A deal review is a call between a manager and a rep about one live opportunity. It has one output: the next conversation with the buyer, planned well enough that the rep could have it an hour later.
Many deal reviews produce a close date and a to-do list: the manager asks where the deal is, the rep says "late stage, should land this month", and both leave with the picture they came in with. The fix is a change in what counts as an answer.
What a deal review is
A deal review is a 30-minute call on one opportunity in which the manager and the rep establish what the buyer has said and done, name the single thing the deal is missing, and plan the next buyer conversation. It is held out loud: the rep talks through the deal and the manager asks for the evidence behind each claim.
- 01The rep tells the deal0 to 5 min, from the buyer's side
- 02Evidence check5 to 15 min, the quote behind each stage
- 03Name what is missing15 to 20 min, one gap, written down
- 04Plan the next conversation20 to 27 min, the opening line
- 05Commit27 to 30 min, two dates in the CRM
Four rules keep it from drifting into a status update.
- One deal. Two at most. Five deals in thirty minutes is a pipeline review wearing the wrong name.
- Evidence only: things the buyer said or did, like "she forwarded our business case to the CFO on Tuesday and copied us". "The champion is bought in" is a feeling the rep has.
- The rep speaks first and uninterrupted. Advice given before the evidence is in is advice about a deal that may not exist.
- The output is a conversation: the next thing the rep will say to a named person, and when.
Deal review, pipeline review, forecast call
The three meetings have different jobs.
| Meeting | Scope | Question it answers | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Forecast call | Team or region | What number do we commit to? | A commit, with the swing deals named |
| Pipeline review | One rep's whole book | Is there enough, is it real, where is it stuck? | A ranked list of deals that need work |
| Deal review | One deal | What is this deal missing, and what is the next conversation? | A planned buyer conversation with a date |
A pipeline review decides which deal gets a deal review. A forecast call uses the result.
Stage the deal by buyer evidence
The stage the rep typed into the CRM is often a row ahead of what the buyer has done. Agreeing on the real stage is the core of the review, so walk the deal down this table before anyone discusses what to do.
| Stage the rep claims | Buyer evidence that earns it | What usually stands in for it |
|---|---|---|
| Qualified | The buyer described a problem in their own words and said why it matters this quarter | The rep's account research |
| Discovery complete | A named person put a number on the problem, and the rep can quote them | A list of features the buyer "liked" |
| Solution agreed | The buyer has said which of their criteria the solution meets and which it misses | A good demo with no objections |
| Economic buyer engaged | The person who signs has been on a call, asked about price or timing, and said what happens next | The champion "will take it upstairs" |
| Proposal | The buyer has walked the rep through their approval steps, with names and an order | "It is with procurement" |
| Commit | A dated step exists on the buyer's calendar that only makes sense if they are buying | A close date the rep chose |
Start at the top. The first row where the evidence is missing is the real stage. Everything the rep believes about the rows below it is a forecast of the buyer's behavior, and the review treats it that way.
The 30-minute deal review agenda
Use the same agenda every week so the rep prepares for it. If a step's output is missing, the step is unfinished.
| Minutes | Step | What happens | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | The rep tells the deal | From the buyer's side: who has the problem, what they said it costs, who decides, what happened last | The story, heard once, uninterrupted |
| 5 to 15 | Evidence check | The manager walks the stage table and asks for the quote or the email behind each row | The deal's real stage |
| 15 to 20 | Name what is missing | One gap, usually the economic buyer, the stated cost or the approval steps | One sentence, written down |
| 20 to 27 | Plan the next conversation | Who, the opening line, the buyer's likely answer, what the rep wants to leave with | The opening line, in the rep's words |
| 27 to 30 | Commit | The date of the conversation and of the next review | Two dates in the CRM |
Step three produces one gap. A review that names four gaps has produced a list for the rep to ignore. Pick the one that, if filled, moves the deal a row down the table.
Deal review questions by methodology
Each question below is answerable with something the buyer said or did (a quote, an email, a calendar entry, a signed document), and none of them can be answered by reading the CRM aloud. If your team runs a methodology, use its vocabulary: the review is where the method meets a live deal.
MEDDPICC teams (our MEDDPICC guide)
- Metrics: "What number did they say they need to move, and who said it?"
- Economic buyer: "When was the economic buyer last on a call, and what did they ask?"
- Decision process: "Name the steps between today and a signature, in order, with the person who owns each."
- Champion: "What has your champion done for this deal that cost them something?"
Gap Selling teams (our Gap Selling guide)
- "Describe their current state in their words. What is it costing them, in a number they gave you?"
- "How big is the gap to the future state they described, as the buyer measures it?"
ValueSelling Framework® teams (our ValueSelling guide)
- "What is the business issue, and which person with the power to buy owns it?"
- "What is their plan to buy, and where in that plan are we today?"
Four questions work for any method.
- "What has changed since the last conversation?" A rep who answers "nothing" has not spoken to the buyer.
- "If we sent the contract today, what would happen at their end tomorrow?"
- "Who at their end loses something if this project does not happen?"
- "Which conversation in this deal was the hardest?" The answer points at the skill to coach.
Name what is missing, then plan the next conversation
The gap is the first row of the table without evidence. The plan is the conversation that produces the evidence. A review that ends with "get to the CFO" has produced a task. A review that ends with the opening line of the CFO call has produced a plan.
Build the next conversation in four lines, and have the rep say each one out loud.
- Who: the named person, and why they would take the call.
- The opening: the first sentence the rep will say, in the rep's own words. If it begins with "just checking in", start again.
