What does a deal review mean?

A deal review is a structured meeting, typically between a sales representative and their manager or sales leadership, where they closely examine specific sales deals in the representative’s pipeline. The primary focus of a deal review is to assess the viability and strategy for closing these deals.

You can have a senior review, a team review, or a one-on-one manager review.

Executive deal reviews bring together business and sales leaders to review the most important deals that are still in the works. They plan how to use their ties and network to make them stronger.

The whole sales team gets together for a team deal review to talk about a deal or deal plan. Top salespeople also use this time to help train new team members.

During a 1:1 manager deal review, sales workers discuss their deals with a sales leader. They can ensure smaller or less “important” deals don’t get lost and that reps get hands-on training one-on-one. On the other hand, quarterly business reviews (Qand) are more about the sales rep’s general performance and personal growth over the course of a quarter. They are different from deal reviews. They’re transactional and focus on making plans for the future, while sales QBRs look back at the past and focus on bigger goals.

Like words

• Meeting to go over the deal
• Review of the sales deal

Why deal reviews are essential in sales

Deal reviews are an essential tool for sales performance when they are done right. They completely change the game by creating an environment where leadership, the sales team, and individual reps can talk to each other and work together to improve. They also help the sales team stay focused on what’s essential, hold themselves accountable, and spot potential risks before it’s too late.

These are some of the perks that companies that do executive and team deal review every two weeks and one-on-one manager deal reviews with each of their reps every week:

• More wins and bigger deals on average
• Better meeting of quotas
• More involvement from the sales team
• Better accuracy in predicting sales
• ₷Improving the sales process

Getting sales, managers, and cross-functional teams to talk to each other and work together

Only 42.8% of buyers met their goals in the third quarter of 2023.80% of those people say it’s harder to connect with buyers in virtual talks. Plus, they only sell things 28% of the time, on average.

Deal reviews allow salespeople to talk to their managers, get comments on their deals, and get help from mentors and coaches to improve their work. They are the best way to stop selling in response to problems and start selling before problems happen.

How the deal review process works

During a deal review, a sales rep tells their boss or leadership team about one or more deals they are working on, and the whole group goes over them.

Usually, these steps are taken after an effective deal review:

1. Plan what the meeting will cover.

Not being ready is the main thing stopping you from having a good review. Think ahead and make a plan before you start. That way, you can quickly cover the essentials.

Ask the people on your sales team to share the following information during the meeting:

A summary of the business, including what it does, what it sells, problems, and business goals. It doesn’t have to be very long—just enough to get a sense of the possible deal size, strategic possibilities, and people with a say in decision-making.

Why should the potential buyer buy? Giving the client the top reasons why they should sign the deal gives business leaders some background. It helps them understand how the person thinks about which problems you can solve.

Plan for the deal—Your rep might have a plan, but it’s not always the case. In the first step, review what they planned or thought they should do next and see if any suggestions or changes could be made.

The salesperson will have this information ready when they go to the meeting. That way, everyone on the team will have a good idea of their discussion.

2. Check out the chance pipeline.

Based on the type of deal review, the team may look at a single deal or many deals. If it’s a one-on-one deal, the boss will look at most or all of the debt the rep has coming up. There won’t be time for a senior or team review. Instead, they’ll look at the most important one, the one that’s closest to closing, or a mix of the two.

They will think about:

• What does the possibility look like?
• Who makes the most critical decisions?
• What do you think is the best option for them?
• What part of the process is the deal in now?
• Is it possible to move it forward?
• How much do you think it will be worth?
• What could be the next step?

This is where the boss sits down with the salesperson, listens to what they say, and puts it all together in a sense-making way.

3. Choose the following steps based on the stage of the deal::.

Depending on where your deal is in the sales pipeline, you will go through a very different deal review process. In an early-stage deal where the person hasn’t given a demo yet, for example, they might focus on what they can do to set up one (for example, by sending a follow-up email).

