Capability template for sales

Stalled-deal review

Your sales lead sees, from the record alone, which open deals have stopped moving, what each one's stage still lacks and whose move it is, and where every recent no ended and why. Nothing in your sales system is changed; corrections are proposed for a person to make.

The outcome

Every week the sales lead knows exactly which deals have gone quiet and why. Each stalled deal is read against the exit you wrote for its stage, so the review names the one thing still missing instead of a vague sense that a deal feels cold. It says whose move it is: the buyer's, yours, or a colleague's inside the company, such as a finance director who has not yet approved the terms. And it hands you one question that would get the deal moving again, addressed to the person who can answer it.

The same page keeps an honest log of every no in the period: the stage it ended at, the reason in the buyer's own words where anyone wrote them down, and what would bring the buyer back, if they said. Promises with no date are listed as exactly that, so they stop hiding. Where your notes and your sales system disagree, the review shows both and lets you decide.

Who starts the work, and when

The sales lead, the owner, or whoever keeps the deal record runs it once a week, or the morning before a pipeline meeting. It is also worth running after a run of losses, to see where each one ended before anyone draws a lesson from them.

The sales lead reads the review and decides what happens to each deal. The deal's owner makes any correction to the record. The AI assistant sends nothing and changes nothing.

What they supply

  • Your deal export. One row per open and recently closed deal, from your sales system or spreadsheet, with the stage, the date it entered that stage, the next step with its owner and date, the last activity, and for closed deals the outcome and the reason.
  • Your facts. The review date, the period for closed deals, who reads the review, and your stages in order, each with what must be true for a deal to leave it and how many days it should take.
  • Your deal notes. Call notes and emails, each with the deal and the date, pasted as they are.
  • Last week's review, so no deal quietly drops out of sight.

What comes out

One review in a fixed order:

  1. Coverage. How many deals were read, any that could not be, and any deal open last week that has vanished from the export.
  2. Stalled deals. For each: the stage it stalled at, what that stage still lacks, whose move it is, why it counts as stalled, what the record shows, and the question that would settle it.
  3. Moving deals, one line each.
  4. Promises with no date set, deals waiting on the buyer, with your check date, and deals waiting on a colleague inside the company, with the decision they need.
  5. Where the noes ended. Each lost deal under the stage it closed at, with the reason as the record gives it, whose call it was and what would reopen it.
  6. Deals won in the period.
  7. At odds, gaps and corrections. Where the notes and the export disagree, what the record does not show, and the corrections to propose, each with the note it comes from.

A good review is one the sales lead can take into the pipeline meeting and defend line by line, because every line points back to the record.

An invented example

Illustrative example with invented data. The company, its accounts, its people, the deals, the dates and the amounts below are all invented. The seller is an invented 35-person company that sells maintenance-planning software to manufacturers. Its sales team is a sales lead, two account executives and a solutions engineer. First come the inputs the sales lead supplied, in full except the previous review, of which only the part the capability reads is shown; then the review the capability returned.

The inputs

1. Your facts (typed by the sales lead)

Review date: Monday 2 November 2026
Export taken: Monday 2 November 2026
Closed deals: since the previous review on 26 October 2026
Reads it: Sales lead

Our stages, in order:
1. Discovery. Leaves when: the buyer's problem, the person who decides
   and a target date are all recorded. Usual owner: Account executive.
   Limit: 21 days.
2. Demo. Leaves when: the demo has been held with the person who decides
   and the buyer has asked for a proposal. Usual owner: Solutions
   engineer. Limit: 14 days.
3. Proposal. Leaves when: the proposal has been sent and the buyer has
   gone through it with us on a call. Usual owner: Account executive.
   Limit: 21 days.
4. Negotiation. Leaves when: terms are agreed and the order form has been
   sent for signature. Usual owner: Sales lead. Limit: 14 days.

2. The deal export

deal_id,account,stage,stage_entered,next_step,next_step_owner,next_step_date,last_activity,status,closed_date,close_reason
D-101,Account A,Proposal,2026-10-05,Proposal review call,Account executive,2026-10-22,2026-10-14,open,,
D-102,Account B,Demo,2026-10-20,Demo with the plant manager,Solutions engineer,2026-11-05,2026-10-29,open,,
D-103,Account C,Negotiation,2026-10-12,Send revised order form,Sales lead,,2026-10-19,open,,
D-104,Account D,Discovery,2026-09-28,,,,2026-10-02,open,,
D-105,Account E,Proposal,2026-10-26,Buyer to confirm budget after their board meeting,Account executive,2026-11-12,2026-10-27,open,,
D-106,Account F,Demo,2026-10-14,,,,2026-10-28,lost,2026-10-28,Price
D-107,Account G,Closed lost,2026-10-01,,,,2026-10-09,lost,2026-10-30,No response
D-108,Account H,Negotiation,2026-10-15,,,,2026-10-29,won,2026-10-29,Signed
D-109,Account J,Discovery,2026-10-19,,,,2026-10-27,lost,2026-10-27,Not a fit

3. Deal notes (pasted from the team's call notes and email)

D-101, 14 October 2026 (account executive): Sent the proposal, $26,400 a
year. The operations director says their finance team signs off anything
over $20,000 before she can book a review call. She will let us know.

