A pipeline review is a weekly call in which a manager and a rep go through the rep's whole book, decide which deals are real and pick the ones that need work this week. The template below is a single table. Each deal gets a row, and each row ends in a next conversation with a date or in a decision to drop the deal.
Most pipeline review templates are a forecast sheet with a column for notes. They ask for commit, upside and coverage, which the CRM can produce without a meeting, and they leave the question that needs two people in the room unanswered: is this deal where the rep says it is? The template here answers that for every row by staging the deal on what the buyer has done. The forecast falls out of the result instead of going in first.
What a pipeline review is for
A pipeline review has two jobs and a decision: establish how much of the book is real and where each deal is stuck, then choose the two or three deals that get a deal review this week. It covers the whole book in 45 minutes, which means most deals get two minutes and a decision, and a few get flagged for a longer call.
It sits between two other meetings.
| Meeting | Scope | Output |
|---|---|---|
| Pipeline review | The whole book, two minutes a deal | Real stage per deal, the gaps, the deals to work this week |
| Deal review | One deal, thirty minutes | The next buyer conversation, planned down to the opening line |
| Forecast call | The team number | A commit with the swing deals named |
The pipeline review template
Copy this table into a doc or a sheet. One row per open deal above whatever amount keeps the list to one page.
| Deal | Amount | CRM stage | Stage by buyer evidence | Last buyer action (what, who, date) | What is missing | Next conversation (who, purpose, date) | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Account and opportunity | $ | What the CRM says | The rung of the ladder below that the deal has earned | The last thing the buyer did, with a date | The first rung without evidence | Named person, what the rep wants to leave with, calendar date | Work / Hold / Drop |
Column notes:
- Stage by buyer evidence. Set from the ladder in the next section, using what the buyer did. The CRM stage stays in its own column so the two can disagree in public.
- Last buyer action. An email the buyer sent, a meeting the buyer accepted, a document the buyer forwarded. An email the rep sent does not count.
- What is missing. One item: the first rung without evidence.
- Next conversation. With a buyer, with a date. A "follow up" has neither.
- Decision. Work means a deal review this week. Hold means a dated buyer conversation already exists and the manager is not needed. Drop means the deal leaves the forecast and comes back when the buyer acts.
Three lines at the top of the page: quota for the quarter, closed to date, and the sum of the Amount column for deals at rung 4 or above. That last figure is the forecast you can defend.
Stage by buyer evidence: the six-rung ladder
A deal's rung is the highest row for which the rep can produce something the buyer said or did. The rows below the first missing one are the rep's hopes.
| Rung | Buyer evidence | The question that tests it |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Problem stated | The buyer described the problem in their own words and said why it matters this quarter | "Quote me what they said." |
| 2. Cost stated | A named person put a number on the problem | "What is the number, and who said it?" |
| 3. Criteria agreed | The buyer has said what a solution must do and which of those we meet | "What is on their list, and what did they say we miss?" |
| 4. Economic buyer engaged | The signer has been on a call and asked about price, timing or risk | "When was the signer last on a call, and what did they ask?" |
| 5. Path to signature mapped | The buyer walked us through their approvals, in order, with names | "Name the steps and the people." |
| 6. Buyer-dated close | A step on the buyer's calendar that only makes sense if they are buying | "What is on their calendar, and who put it there?" |
Teams on a methodology can rename the rungs in its vocabulary: a MEDDPICC team will recognize rungs 2, 4 and 5 as Metrics, Economic buyer and Decision process. The ladder makes the method the thing the meeting checks.
How to fill the template before the meeting
The rep fills it the evening before so the meeting can go on the gaps.
- List every deal above the amount threshold.
- For each deal, write the last buyer action with a date. If there has been none in 14 days, write "none since" and the date.
- Walk the ladder from rung 1 and stop at the first rung with no evidence. That number goes in the Stage by buyer evidence column.
- Write the missing rung in the What is missing column.
- Write the next conversation that would earn that rung: who, purpose, date.
- Send it to the manager the evening before.
The manager reads it in ten minutes and marks two kinds of row: rows where the rung sits below the CRM stage, and rows with no buyer action in 14 days. Those rows get the meeting's time.
The 45-minute pipeline review agenda
| Minutes | Step | Output |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 5 | The number: quota, closed, forecast at rung 4 or above | The gap to quota in dollars |
| 5 to 10 | Drops: deals with no buyer action in 30 days, or two reviews running with no rung change | A shorter list |
| 10 to 35 | Row by row, marked rows first. Two minutes each: the rung, the gap, the next conversation | A rung and a dated conversation for every deal |
| 35 to 42 | Pick the Work deals: the two or three that change the quarter if their gap closes | Deal reviews booked |
| 42 to 45 | Coverage: how many rung-1 deals need to enter this month to replace what left | A prospecting number |
Two minutes a deal holds if the manager asks only the ladder question for the missing rung and the rep answers with evidence or admits there is none. The moment either starts telling the deal's story, book a deal review and move on.
