Before you book the next meeting, ask whether it is worth their time and when they need this in place, then propose one step and the one after it. In Gong's data, next steps go with closing only on the first call.
The call went well and you are about to book the next meeting. You have not asked whether the buyer thinks it is worth their time.
In the last few minutes, before you offer a next step, ask three things. Is it worth spending more time together? When, at the latest, would they want this in place? And does the step you are about to propose fit the way their company has bought before? The first two tell you whether the deal has earned a next step at all. The third comes with a recommendation: one next step and the one after it, why they help the buyer, and a check against how the company buys.
Armand Farrokh, who publishes this as the five-minute drill, grades sellers on three levels. Never setting a next step is bad. Setting one on every deal is only acceptable. Setting one on the deals that are real is good. The questions are how you tell which deals are real.
Farrokh's first two questions, from June 2023. Say out loud what the next stage will cost both sides, such as pulling both technical teams into a demo or building a business case for the CFO. Then ask "is it worth continuing to invest more time together?" If the answer is no, do not set a next step until the buyer says what would make it a yes. Next, play back what the buyer said about their timing and ask "When's the latest you'd want something like this in place?" An answer more than six months out is his signal to test whether this is a priority now.
The third question, from February 2025. Propose the next step and the one after it, then check the fit. In his example the seller proposes an hour on the solution next week, then, if that goes well, starting to build support inside the company with a senior sponsor, and then asks how that compares with the way they have bought in the past. He proposes two steps so the buyer agrees to a buying process, not to a free demo.
David Priemer's three Ps. Prepare a short list of possible next steps before the call. Propose the best one, not the list. Position it: say why it helps them, and give them room to say no. In his worked example the seller suggests a 15-minute online self-assessment and a follow-up call on the results, as something his clients often find helpful. When the buyer asks for a proposal instead, he offers to walk them through it on a short call, so their internal conversation afterwards goes better.
Roger Fisher's yes-or-no chart, as James Sebenius describes it in Negotiation Journal in 2013. Fisher sketched how the person on the other side would weigh saying yes against saying no today. Then he sketched the choice he wanted them to face, and changed what sat in the yes and no columns until yes won. The request he made was whatever the second chart had turned into a yes.
Nobody has measured the drill. No study compares reps who ask the three questions with reps who do not, counts how many deals the questions filter out, or follows what happens to the deals that survive.
Next steps go with closing, but only early, in Gong's data. Gong, which sells the call-recording software that produced the analysis, looked at 28,833 closed deals. Close rates fell 71% when next steps were not discussed on the first call. Sellers in the fastest fifth of deals spent 53% more time on next steps in the first meeting. Time spent on next steps in later calls made no difference to how long deals took. A second Gong analysis, of 8,382 deals, found deals that discussed next steps closed at 20%, against 5% for deals that did not. Gong publishes no method for either, and both are correlations: a buyer who means to buy is also more willing to spend ten minutes planning. The finding on later calls argues against running the drill at the end of every call, which is how Farrokh publishes it.
A specific ask works once the deal is live. Gong's analysis of 304,174 emails, again with no method published, found that in a first cold email, asking about interest booked a meeting 30% of the time, against 15% for proposing a specific day and time. Inside a live deal the order reversed: a specific day and time booked 37%, an open request 32% and the interest question 25%.
Why one step and not a menu is covered, with its evidence, under Offer one recommendation, not a menu.
Asking about an intention changes it. Chantelle Wood, Mark Conner, Eleanor Miles and colleagues pooled 116 tests and found that asking people about their intentions nudges what they do afterwards. The effect is small, smaller still once missing studies are allowed for, and smaller again in real-world settings and outside student samples. Vicki Morwitz, Eric Johnson and David Schmittlein found the same for purchases in 1993, and added that asking people with low intent again and again made them less likely to buy. So the first two questions change the answer as well as read it.
A reason, and room to say no. In Ellen Langer, Arthur Blank and Benzion Chanowitz's photocopier study, any reason, even an empty one, lifted agreement to a small request from 60% to over 90%. For a large request only a real reason helped, 42% against 24%, and that gap was not statistically reliable in groups of about 25 people. Telling people they are free to refuse has its evidence under Agree how the meeting will end before it starts. One detail belongs here: Christopher Carpenter's review of 42 studies found the effect came almost entirely from people who answered on the spot, and was close to nothing when they replied later. That is the difference between asking on the call and asking in the follow-up email.
The intention findings come from consumers and students deciding for themselves, not from one person inside a buying group. Every sales figure here comes from Gong, which sells the software that produced it. Nobody has compared reps who run the drill with reps who do not. The evidence supports spending less time on deals that are not real, not winning more of the ones that are.
Ask the first two questions to decide where your hours go. Then recommend one next step and the one after it, with a reason the buyer can repeat to their team. Put the weight on the first call, where the only measured next-step effect sits, and ask for the yes or no while you are still on the call.