D-103, 19 October 2026 (sales lead): Call with the buyer's operations
manager. Terms agreed except payment: they want 60 days instead of our
standard 30. I'll send the revised order form once our finance director
approves 60 days.

D-105, 27 October 2026 (account executive): Operations VP on the call:
"We'll come back to you after our board meets on the 10th." I'll check in
on the 12th.

D-106, 28 October 2026 (account executive): Email from the plant manager:
"Not this year. The budget is going into a new press line. Ask me again
in April."

D-109, 27 October 2026 (account executive): We declined. They need a
mobile app for floor staff, which we don't offer.

4. The previous review (an excerpt: its first line and its "Open at this review" line, the only part the capability reads)

STALLED-DEAL REVIEW: Monday 26 October 2026
Open at this review: D-099, D-101, D-102, D-103, D-104, D-105, D-106,
D-107, D-108, D-109.

The output

STALLED-DEAL REVIEW: Monday 2 November 2026

For: Sales lead. From: deal export of 2 November 2026, 9 rows; your stages (4, limits in days: Discovery 21, Demo 14, Proposal 21, Negotiation 14); notes for 5 deals; previous review of 26 October 2026.

Coverage: Rows read: 9 (5 open, 1 won and 3 lost between 27 October and 2 November 2026). Not read: none. Open at the last review and missing now, under Could not assess: D-099. Outcome: partial: D-099 was open on 26 October and is not in this export.

Open at this review: D-101, D-102, D-103, D-104, D-105.

Stalled deals: 3

D-101 · Account A · stalled at Proposal: the proposal was sent (note of 14 October), and the record shows no call since to go through it with us. Whose move: the buyer's (operations director): their finance team signs off a proposal over $20,000 before she books the review call.

  • Why: next-step date passed on 22 October; in Proposal 28 days, over the 21-day limit.
  • On the record: last activity 14 October (19 days before the review); note of 14 October: the operations director says finance signs off anything over $20,000 before she can book a review call, and she will let us know.
  • Next step as recorded: Proposal review call, Account executive, 22 October 2026; waiting on the buyer, our check not set.
  • Question to settle it, for the operations director: Has your finance team seen the proposal, and when will they decide on it?

D-103 · Account C · stalled at Negotiation: terms are agreed except payment (the buyer asked for 60 days against our standard 30), and the record shows the revised order form not yet sent for signature. Whose move: a colleague's (finance director): whether to approve 60-day payment terms.

  • Why: in Negotiation 21 days, over the 14-day limit.
  • On the record: last activity 19 October (14 days before the review); note of 19 October: terms agreed except payment; the sales lead will send the revised order form once the finance director approves 60 days.
  • Next step as recorded: Send revised order form, Sales lead, no date set; waiting on a colleague (finance director).
  • Question to settle it, for the finance director: Will you approve 60-day payment terms for Account C, and by when?

D-104 · Account D · stalled at Discovery: unknown: the record does not show whether the buyer's problem, the person who decides or a target date is recorded. Whose move: unknown.

  • Why: no next step; in Discovery 35 days, over the 21-day limit.
  • On the record: last activity 2 October (31 days before the review); no notes.
  • Next step as recorded: none.
  • Question to settle it, for the account executive: Which of the buyer's problem, the person who decides and a target date have we recorded for D-104, and what is the next step and who owns it?

Moving deals: 2

  • D-102 · Demo · Demo with the plant manager, Solutions engineer, 5 November 2026.
  • D-105 · Proposal · Buyer to confirm budget after their board meeting, Account executive, 12 November 2026; waiting on the buyer, our check 12 November 2026.

Promises with no date set: looked and found none.

Waiting on the buyer:

  • D-101: the finance team's sign-off, then the operations director books the review call (operations director, note of 14 October); recorded date: 22 October 2026; our check: check date not set.
  • D-105: come back to us after their board meets "on the 10th" (operations VP, note of 27 October); recorded date: 12 November 2026; our check: 12 November 2026, Account executive.

Waiting on a colleague: D-103: approve 60-day payment terms (finance director, note of 19 October); then: Send revised order form, Sales lead, no date set.

Where the noes ended: 3 lost between 27 October and 2 November 2026

Closed at Discovery:

  • D-109 · Account J · closed 27 October. Reason: "They need a mobile app for floor staff, which we don't offer." (ours, note of 27 October). Whose call: ours. What would reopen it: not recorded.

