How many deals should you review in a pipeline review?
Review only the stuck deals: no next step, a step with no date or an overdue one, a passed decision date, or two weeks without a reply from the customer. In a 45-minute review, start with a cap of seven deals at about five minutes each, and test the cap on your own team.
Which deals make the list
The count follows from the rule for what qualifies. A deal goes on the list when it has no next step, or the step has no date or is overdue. It also goes on when the decision date has passed, or when the customer has been silent for two weeks. Every other deal is moving, and you can read it in the CRM.
Two weeks is a starting hypothesis. With a ten-day sales cycle, use a shorter window; with a four-month one, a longer one. Keep the window for a month before you change it.
How many fit in 45 minutes
Give each deal about five minutes: the questions, one decision, one line in the log. Ten minutes go to last week's log at the start and the read-back at the end. That leaves 35 minutes, or seven deals.
Five minutes is enough when the seller has opened the deal before the meeting. A deal that needs twenty minutes gets its own call with the seller, after the review. Ask the same three questions in the same order:
- What should be true by now?
- What is true today?
- What is the one step that moves it?
When the list is too long
Twenty stuck deals means the problem sits before the meeting. Sellers are not setting next steps, or dead deals stay open out of hope. Review all twenty in one sitting, and you are back to a read-out.
Take the seven deals that have been stuck longest. Send each seller the rest of their list with one rule: by Friday every deal has a dated next step or is closed as lost with a reason. Next week's count shows whether the rule holds.
Check the stages as well. When most stuck deals sit at one stage, that stage is probably your leak and needs a separate look.
One decision per deal
Each deal leaves the room with one decision: move it with a named step and a date, fix the missing piece and name who fixes it, or close it as lost with a reason. Write one line per deal: deal, decision, owner, date. The next review opens with those lines and one question: did it happen?
The Pipeline review in 45 minutes kit has the agenda, a printable review sheet and a log for these lines. In the first week, a sheet of paper with four columns will do.
An example with invented numbers
Example (invented numbers): a team of five has 46 open deals, and the CRM list shows 12 stuck: five without a next step, four with a passed decision date and three with no reply for two weeks. The head of sales takes the seven stuck longest into Wednesday's review and gives the sellers the other five to fix by Friday. A week later the list holds six.
Do this week
By Wednesday, sort the CRM list of stuck deals by how long each has been stuck and bring the top seven to a 45-minute review.
A weekly meeting on stuck deals that ends with a decision and an owner for each.