At different points, the team members will need to talk to the company’s buying committee members. In this step, they should also think about who they’ve already reached out to, who they haven’t, and who else they should try to get in touch with.

You’re already halfway there if your sales team uses a system like MEDDIC, which lists critical decision-makers, problems, and deadlines.

 4. Take a better look at what’s happening in the deal.

What your rep does every day that has to do with the deal is what will make or break it. As of now, you know what to focus on and why. Next, you need to find out what your reps are doing.

• List of calls
• Set up meetings
• Notes in the CRM
• Sent emails
• Presentations given
• ₷Sent quotes

Check out (a) how well the seller can communicate and (b) how quick and interested the customer is.

You can better judge the sales rep’s success and determine why they’re doing what they’re doing by looking at buyer-seller activity. You’ll also know if they will likely go through or not.

5. Plan out possible points of contact.

Planning your subsequent interactions with different people on the prospect’s decision-making team would be best. This can be a part of your sales deal review form or a separate task. Six people usually make decisions in B2B sales.

Among these are:

• Managers and executives
• Tech-savvy buyers
• Buyers on a budget
• People who use the product

It would be best to think about how you’ll talk to each of them to make a plan. So, start by making an organizational plan for the business. This will show where each buyer fits in the chain of command and what drives them. Then, figure out who you need to talk to to make the deal go as smoothly as possible.

When this happens, a sales method like Medida helps. If you build this structure into your sales process, your person will have already figured out who the crucial decision-makers are and what they need during qualification.

6. Make a plan of action for both of you (for late-stage deals).

A mutual action plan, sometimes written as MAP or called a mutual close plan, is a simple document meant to get the job done. The buyer and seller share it and have the following in it:

• Essential steps in the sales process
• When things need to be done,
• Things that both the buyer and the seller need to do
• ₷New statuses
• People who have an interest in each thing

More or less, it’s a list of everything that needs to happen from now until the end and who is responsible for each step.

This is often very important to keep the deal moving forward and ensure everyone is on the same page in late-stage deals. The sales cycle goes faster because there is less confusion, and both the buyer and the seller are clear on what success looks like and when it needs to happen.

During the review of the deal, you should look at any sales demos or plans that are part of it.

7. Look at how you sell things.

How does the deal you’re considering fit how you usually make sales? It would be best to talk to your salesperson about how the sales cycle is going and what problems they’ve encountered. This talk can help determine how to improve your sales process and let you know if your reps need more help or a different way to close the deal.

8. Follow-up and keeping records

Once you have agreed on the next steps, planned future meetings, and are ready to follow your plan, it’s time to end the meeting. You should tell them when the next check-in is and ask if they need help with anything h before they leave.

Write down everything you talked about in the meeting, including new tasks to be done, goals that were met, and plans for the next meeting. It can also be helpful to find trends or commjointbleup during the sales process by keeping track of each deal review.

Technology and Tools Used in Review Deals

System for CRM

CRM software keeps all your information about your contacts and sales pipeline in one place. CRtracksof when a prospect goes from one stage to the next or when a sales rep does something new in the sales process. It could also help you find leads to determine how much a deal is when you have your deal review.

You will look at all the critical data for a deal in view. Some programs let you see saved email templates that can be used at certspecificnts in the sales process. Other programs let you see custom areas, such as free-form text, that you can use to record notes during the review.

Platforms that help with sales

There are a lot of different tools that fall under the umbrella term “sales enablement” software.

Set up, price, and quote (CPQ)

• Tools for sales data, such as Gong or Chorus
• Software for a digital sales room
• Systems for managing content
• Personalization of content and data
• Chatbots and note-taking tools that use AI
• Tools for recording calls

Some of these will be important to you as you review the deal. You’ll open CPQ if your rep has sent a quote to the client since the last time you talked. You could also use software that records talks to get more information from actual calls between a rep and a prospect.

