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1. Kickoff Call Prep

Note: The video covers material not in the guide below — please watch in full.

Action Step

Complete this before moving on.

Follow along with the video and build the BrightLoop kickoff prep doc yourself. Feed Claude the three asset files — the discovery call transcript, the engagement summary, and the sales pain points guide — and have it build the prep doc. Then review the output and iterate: add a Risks & Landmines section, fix anything the AI missed, and make sure the board meeting timeline is front and center. Once you are happy with it, paste the markdown into a Google Doc and submit the Google Doc link.

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Training Guide

Here's the scenario. You just got assigned to a new client — BrightLoop. Sales already ran the discovery call. Your Partner lead, Cam, ran point on the sale. Now the deal is closed and you're running the engagement.

The kickoff call is tomorrow. You want to walk into that call knowing everything — what was promised, what the client's problems are, who the stakeholders are, and what you're going to say.

You have three assets to work with:

  • A discovery call transcript — the actual conversation between Yasin, Cam, Rachel (BrightLoop's CRO), and Amit (their CEO)
  • An engagement summary — the SOW that scopes out the three phases
  • The sales pain points guide — LeanScale's framework for categorizing client pain

All three are in your Academy-Practice-Assets/Kickoff-Prep folder.

(You're going to build a kickoff prep doc using all three. Here's how)

Step 1: Open Your Workspace​

Open VS Code. Make sure you're in your Academy course folder — you should see the S3 folder in your explorer on the left.

Click into S3-Agent-Platform-Practice → Academy-Practice-Assets/Kickoff-Prep. You'll see three files:

  • discovery-call-transcript-brightloop.md
  • sow-engagement-summary-brightloop.md
  • sales-pain-points-identification-guide.md

Open each one. Skim them. Get familiar with what's in each file. The transcript is long. The SOW is structured. The pain points guide is a reference framework.

Now open Claude Code in VS Code. You're going to feed it all three files and have it build your prep doc.

(Remember the copy path trick from the fundamentals? You're about to use it for real)

Step 2: Feed It the Context​

Here's how to give Claude all three files at once.

  1. In the VS Code explorer, find discovery-call-transcript-brightloop.md
  2. Right-click → Copy Path
  3. Click into the Claude Code chat input
  4. Press Shift + Enter to start a new line (this adds a line without sending)
  5. Paste the path
  6. Repeat for the other two files — right-click, Copy Path, Shift + Enter, paste

You should now have three file paths in your chat input, one per line. Above those paths, type your prompt:

"Read all three of these files. The first is a discovery call transcript for a new client called BrightLoop. The second is the engagement summary / SOW. The third is LeanScale's sales pain points identification guide. I need you to build me a kickoff prep doc for tomorrow's kickoff call."

Then below the three paths, add:

"The prep doc should include: a client overview, the key pain points mapped to our pain point categories, a proposed kickoff agenda, key questions I still need to ask on the call, a stakeholder map, and what I know vs what I still need to learn. Save it as kickoff-prep-brightloop.md in the [FOLDER]."

Hit Enter.

(Now watch)

Step 3: Watch It Work​

The AI reads all three files. It pulls the key details from the transcript — the Salesforce mess, the forty-eight-hour lead response time, the board meeting pressure, Priya's attribution problem (she's the demand gen lead), the AEs with no standardized process. It cross-references the engagement summary for the phased scope. And it maps the pain points to the categories from the guide.

A new file appears in your Academy-Practice-Assets/Kickoff-Prep folder: kickoff-prep-brightloop.md.

Open it. You should see:

  • Client Overview — BrightLoop, Series A, customer education platform, fifty-two people, the key players
  • Pain Point Mapping — their problems matched to the pain point categories (Visibility, Speed to Lead, Sales Process, Marketing Attribution, Talent Readiness)
  • Proposed Kickoff Agenda — what to cover on the call, in what order
  • Key Questions — the gaps in your knowledge that the kickoff needs to fill
  • Stakeholder Map — who's who, what they care about, who makes decisions
  • Know vs Need to Learn — what the transcript already told you vs what's still unclear

Look through it. Some of it will be solid. Some of it might be off. That's expected — the AI is working from a single transcript and a SOW. It doesn't have the full picture. You do.

