As a sales manager, I have a five-point checklist I refer to during sales reviews. These are some of the easiest things to overlook, yet they can have a significant impact on whether deals close, opportunities slip into the next quarter, and sales teams achieve their targets.
Sales reviews often revolve around familiar questions: How much pipeline do we have? When will this deal close? What is the deal value? What is the next step? These questions are necessary, but they don’t always reveal what is actually happening inside an opportunity. A deal can look healthy in the CRM, the prospect may have attended multiple meetings, and the salesperson may feel confident, yet the opportunity can still be months away from a decision or may never close at all.
The purpose of a sales review should not be to collect updates or pressure reps into committing to a date. It should be to understand the quality of the opportunity, identify risks early, and determine where the manager’s intervention or coaching can make a difference. Here are the five questions I believe deserve a place in every sales review.
1. Are We Mistaking a Fan for a Champion?
A prospect loves your product, appreciates your demo, and agrees that your solution could help their business. The salesperson walks away feeling confident about the deal. But enthusiasm during a sales conversation does not necessarily translate into influence inside the customer’s organisation.
A fan likes what you sell. A champion actively helps you sell it internally.
The distinction becomes important when the salesperson is no longer in the room. Will this person advocate for your solution when other stakeholders raise objections? Can they influence the decision-makers? Will they help you understand the internal approval process, build consensus, and navigate competing priorities? Most importantly, are they willing to put their credibility behind your solution?
Consider a salesperson who has conducted three successful demos with a department head. The prospect keeps saying the product looks promising, but no meeting has been arranged with the budget owner, and the prospect has not explained how the purchase will be approved. The salesperson may interpret the positive feedback as buying intent. In reality, they may have a fan without a clear path to a decision.
During a sales review, ask what the prospect has actually done to advance the deal internally. Have they introduced other stakeholders, shared the decision criteria, or helped establish the next step? These actions provide stronger evidence of a champion than compliments or verbal enthusiasm.
2. Are Reps Spending Time on High-Impact Activities?
I’ve seen salespeople work long hours, attend back-to-back meetings, send dozens of emails, and keep their CRM updated, yet still struggle to achieve their targets. Activity creates the appearance of productivity, but activity alone does not guarantee progress.
The problem is often prioritisation. A rep might spend hours researching a low-probability opportunity while neglecting a qualified deal that is ready for the next conversation. They might keep polishing a presentation when what the prospect really needs is a discussion with the right technical or business stakeholder. They may also spend too much time chasing an unresponsive contact instead of building relationships in accounts with stronger buying signals.
The question is not whether the rep is busy. It is whether their time is being invested in activities that improve the likelihood of generating revenue.
During a review, examine where the rep’s time is going and what those activities are producing. Which opportunities have progressed? Which deals have remained at the same stage for weeks? Are the next steps advancing the buying process, or are they simply keeping the salesperson occupied?
For example, if a rep has ten active opportunities but only two have a credible business problem, access to relevant stakeholders, and a defined next step, the answer may not be to increase activity across all ten. It may be to concentrate effort on the two stronger opportunities while reassessing the rest.
Good sales management is not about pushing everyone to do more. It is about helping reps identify what deserves their attention and what does not.
3. Are We Qualifying Deals Properly?
A conversation does not automatically qualify as an opportunity. Neither does a demo request, a prospect’s interest in your product, or a request for a proposal.
Proper qualification requires an understanding of the business problem, its impact, the urgency to solve it, the stakeholders involved, the decision-making process, and the availability of budget or a credible path to funding. Without this information, a salesperson may spend weeks pursuing an opportunity that was never likely to close.
Imagine a prospect tells your rep that their current process is inefficient and asks for a product demonstration. The rep schedules the demo, prepares a proposal, and includes the opportunity in the quarterly forecast. But nobody has established how much the problem costs the business, whether solving it is a priority, who approves the purchase, or when the company intends to act.
The opportunity exists in the CRM, but the evidence needed to justify its forecast value is missing.