Questions that belong in the meeting, and where the others go
Belong:
- "Quote me what the buyer said." (rung 1)
- "What did the buyer do since last week, and when?"
- "What is the first rung with no evidence?"
- "If the next conversation goes the way you want, what rung are we on?"
- "Which two deals, if they moved a rung, would change the quarter?"
Belong somewhere else:
| Question | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| "Is the close date right?" | Nowhere. The close date is rung 6 or it is a guess. |
| "Did you follow up with them?" | The activity log. The review asks what the buyer did. |
| "What probability would you give it?" | The ladder. The rung is the probability. |
| "Walk me through the deal." | The deal review. Book it. |
| "What is the team number?" | The forecast call, after this meeting. |
A worked example: three deals from one book
Rep: Riley. Book: 14 open deals, $610,000. The CRM says $245,000 sits at Proposal or later. These three rows show how the ladder treats them. (The accounts and figures are fictional.)
| Deal | Amount | CRM stage | Stage by buyer evidence | Last buyer action | What is missing | Next conversation | Decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Halvorsen Freight | $120,000 | Negotiation | 3. Criteria agreed | Ops director accepted the pricing call, 9 days ago | The CFO has never been on a call | Ops director, Wed: ask what the CFO will want answered and for 20 minutes with him | Work |
| Wexcombe Health | $45,000 | Proposal | 5. Path mapped | Procurement sent the vendor form, 2 days ago | A buyer-dated close | Procurement lead, Thu: confirm the signature date against their steps | Hold |
| Castlereagh Media | $80,000 | Discovery | 1. Problem stated | None since 34 days ago | A number on the problem | None the buyer would take | Drop |
What the ladder did to the number: the CRM showed $245,000 late-stage. At rung 4 or above, the defendable forecast is $45,000, because Wexcombe is the only deal in the book that has earned rung 4. Halvorsen is the Work deal, because closing its gap (the CFO) moves $120,000 into the defendable forecast, and the next conversation to close it can happen on Wednesday. Castlereagh leaves the forecast with a note; if the buyer answers, it comes back at rung 1.
Riley's deal review on Halvorsen is booked for Tuesday, before the Wednesday call, so the opening line gets planned and said out loud first.
Running the review across the whole team
A manager with eight reps spends six hours a week on pipeline reviews run this way, and the ladder is only as good as the questions the manager asks. 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). A weak reviewer running a good template still gets a weak review. One way to improve as a reviewer is to record one review a month and listen back for the questions you asked: how many asked for buyer evidence, and how many only asked for the rep's opinion of the deal.
Our AI sales experts do the staging for every deal in the book, every week, and tell the rep what each deal is missing. Risk flags from a revenue intelligence tool such as Gong or Clari say a deal is in trouble; Caty says which rung is empty and prepares the conversation that fills it. The rep clicks into a call with her, talks the deal through and leaves with the opening line for Wednesday, in the team's own method.
The manager sees the whole team's ladder through Bryce, who coaches the managers on the forecast, and runs the 45 minutes on the deals that need a human. More on this in drive deal execution and why a risk score is not a fix.
If the next pipeline review is the one where the quarter gets decided, talk to us and bring the book.
FAQ
What is a sales pipeline review?
A sales pipeline review is a weekly call where a manager and a rep go through every open deal in the rep's book. It decides how much of the book is real, finds where each deal is stuck and picks the two or three deals that get a deeper deal review that week. It runs about 45 minutes, two minutes a deal.
What should a pipeline review template include?
A pipeline review template should include one row per deal with eight columns. The columns are the deal, the amount, the CRM stage, the stage by buyer evidence, the last thing the buyer did with a date, what is missing, the next buyer conversation with a date, and a Work, Hold or Drop decision. Three lines go at the top: quota, closed to date, and forecast at economic buyer engaged or above.
How often should you run a pipeline review?
Run a pipeline review weekly, with each rep, on the same day. The template is filled by the rep the evening before and read by the manager in ten minutes. A weekly rhythm is what lets the "last buyer action" column mean something: a deal that goes two reviews running without moving a rung is a deal to drop.
How is a pipeline review different from a forecast call?
A pipeline review looks at one rep's deals and decides what each one is missing. A forecast call takes the result across the team and commits to a number. If the pipeline review stages deals by buyer evidence, the forecast call is a sum; if it does not, the forecast call becomes the place where the real staging happens, too late to act on.
What is pipeline coverage and how do you check it in a review?
Pipeline coverage is the open pipeline at a given rung divided by the gap left to quota. Check it in the last three minutes: take the forecast at rung 4 or above, subtract it from the remaining target, and ask how many rung-1 deals must enter this month to replace what left. The ratio your team needs comes from your own conversion rate at each rung.
How do you stop a pipeline review turning into a CRM update?
Put the CRM stage and the stage by buyer evidence in separate columns and only discuss the rows where they disagree. Ask one question per deal: what is the first rung with no evidence? Send every "walk me through it" to a deal review and every "did you follow up" to the activity log.