(This is where you start editing)

Step 4: Make It Yours​

The prep doc is a first draft, not a final product. Read through it and look for:

Things it nailed. The pain point mapping should be strong — the transcript had clear signals. Rachel literally said "I've been living in spreadsheets" (Visibility). The forty-eight-hour lead response (Speed to Lead). "They both do it completely differently" (Sales Process). These map cleanly to the guide.

Things it missed or got wrong. Did it catch that Amit mentioned a VP of Product named Nina who has opinions on ICP? Did it note the SaaStr deadline in May? Did it pick up the political dynamic — Rachel's been there four months and is essentially building GTM from scratch?

Things you'd add. You know things the AI doesn't. Maybe you've worked with Salesforce cleanup before and know the first question to ask is "who has admin access?" Maybe you know that Craft Ventures has a portfolio ops team that sometimes gets involved. Add what you know.

Here's a prompt to iterate:

"Look at the kickoff prep doc you just created. I want you to add a section called 'Risks & Landmines' — things that could go wrong on this engagement based on what we know. Also, the stakeholder map is missing Nina, the VP of Product — add her. And in the agenda, make sure the board meeting timeline is front and center since that's their most urgent deadline."

The AI edits the existing file. You'll see the diffs — green for additions, red for removals. Review them.

(One more round)

Step 5: Cross-Reference the Pain Points​

Here's where the pain points guide earns its spot.

Open sales-pain-points-identification-guide.md and look at the Series A: CRO section. Read through the pain categories — Visibility, Marketing Issues, Sales Process, Hand-Off Process, Product, Talent Issues.

Now look at your prep doc. Ask yourself:

  • Did the AI correctly categorize the pain? The transcript had Rachel saying "I can't pull a forecast I trust." That's Visibility, category one. Did the AI map it there?
  • Are there pain points in the transcript that the AI missed? Amit mentioned "our ACV is all over the map" and "I know we need to pick a lane." That's not a standard category in the guide — but it's a real problem. Does it show up in your prep doc?
  • What about urgency indicators? The guide lists "Board meeting coming up in 2-4 weeks" as an urgency indicator for Visibility. BrightLoop has a board meeting in three weeks. That's a direct match. Is it flagged prominently?

If anything's missing, prompt the AI to add it. Be specific:

"In the pain point mapping section, add that the urgency indicator for Visibility is a direct match — they have a board meeting in three weeks. Also add an 'ICP / Positioning' category — Amit said their ACV ranges from 8K to 92K and they haven't picked an ideal customer profile. That's not in the standard guide but it's a real pain point for this engagement."

Step 6: Final Review​

Read the whole prep doc one more time. Ask yourself:

  • Do I know what was promised?
  • Do I know what their biggest problem is right now? (Board meeting in three weeks, no trustworthy forecast)
  • Do I know who's in the room and what each person cares about?
  • Do I have questions that show I did my homework — not just "tell me about your business" but "Rachel, you mentioned Malik uses Gong consistently but Lisa doesn't — is that a process issue or a tool issue?"
  • Do I have a proposed agenda, or am I going to wing it?

When you're happy with it, you're done.

Submission​

  1. Open kickoff-prep-brightloop.md in VS Code
  2. Select all the raw text (the actual markdown with # symbols and ** marks — not the rendered view)
  3. Copy it
  4. Open a new Google Doc
  5. Paste — the markdown formatting should convert automatically (if it doesn't, check that you enabled "Automatically detect Markdown" in Google Docs → Tools → Preferences)
  6. Submit the Google Doc link

What You Just Did​

You took a messy discovery transcript, a structured SOW, and a pain point framework — three different types of documents — and synthesized them into a single prep doc for a real client scenario. You used file system access to feed multiple files at once. You used prompting to get a first draft. You used follow-up prompts to iterate and improve it. And you used your own judgment to catch what the AI missed.

That's the workflow. Not "ask the AI and accept what it gives you." Ask the AI, review it, push it further, add what you know. The AI does the heavy lifting. You do the thinking.

(Next up: you've got the prep doc. Now build what you're actually presenting on the call)