A sales review should test the strength of the opportunity, not simply confirm that the required sales activities have been completed. Ask what business problem the customer is trying to solve, what happens if they do nothing, why they would act now, and how a purchase decision will be made. If the rep cannot answer these questions, that is a qualification gap that needs to be addressed before the deal is treated as committed revenue.
This does not mean every detail must be known during the first conversation. Qualification is an ongoing process. The important thing is to recognise what remains unknown and make resolving it part of the next step.
4. Are We Asking the Uncomfortable Questions?
Salespeople often become comfortable discussing a prospect’s challenges but hesitate when the conversation moves to budget, decision-making authority, competing priorities, or the consequences of doing nothing.
They worry about sounding too aggressive or making the prospect uncomfortable. So they move forward with a demo, send a proposal, and hope the missing information will eventually emerge.
That is how surprises creep into the pipeline.
A deal that looked promising can suddenly stall because the budget was never approved. A proposal can disappear into procurement because the salesperson never understood the approval process. A competitor can win because the rep did not ask what other solutions were being considered or how the customer would evaluate them. Sometimes, the prospect simply decides that the problem is not important enough to address this quarter.
These risks are often discoverable much earlier, provided the salesperson is willing to ask the right questions.
During a sales review, look at what the rep knows and how they found it out. Have they discussed budget or funding? Do they know who makes the final decision and who can block it? Have they asked what could prevent the purchase from moving forward? Does the customer have a compelling reason to act now rather than revisit the discussion six months later?
Managers should also coach reps on how to ask these questions naturally. The objective is not to interrogate the buyer. It is to understand the commercial reality well enough to determine whether both parties have a credible path forward.
A difficult conversation early in the sales cycle is usually better than an unpleasant surprise at the end.
5. Are We Following Up With Purpose and Enough?
A good discovery call, a successful demo, or a promising conversation can create momentum. But that momentum can disappear quickly when the salesperson fails to establish clear next steps and follow through.
I’ve seen opportunities go cold simply because the rep assumed the prospect would get back to them. A meeting ends with a vague agreement to reconnect, the salesperson sends a generic follow-up email, and both sides move on to other priorities. A few weeks later, the rep is asking why the deal has stalled.
Following up is not just about sending more emails. Every follow-up should have a purpose: answering an unresolved question, sharing relevant information, involving another stakeholder, addressing an objection, or agreeing on the next step in the buying process.
The quality of the next step matters, too. Compare “I’ll follow up next week” with “Let’s reconnect on Thursday after your finance team reviews the business case, so we can address any questions before the approval meeting.” The second establishes a reason, an expected action, and a point of progress.
During a sales review, ask whether each active opportunity has a meaningful next step, who owns it, and when it will happen. If a prospect has repeatedly failed to respond, the rep should reconsider the engagement strategy rather than continue sending the same message indefinitely. It may be necessary to approach another stakeholder, revisit the business problem, or acknowledge that the opportunity has lost momentum.
A follow-up cadence helps maintain consistency, but persistence without purpose rarely fixes a weak opportunity. The objective is to move the buying process forward, not merely to keep the salesperson visible.
Turn Sales Reviews Into Coaching Conversations
These five questions help identify where the pipeline may be leaking: a prospect who is enthusiastic but lacks influence, a rep spending time on low-impact work, an opportunity that has not been properly qualified, unanswered commercial questions, or follow-ups that fail to create progress.
The value of the checklist, however, depends on how a manager uses it. If every sales review becomes an interrogation about why a deal has not closed, reps will learn to defend their forecasts rather than expose their risks. If managers use the discussion to understand what is known, what is missing, and what needs to happen next, the review becomes a coaching opportunity.
Not every deal will close, and not every stalled opportunity can be rescued. The goal is to identify problems early enough to make informed decisions, redirect effort where necessary, and help reps improve their judgement over time.
A strong sales review should leave the manager and the salesperson with a clearer understanding of the opportunity, its risks, and the actions required to move it forward.
These are the five things I look at when reviewing deals. Would you add anything else to this checklist?