deal-risk-review

Deal Risk Review

Purpose

Take a single deal and produce an honest health verdict: which specific risks are present, how severe each is, what to do about each, and whether the deal is red, yellow, or green. The goal is to catch a slipping deal before the forecast call, not after it pushes.

Inputs

• The deal: account, stage, amount, close date
• Who's engaged (and who isn't) — champion, economic buyer, blockers
• Activity history: last touch, last meeting, momentum over the last 2–4 weeks
• What you're trying to advance and the next confirmed step (if any)

Method

Run every deal against a fixed risk taxonomy. Don't grade on vibes — for each risk, mark present/absent, score severity, and attach a mitigation. Then roll up to a verdict.

The seven risks (taxonomy):

#	Risk	Present when…
1	Single-threaded	Only one contact engaged; no second relationship in the account
2	No economic buyer engaged	You've never met or confirmed who controls the budget
3	No confirmed next step	No future meeting/milestone on the calendar with a date
4	Stalled / aging	No meaningful two-way activity in 14+ days, or deal age >> sales cycle for its stage
5	Active competitor	A named competitor is in the eval and not neutralized
6	Close-date slipping	The close date has moved out one or more times
7	No quantified pain	Pain is acknowledged but not tied to a number (cost, time, revenue, risk)

Score each present risk 1–3:

• 1 (minor) — present but contained; a clear, cheap action fixes it.
• 2 (material) — credibly threatens the close date or amount; needs a deliberate play.
• 3 (critical) — can kill the deal on its own; nothing else matters until it's addressed.

Mitigation per risk (one specific play each):

1. Single-threaded → name a second stakeholder to reach this week; ask your champion for a warm intro to one peer or their boss.
2. No economic buyer → propose an exec-aligned next step (ROI review, exec readout); use a "who else signs off?" question to surface them.
3. No confirmed next step → before any call ends, book the next one on the calendar; if none exists now, send a calendar hold with an agenda today.
4. Stalled / aging → send a pattern-interrupt (status of the business case, a deadline, or a permission-to-close-the-file email); if no response, downgrade forecast.
5. Active competitor → run a differentiation play on the buyer's stated criteria; arm the champion with a battlecard; trap-set on where the competitor is weak.
6. Close-date slipping → rebuild the mutual close plan backwards from a real compelling event; if there's no event, the date is fiction — re-date it honestly.
7. No quantified pain → run a cost-of-inaction calc with the buyer; convert pain to $ / hours / risk so the business case survives procurement.