- The buyer's likely answer: the pushback the rep expects, and the reply to it.
- The exit: the one thing the rep wants to leave the call with (a date, a name, a number, an introduction).
Hearing the rep say the opening line is the point. A plan the rep can describe but cannot say is unfinished, and the manager hears the difference in ten seconds. This is also where the review becomes coaching: what happens back at work is more strongly tied to whether a skill gets used than anything in a training room (Saks & Belcourt 2006; Blume et al. 2010), and the deal review is back at work.
A worked example to run today
Rep: Riley. Account: Arrowmere, a 600-person logistics firm. CRM stage: Proposal. Close date: the 28th. (Arrowmere is a fictional account and the figures are illustrative.)
Minutes 0 to 5. Riley tells it. The VP of Operations, Dana, wants to cut dispatch errors. The demo went well and the proposal went to Dana last Thursday. "She said it looks good and she will take it to her CFO."
Minutes 5 to 15. The manager runs the table.
- Qualified: Dana described the problem on the first call and called it her Q4 priority. Evidence, yes.
- Discovery complete: did Dana put a number on dispatch errors? Riley checks the notes: on call two Dana said a mis-dispatch costs about $1,800 in rework and they see around 30 a month. Evidence, yes, and the rep had it without knowing it.
- Solution agreed: did Dana say which of her criteria the solution meets? Riley pushes past "the demo covered everything" to the follow-up email, where Dana wrote that it meets her two must-haves (fewer mis-dispatches, no change to the routing system) and misses one nice-to-have (a drivers' app). Evidence, yes.
- Economic buyer engaged: has the CFO been on a call or asked anything? No. Evidence, no.
Real stage: Solution agreed, two rows above where the CRM has it. The first row without evidence is the economic buyer.
Minutes 15 to 20. What is missing: the CFO has never heard this business case from anyone who can state it. Dana is being asked to carry a $54,000-a-month argument she has never made out loud.
Minutes 20 to 27. The next conversation is with Dana. Riley says the opening line: "Dana, before this goes to your CFO, can we spend 20 minutes on the number? You told me a mis-dispatch costs about $1,800 and you see 30 a month. I want to make sure that is the version he hears, and I would like to be in the room when he does." Dana's likely answer: "I can take it to him myself." Riley's reply: "Then let's build the two slides he will ask for, and I will be on standby for his questions." Exit: a date for the CFO conversation, with or without Riley in it.
Minutes 27 to 30. Dana call on Tuesday. Next review in a week. CRM stage moved back to Solution agreed, with the reason noted.
The rep left with an honest stage and a sentence to say.
Running deal reviews with every rep on every deal
A manager with eight reps and one thirty-minute review per rep per week spends four hours on deal reviews and covers eight deals. The rest of the book gets a status update or nothing. Adding reviews is not enough on its own: across 1,246 pharmaceutical reps, the manager's coaching skill predicted goal attainment, and frequent coaching from less skilled managers was linked to worse results (Dahling et al. 2016).
That is the problem our AI sales experts were built for. The rep brings a deal to Caty on a call and talks it through, the way they would with a manager who had the time. She stages the deal by buyer evidence and names what is missing, then plans the next conversation with the rep in the rep's own words, in the team's own method, whether MEDDPICC, SPIN or a house playbook. Gap Selling teams work the deal with Keenan, and ValueSelling Framework® teams with Val.
Any deal a rep brings gets the same standard, and the expert remembers it next time. A rep who cannot talk at that moment can type the deal in. The manager sees the read across the team through Bryce, who coaches the managers, and spends their four hours on the deals and the people that need a human.
Behind on the quarter, with deals still waiting for a review slot? Find out what each deal is missing, and fix it today. Talk to us.
FAQ
What is a deal review in sales?
A deal review is a call between a sales manager and a rep about one live opportunity. The rep talks through the deal, the manager asks for the buyer evidence behind each claim, they agree on what the deal is missing, and they plan the next buyer conversation. It runs about 30 minutes and produces a dated next step.
How is a deal review different from a pipeline review?
A deal review covers one deal in depth and a pipeline review covers a rep's whole book. The pipeline review asks whether there is enough pipeline, whether it is real and where it is stuck, and picks the deals that need a deal review. The deal review works one of those down to its next conversation.
What questions should a sales manager ask in a deal review?
A sales manager should ask deal review questions that only the buyer's words or actions can answer. When was the economic buyer last on a call and what did they ask? What number did the buyer say they need to move? What are the approval steps, in order, with names? What has changed since the last conversation? If we sent the contract today, what would happen tomorrow?
How long should a deal review take?
A deal review should take thirty minutes for one deal, or forty-five for two. Five minutes for the rep to tell the deal, ten to check the evidence, five to name the gap, seven to plan the next conversation and three to set dates. Reviews that cover more deals in the same time turn into status updates.
How often should you run deal reviews?
Run deal reviews weekly with each rep, on the one or two deals the pipeline review flagged. A weekly cadence lets the manager check whether last week's planned conversation happened and what the buyer said. Spaced coaching holds better than one long session: across 63 studies, spaced practice beat massed practice with an effect size of 0.46 (Donovan & Radosevich 1999).
Can an AI coach run a deal review?
An AI coach can run a deal review, and it runs it as a call. On Replicate Labs the rep talks the deal through with the coach, which stages it by buyer evidence and then plans the next conversation around whatever is missing, in the team's own methodology. The manager sees the read across the team. A rep who cannot talk at that moment can type the deal in.