Closed at Demo:

  • D-106 · Account F · closed 28 October. Reason: "Not this year. The budget is going into a new press line." (plant manager, note of 28 October). Whose call: the buyer's. What would reopen it: "Ask me again in April." (plant manager, note of 28 October).

Stage not recorded:

  • D-107 · Account G · closed 30 October. Reason: No response (from the record, not the buyer's words). Whose call: unknown. What would reopen it: not recorded.

Won between 27 October and 2 November 2026: D-108, 29 October.

At odds with the record: D-106: the export's close reason says "Price"; the note of 28 October quotes the plant manager: "Not this year. The budget is going into a new press line."

Gaps in the record: D-104: which parts of the Discovery exit are met, and whose move it is. D-107: the stage it closed at, and whose call it was.

Corrections to propose, for the sales lead or the deal's owner to make: D-106: close_reason, now "Price", proposed "Not this year. The budget is going into a new press line.", from the note of 28 October.

Prepared from the deal export of 2 November 2026 and the notes supplied. Nothing has been sent, and no record has been changed.

Where it fits

  • Sales: the weekly look at what is stuck, done the same careful way every time.
  • Professional services: engagements wait on a partner's sign-off or a client's budget cycle, and a quiet deal is easy to miss.
  • Software technology: deals pass through several stages and several people on the buyer's side, each a place to stall.
  • Manufacturing: buying decisions wait on capital budgets and plant schedules, so knowing whose move it is matters.
  • Engineering firms: proposals sit with the client's board or funding body, and the firm needs to know which ones are still alive.
  • Growth & scaling: the pipeline outgrows what the sales lead can hold in their head.

It sits beside Sales call preparation brief, which prepares the meeting where the stall's question gets asked, Objection answers and sales one-pager, which prepares the answer when a stalled buyer pushes back, and Sales proposal preparation, which drafts the proposal a deal at the proposal stage is waiting on.

Two sales capabilities read the same record for different questions. Sales pipeline review shows the whole open pipeline each week, its value, age and coverage; this review looks only at the deals that have stopped and asks why. Win-loss review reads a quarter of closed deals for patterns that hold across many of them; this review logs each recent no on its own, before anyone draws a lesson.

What has to change for your company

  • Your stages and their exits. Write down, for each stage, what must be true for a deal to leave it, who usually owns it and how many days it should take. The review is only as sharp as these exits.
  • Your export. Agree the columns once. If your sales system names them differently, write the mapping down; the assistant stops and asks rather than guess.
  • Your notes habit. A dated note with the buyer's own words is what turns "reason not recorded" into a reason you can act on.
  • Who reads it and who corrects. Name who reads the review, and who makes corrections to the record after reading it.
  • Your platform. The instructions are written to be pasted into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini. It works from files and notes you supply and needs no connection to your sales system.

What has been checked

Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 9 November 2026. It was tried on its invented example in Claude on 9 November 2026 in two runs, with the instructions revised between them; the record of the second run is published with it. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.

Testing in your environment means running it on past weeks your sales lead remembers well, plus hard cases written in advance, each with its expected behavior: an export whose column names differ, a next step with no date, a buyer who said they would come back later, a lost deal with no stage, a note that contradicts the recorded reason. The sales lead checks every line against the record before anyone relies on it. Pilot acceptance-test preparation builds that test set, and What we test before we call an AI workflow ready shows the record.

The full capability template

Everything above is the outline. The complete capability template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.

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Next step

Bring a real piece of this work to a call. We’ll walk through what it takes to fit this capability to your rules, prove it on your work and put it in the hands of the roles that own it.

Talk with us Discuss adapting this

  • Sales call preparation brief

    Your salesperson, partner or account manager walks into every meeting with a brief they can read in five minutes: who will be there, what has been said and promised so far, what is still open, and a plan for the call. Every line traces to your own notes or a public page, and anything inferred is labelled.

  • Objection answers and sales one-pager

    Walk into the call with an answer for every objection you expect, each with its honest limit and the proof behind it, and one page to leave behind. Everything is built from the facts you supply, so nothing on the page is a claim you cannot stand behind.

  • Sales proposal preparation

    Your account executive answers an RFP in minutes, not weeks, with a proposal draft where every claim traces to approved company information and every gap is already a question for the right person.

  • Sales pipeline review

    Each week your sales lead sees the whole open pipeline on one page: value and age by stage, what moved since last week, the deals at risk and coverage against your target. Every figure traces to your export, and the forecast number is left for a person to commit.

  • Win-loss review

    Once a quarter your sales lead sees, from the deals you closed, where the losses ended, which kinds of deal you win and lose, what the largest deals show, and which findings rest on enough deals to act on. Actions are proposed in proportion to the evidence, and nothing in your sales system is changed.