show, then hand it back.

Once they start, watch the clock. The danger is a guest who gives you thirty seconds and stops. Then you use the most useful word in the call:

They start blabbing, blab, blab, blab. I'm keeping an eye on the watch because if they just talk for 5 seconds, I need them talking more. Can you elaborate a little bit more?

Elaborate. Tell me more about that. What happened next? Short prompts, then silence.

Collecting data

What do I ask while they talk? Plain questions about where they are. I run two businesses with my partner, one for go-to-market and one for fundraising, so my questions follow that:

But then I start asking my questions, hey, where are you guys with Gtm? Hey, where are you guys with fundraising?

Yours will be different. A payments company asks about volume and corridors. A fund asks about the next close. The shape stays the same: where are you with the thing I solve?

The harder discipline is what I don't do:

and I never push back on anything. I never try and make myself look smarter. And I think I'm just collecting data, just collecting data first 10 minutes, letting them talk, letting them vent, letting them get everything out of their system.

Pushing back feels like engagement. It's me grabbing the floor. The moment I correct someone's thesis, they stop telling me what they need and start defending what they said. So I let the wrong take go by. I'll have an hour on the show to go deep if they make it there.

Under the plain questions sits the oldest checklist in sales. IBM made it famous, it's standard in sales now, and I still run it on every call:

Budget, authority, needs, timeline. Like, you should never leave a call unless you know those 4 things.

Do they have money, are they the one who decides, do they have the problem, and is there a date? You don't ask those four out loud. You listen for them. A guest prepping for a show tells you about the round they're about to open, the co-founder who handles the money and the launch in March without being asked, because it's their story.

Some of it you can get before the call. The booking form carries a few questions, and they do real work:

And in those questions, I'm literally asking questions like, how much money did you spend on growth?

By minute ten I know which kind of call this is:

within a few minutes, I know if there's signal or noise. And if there's signal, okay, come on the show.

You'll get faster at this. The first fifty pre-interviews, you'll be unsure at minute fourteen. After a few hundred, you'll know at minute four. Pattern recognition only comes from volume, which is one more reason the blocks are short.

When there's no fit

Noise happens all the time and it's fine. The person is still building the product. They raised last month. They have no budget and no plan to get one. Nothing wrong with them; they just don't need what I sell this year.

there's no point in pitching somebody that doesn't have a need.

So I close the call kindly, inside the fifteen minutes, and I keep the door open:

most of them you can say, sorry, I don't think it's a fit or hey, I'll refer you to somewhere else. Or hey, we're doing a thing six months from now.

Three exits. Not a fit. Here's someone better. Let's pick this up later. Every one of them is true and every one of them leaves the relationship better than I found it. Sometimes the person with no fit for me is a great guest anyway, and I still book them. The show doesn't care whether they buy.

My turn

If I hear signal, I start talking around minute ten. They've told me where they are. Now I talk, and this is the moment where the old instinct comes back hard:

And then once they've done all that, then I go into, hey, okay, so now now it's my turn to talk, right? And normally the instinct would be for me to go into like, hey. I'm Sunny, I'm awesome, and I'm amazing, and I do this and I do that. But I resist that.

What I do instead is assume the yes. They came to a pre-interview for a show. They just spent ten minutes giving me their best material:

they probably want to get on the freaking show.

So I open my calendar on the call and book the taping. No follow-up email, no "I'll send you some times." The date goes in while they're on the line:

this is the type of guy I want in my club then you go hey look come on the show next week whatever

With the taping booked, I usually have two or three minutes left. That's where the seed goes. I tell them the show is free, because it is, and then I ask whether they mind hearing what we do:

So I make it clear that, hey, look, the podcast is not like pay-to-play.

You're not going to close them on that first pre-interview. But the seed is planted.

One minute about the core business, then I stop. The exact words, and why permission comes before the minute, are chapter ten. For now, know that the seed goes in at the end of the pre-interview, after the taping is on the calendar, never before.

The introduction I save for last

They know the show and what the business does, but I still haven't told them where I came from, and that's deliberate:

I have a way where I don't even introduce myself until their podcast is over. Think about that for a second. Meaning I do my proper introduction after. Why? Because my philosophy is just like, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give, give. And then maybe ask for a little bit at the end.

The proper introduction is the engineer who spent eight years in robotics and started India's first bitcoin exchange. It's a good story. It's also a story about me, and every minute I spend on it in the first meeting is a minute the guest spends listening instead of talking. So it waits. By the time they hear it, I've researched them, put them on a show and sent them their episode. They're receiving my credentials after they've received my work, which is the right order.

And by then, the ask at the end is small and easy to say yes to:

And people cannot say no. It's like checkmate.

It took me a while to admit it, but the pre-interview is my favorite part of the whole system. The taping is fun. The pre-interview is where I learn the most per minute:

that's why I prefer pre-interviews over actual interviews. Because they're way more exciting and just fast-paced.

Try this week

Run your next first call on this clock, fifteen minutes with a timer you can see.

1. In the first minute, say nice to meet you, add one real line of small talk, name the fifteen minutes and offer them the floor with the opener at the top of this chapter. 2. From minute one to minute ten, they talk. When they stop early, ask them to elaborate. Ask where they are with the thing you solve. Never push back. On a notepad, mark budget, authority, need and timeline as each one comes up. 3. At minute ten, decide whether you heard signal or noise. 4. If it was noise, pick one of the three exits (not a fit, here's someone better, let's talk in six months) and end early. 5. If it was signal, say a few sentences about the show, open your calendar and book the taping before they leave. 6. In the last two minutes, say the show is free, ask if they mind hearing what you do, talk for one minute and stop. 7. Keep your full story for after the taping.

Then the exercise. Hold your own introduction to the last two minutes, and right after the call write down what you learned that you would have talked over if you'd gone first. Look for the second partner, the deadline, the thing they tried last year that failed.

So here's the question. On your last first call, how many minutes did you talk before they told you what they needed?