The 5-Minute AI Call Prep That Changed How I Walk Into Big Calls

I used to walk into big calls cold, and honestly, it showed. I'd glance at a name on my calendar, maybe skim a LinkedIn profile for thirty seconds while the call was already dialing, and hope I could keep up. Sometimes I did. More often I spent the first five minutes of the actual call doing the homework I should have done before it started, asking questions I could have answered myself, missing the one detail that would have told me exactly what this person cared about.

This is hack 6 in my "30 Hacks From Dahlia" series, and it's one of the smallest ones I use and one of the ones I lean on the most. It doesn't need a new subscription or a habit that falls apart after a week. It needs five minutes and two things I already have on hand: the other person's public bio, and my own notes.

Why "did your homework" beats "scripted" every time

There's a real difference between a call where someone clearly prepared and a call where someone is reciting lines, and the person on the other end of the line can always tell which one they're in. A scripted call sounds rehearsed because it is: you're listening for your next cue instead of listening to what's actually being said. A prepared call sounds like a conversation, because you already know enough going in that you can spend your attention on the person, not on catching up.

That's the entire point of this hack. I'm not asking AI to write me a call script. I'm asking it to do the fast background work, connecting a person's public bio to my own notes and the goal of the call, so I walk in already oriented. What I do with that orientation is still up to me, in real time, in the actual conversation.

What I gather before I open the AI tool

The exact prompt I use

I keep this simple on purpose. Once I have the three inputs above, I paste them into an AI tool with a version of this request:

Here's their public bio: [paste]. Here are my notes from our last conversation and where things stand: [paste]. The goal of this call is [state goal]. Give me three talking points that connect what they care about to what I'm bringing to this call, and two smart questions that show I've done my homework, not questions with an obvious answer.

The goal line is doing more work in that prompt than it looks like. Without it, the AI defaults to generic talking points, the kind that could apply to any call with any person. State the goal explicitly, and the talking points sharpen into something that actually connects to what I need from the next thirty minutes. Asking for questions instead of just points matters too: a good question does more work in a real conversation than a good pitch ever does, because it hands the floor back to the other person and gives me something real to listen to.

This is about warmth, not a script

I don't bring the output of that prompt onto the call and read from it. I read it once, before I dial in, and then I close it. The value isn't the exact wording of the three points or the two questions. The value is what I already know once I've read them: who this person is, what we've already covered together, and what I'm actually trying to accomplish. That's context loaded into my head, not lines loaded into my mouth.

I didn't need better lines. I needed to walk in already knowing who I was talking to.

How the prep shifts: donor calls, sales calls, internal calls

The three inputs stay the same, but what I emphasize in each one changes depending on who's on the other end and what the call is actually for.

Donor calls

Here the public bio carries the most weight. I look for anything they've said publicly about why they give, what causes they've supported, or a mission moment they've mentioned in an interview or a post. The goal of the call is rarely "close a gift" in the first conversation, it's usually "understand what they actually care about," so I ask the AI tool to weight the questions toward learning, not toward the ask.

Sales calls

The bio matters here too, but I lean harder on their current role and what their organization seems to be prioritizing right now. The goal is usually more concrete: a next step, a demo, a specific yes. The two questions I ask for are the ones that surface a real pain point instead of ones I could have guessed the answer to from their website alone.

Internal calls

There usually isn't a public bio to pull from with a colleague or teammate, so the prep leans almost entirely on my own notes: what we decided last time, what's still open, what this call actually needs to resolve. The goal shifts from persuasion to alignment. Same five minutes, same prompt structure, different inputs.

Key takeaways

• Five minutes before a big call, gather three things: their public bio, your own notes or CRM history, and a stated goal for that specific call.
• Ask the AI tool for three talking points and two smart questions, not a script to read from.
• State the goal explicitly in the prompt. It's what turns generic output into something actually relevant to this conversation.
• Read the output once before the call, then close it. The value is what you now know, not the exact wording.
• Adjust the emphasis by call type: bio-heavy for donor and sales calls, notes-heavy for internal ones.

Dahlia Imanbay

AI Strategist, Fractional CMO, and Full-Stack Developer with 16+ years of experience building AI systems for healthcare, SaaS, and mission-driven brands. Writes from production experience, not theory.