Running an effective deal review

Deal reviews are a quintessential part of managing a team, but most managers don’t know how to run an effective 1-on-1. Bad managers need to use this time to “get updates” from your team about deals in the pipeline. Good managers use this time to help their reps think critically about their deals, identify potential threats and workshop how to move forward.

If you as the manager need to synchronously talk with your team about opportunities to get updates, you’re not leveraging your CRM correctly. You can blame your team as much as you want, but CRM hygiene comes down to a manager setting expectations and implementing a process that facilitates CRM health. 

As with any meeting, to run an effective deal review, you need structure to guide your conversation. 

Before the meeting...

Look at your AE’s pipeline and familiarize yourself with the opportunities that are closing in month/quarter and identify what deals will have the largest impact.

For those opportunities, ask your AE questions until you are able to identify where the edge of what is known about the deal. In order to help your AE think critically about their deals, you need to have an understanding of what is most important to your sales process. What questions they need to ask, what data points they need to collect and what they need to accomplish during each meeting.

• Are key fields missing? 
• Do they understand current state and desired future state? 
• Do they know how their prospect will make their decision to move forward...or not?

The meeting...

Just like external meetings, internal call agendas can help make deal reviews run more efficiently! Highlight your call objectives and ask your AE if they have anything to add.

“Today, I’d like to review opportunity X, Y & Z and our strategy around each to ensure we keep the momentum going. Is there anything else top of mind for you?"

For each deal...

• Ask your AE what their goal is for the next call and what they’d like to accomplish
• Review the gaps you identified and WHY you see each gap as a threat
• Brainstorm with your AE on strategic approach for the next meeting
• Create tangible take-aways to ensure the agreed upon strategy is followed

Next, create alignment on what successful execution on each opportunity looks like and confirm their buy-in.

“So walking away from your next meeting with opportunity X, I’d like for us to understand what Metrics their C-level is focused on. I’d also like you to test your Champion and learn what personal initiatives we align with. Did I miss anything? What would you add?"

While production is key to an AE’s success, professional development is key to keeping them. During your next meeting, make sure you review what goals they were able to meet for each opportunity and where there were areas for improvement. This will lead to an environment of collaboration and continuous improvement!

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