Software for managing pipelines

As a general rule, CRM has pipeline management built in. However, you could also use a marketing or sales automation app to keep track of your deals. The CRM is where all your data is kept in one place, and the pipeline management tool helps you track and automate tasks at every stage.

Tools for Sales Analytics and Reporting

You can turn the sales data from your reps’ activity, CRM, and pipeline management software into valuable insights with the help of sales analytics tools like Salesforce Analytics or graphics tools like Tableau and Power BI.

During a deal review, you may want to look at the following types of data based on what you have access to and what your sales team thinks is most important:

• Sales tasks are done by personnel on our team
• Finished deals by rep or team
• How long does each part of the sales cycle last?
• Speed of sales

Rates of wins and losses

Plus, you should check your sales reps’ progress against their KPIs and quotas, such as the number of demos or offers they send out or the amount of money they make. You won’t be able to use this to analyze a specific deal, but it will help you see how you’re doing as a team and find any problems or trends you need to address.

How to Write the Best Deal Reviews

A good deal review is more than just reviewing a list or deal review form and checking what you’ve discussed. It would be best to use that time to understand what your sales rep feels and think about the deal. Then, it would be best if you worked with them to determine what risks and opportunities are going forward.

Here are seven of the best ways to hold deal reviews:

Regularly go over deals with people.

This is how you create an environment where people work together and are honest. You and your rep should have a one-on-one review once a week so that you both remember the deal well. Each team and executive review should happen on a set plan, but once every two to four weeks is fine.

Every review should follow a set plan.

For efficiency’s sake, give your reps consistent criteria to rate each deal in their pipeline—meet goals for each review and pay for what you will cover each time.

Do not turn a review of a deal into a coaching lesson or a review of work.

You should work together on the following steps and let your person know what they could do better, but that’s not the point of this review. Instead, give them helpful feedback and look to the future so they can close the deal they’re working on. It’s possible to talk about patterns of bad behavior or results at the next QBR or in a separate one-on-one.

Don’t make reps look over their s.

Please ask them how they think the deal is going. They must do next independently since they don’t always have you there. They are naturally optimistic, or at least they have to be.

It’s much more helpful for the sales manager to give you the data and general information and then let you figure out how likely it is that a deal will go through to “Closed Won.”

Do something else when you hear, “I don’t know. It would be best if you didn’t focus on a question your rep doesn’t have an answer to, like “What’s the prospect’s real budget for this deal?” for too long. Move on to something they discuss, like a deal about to go through. Things they don’t know are things they need to do next week so that they can answer them then.

From the start, think about what the customer wants.

The goal of sales should not be to close the deal at all but to give the customer something of value. That’s also the point of your deal review. You must discover the customer’s problem and why your rep thinks the product will help them.

Tell them if you don’t think the deal is good for the customer or if you think they’re putting the product in the wrong way. That’s how you keep the deal and them on track.

Look for red flags and risks in every deal.

There are risks in every deal. As you look over the data and information that your sales rep has put together, you should be able to find possible ones. You might also know a few things from personal experience.

As red flags appear, ask your person what they plan to do about them or if they have already done so. During the review, please pay attention to possible threats that could stop the department, such as not responding for a week, an organizational change, or a lesser-known rival that fits their niche.

What You Should Know About Deal Reviews

Honestly, deal reviews are only meant to help your sales team by finding and fixing problems that might threaten a deal. You are the leader, so you can also help them see chances they might have missed.

Here are the most important things you should remember for your following review of a deal:

Use tools for managing pipelines.

Use tools for sales data.

• Hold regular reviews every week or every other week.
• Please do turn it into a coaching or training lesson.
• Tell your reps to pay attention to what the customer wants.
• Pay attention to efficiency and helpful, constructive comments.

How companies worldwide handle the deal review process will change in the future, and companies will become more critical. For example, lead score tools will help you determine which leads are worth following up on and which ones you should skip over. You can review these with your team and decide together what the best thing to do is based on the situation.