sales-deal-inspect

What this skill does

# Inspect a Deal

Help the user inspect an individual deal — score its health, identify risks, map stakeholders, and build a prioritized action plan.

## Step 1 — Gather context


If `references/learnings.md` exists, read it first for accumulated knowledge.

Ask the user:

1. **Deal basics:**
   - Company name
   - Deal size (ACV or total contract value)
   - Current stage (e.g., Discovery, Demo, Proposal, Negotiation, Closed Won/Lost)
   - Expected close date
   - How long has it been in the current stage?

2. **Stakeholders:**
   - Who is your champion? How strong are they?
   - Have you met the economic buyer (person who signs the check)?
   - Who else is involved in the evaluation? (technical, legal, procurement, end users)

3. **What's your biggest concern about this deal?**
   - A) It's moving too slowly / stalled
   - B) I'm single-threaded (only talking to one person)
   - C) Competitor is in the mix
   - D) Budget hasn't been confirmed
   - E) Champion seems to be going dark
   - F) Close date keeps slipping
   - G) I don't know enough about their decision process
   - H) Something else — describe it

## Step 2 — Deal health scorecard

Score each dimension as Green (strong), Yellow (gaps), or Red (at risk):

| Dimension | Status | Evidence | Gap |
|-----------|--------|----------|-----|
| **Champion strength** | | Do you have an internal advocate who is actively selling on your behalf? Can they access power? | |
| **Economic buyer access** | | Have you met the person who controls the budget? Do they support this initiative? | |
| **Decision criteria** | | Do you know exactly what they're evaluating against? Are your strengths aligned to their criteria? | |
| **Decision process** | | Do you know every step from here to a signed contract? (Legal, procurement, board approval, etc.) | |
| **Compelling event** | | Is there a hard deadline driving urgency? (Contract expiry, board mandate, regulatory, fiscal year) | |
| **Competition** | | Do you know who else they're evaluating? What's your differentiation? | |
| **Budget** | | Has budget been allocated? Is it sufficient? Is there a procurement process? | |
| **Paper process** | | Do you know who signs, what approvals are needed, and the typical timeline for contracts? | |

**Overall health**: Count of Green/Yellow/Red → Assessment:
- 6+ Green: Strong deal — maintain momentum and close
- 4-5 Green: Solid but gaps to fill — prioritize the Yellows
- 2-3 Green: At risk — needs immediate action on Red items
- 0-1 Green: Critical — consider whether this deal is real

### MEDDPICC extraction table

| Element | What's known | What's missing | Priority to fill |
|---------|-------------|----------------|-----------------|
| **M**etrics | | | |
| **E**conomic Buyer | | | |
| **D**ecision Criteria | | | |
| **D**ecision Process | | | |
| **P**aper Process | | | |
| **I**mplicate the Pain | | | |
| **C**hampion | | | |
| **C**ompetition | | | |

## Step 3 — Risk analysis

### Top 3 risks

| # | Risk | Likelihood | Impact | Mitigation |
|---|------|-----------|--------|------------|
| 1 | | High/Med/Low | High/Med/Low | Specific action to reduce this risk |
| 2 | | | | |
| 3 | | | | |

### Common risk patterns checklist

Check which patterns apply to this deal:

- [ ] **Single-threaded**: Only one contact engaged — if they leave or lose interest, deal dies
- [ ] **No compelling event**: No external deadline creating urgency — deals without compelling events slip indefinitely
- [ ] **Ghost champion**: Champion has gone quiet — may have lost internal support or hit resistance
- [ ] **Happy ears**: Prospect is saying all the right things but not taking action (no meetings booked, no docs shared, no stakeholders introduced)
- [ ] **Procurement black hole**: Deal entered procurement/legal with no visibility into timeline or process
- [ ] **Budget uncertainty**: "We have budget" but no specific number confirmed or PO process started
- [ ] **Moving goalposts**: Evaluation criteria keep changing or expanding — often means a competitor is influencing requirements
- [ ] **No-decision risk**: The biggest competitor is the status quo — prospect may decide to do nothing
- [ ] **Executive misalignment**: Your champion is bought in but their leadership doesn't see this as a priority
- [ ] **Zombie deal**: Deal has been in the same stage for 2x+ the average cycle time with no meaningful progression

## Step 4 — Prioritized action plan

| Priority | Action | Owner | Timeline | Purpose |
|----------|--------|-------|----------|---------|
| 1 | | Rep / Manager / SE | This week | |
| 2 | | | Next week | |
| 3 | | | This month | |
| 4 | | | Ongoing | |
| 5 | | | | |

Actions should be specific, not generic. Instead of "build executive relationship," write "Request a 15-minute call with CFO Jane Smith to discuss Q3 cost-reduction goals — ask your champion Sarah to make the intro by Friday."

### Action categories to consider
- **Multi-threading**: Get wider and higher in the account
- **Validation**: Confirm assumptions about budget, timeline, or decision process
- **Acceleration**: Moves that compress the timeline (POC, reference call, executive alignment)
- **De-risking**: Reduce competition, strengthen champion, address blockers
- **Commitment testing**: Ask for something that proves the deal is real (access to stakeholders, internal data, timeline commitment)

## Step 5 — Stakeholder map

| Name | Title | Role in deal | Engagement level | Relationship strength | Action needed |
|------|-------|-------------|-----------------|----------------------|--------------|
| | | Champion / EB / Tech Eval / End User / Blocker / Coach | High / Med / Low / None | Strong / Developing / Weak / Unknown | |

### Roles defined
- **Champion**: Actively sells internally on your behalf, has power or access to power
- **Economic Buyer (EB)**: Controls the budget, signs the contract
- **Technical Evaluator**: Assesses technical fit, integration, security
- **End User**: Will use the product day-to-day — their input matters for adoption
- **Blocker**: Actively or passively working against the deal
- **Coach**: Gives you information about the internal dynamics but doesn't actively champion

### Multi-threading guidance
- **Minimum viable deal team**: You need at least a Champion + Economic Buyer engaged. Champion without EB access = high risk.
- **How to go wide**: Ask your champion "Who else would need to be comfortable with this before you could move forward?" — then ask for introductions.
- **How to go high**: Offer an "executive alignment call" between your exec and theirs. Position it as ensuring strategic fit, not as a sales tactic.
- **Handling blockers**: Don't go around them — go through them. Understand their concerns, address them directly, and turn them into neutral or supportive.
- **Unknown stakeholders**: If you only know 1-2 people in a complex deal, there are almost certainly others influencing the decision. Ask: "Walk me through what happens after you say yes — who else touches this before it's approved?"

## Related skills

- `/sales-salesloft` — Salesloft Deals module for pipeline visibility and deal health scores
- `/sales-forecast` — Roll up deal assessments into forecast accuracy
- `/sales-pipeline` — Portfolio-level pipeline management and deal prioritization
- `/sales-discovery` — Prep discovery questions to fill MEDDPICC gaps
- `/sales-call-review` — Review the latest call on this deal for coaching insights
- `/sales-close` — Closing strategies and mutual action plans
- `/sales-weflow` — Weflow platform help (Salesforce-native Revenue AI with deal health signals, activity capture, conversation intelligence)
- `/sales-maxiq` — MaxIQ platform help (AI-native revenue intelligence with EchoIQ CI, InspectIQ pipeline, ForecastIQ forecasting, 9 AI agents)
- `/sales-do` — Not sure which skill to use? The router matches any sales objective to the right skill. Install: `npx skills add sales-skills/sales --skill sales-do`

## Gotchas