What good call coaching looks like

After every call, Telmi writes your notes and a short piece of coaching. Writing that coaching taught us what makes feedback useful, mostly by producing a lot of feedback that wasn't.

Bad coaching could apply to any call

The first versions said things like "Be more confident", "Build rapport early", and "Listen more than you talk". All true. All useless. You can't do anything with them on Tuesday at 2pm.

So the rule we settled on is simple: every point has to be grounded in this call. It quotes or closely paraphrases what was actually said. If a piece of advice would fit any call, it doesn't belong.

Name the moment

Good coaching starts with a specific moment. Not "you dodged some questions" but: "Priya said finance wants proof before talking about pricing, and you moved straight to the pilot." You remember that moment. You can picture doing it differently.

Give the exact line

"Ask about their decision process" is a direction. A line is something you can say:

• "When Dana looks at the pilot, what would she need to see to call it a win?"
• "Can we hold thirty minutes on the 18th to go through the results together?"

A better line is the fastest way to change a habit, because next time you have the words ready. Telmi only writes a line when it can do so honestly: it won't put prices, numbers, or company facts in your mouth that weren't in the call or your notes. When it can't, it tells you what kind of answer to give instead.

Questions you left unanswered

The most useful single item is often a list of questions the other side asked that you never really answered. On a call, these slip by. Someone mentions pricing in passing, you get pulled onto something else, and it's gone. Afterward, it's the first thing to put in the follow-up email.

Things that are easy to measure

Some patterns show up in the transcript itself, so Telmi looks for them: talking far more than the other side, long rambling answers, filler, objections brushed past, and a call that ended without a clear next step or date. Talk share is shown during the call too, and turns amber once you pass 60%.

What went well, briefly

One or two specific things you did well, with the line that shows it. Not as encouragement, but so you know what to keep doing. If you don't know why something worked, you can't repeat it.

Next time, concretely

Two or three things to do on the next call with these people. "Open with what finance prefers." "Bring two pilot files side by side." "Leave with a decision date." Those go straight into your prep for the next meeting.

And when there's nothing to say

If you barely spoke, or the call was too short to judge, Telmi says nothing rather than guess. Coaching you can't trust is worse than none.

You can see a scripted example of the after-call notes and coaching at the end of the demo on our home page.