Most sales playbooks are detailed about the close. They are thin on the open.

There are pages on objection handling, negotiation, MEDDIC, multi-threading, and mutual action plans. There is rarely a page on what every rep is supposed to do in the first 30 seconds of a first meeting, what they show, what they say, and how the company is represented before a word is spoken.

Rep-to-rep variance shows up at first contact before it shows up in pipeline data.

By the time it becomes visible in your numbers, the opportunity has already moved through the funnel.

This checklist covers the five elements that create that variance, and gives you one diagnostic question for each one so you can find out where your team stands today.