Founder's Deal Review Kit
A clearer view of your next deal.
Use the Founder's Deal Review Kit to identify what's known, what's missing, and what needs to happen next. Free to use. No email required.
This kit is a sample of AMG's working approach. It is not a customer case study or evidence of a guaranteed outcome.
1. Opportunity review worksheet
Fill this in for each live deal. For every field, mark whether it is confirmed buyer evidence or a seller assumption. A booked demo alone does not establish a qualified opportunity.
| Field | What to record | Confirmed or assumed? |
|---|---|---|
| Company / opportunity | ||
| Owner | Who is accountable for this deal? | |
| Current stage | Per your stage definitions, not gut feel. | |
| Value and value basis | ARR, TCV, or other. Say which. | |
| Expected decision date | And the evidence for it. | |
| Buyer's stated problem | In the buyer's words. | |
| Business consequence | What happens if they do nothing? | |
| Why now | What makes this a priority this quarter? | |
| Decision-maker | ||
| Internal champion | ||
| Stakeholders still missing | ||
| Evaluation criteria | ||
| Procurement, security, and legal steps | ||
| Known alternatives | Competitors, internal build, or doing nothing. | |
| Unresolved objections | ||
| Next buyer commitment | Something the buyer agrees to do, not a seller task. | |
| Owner and date for that commitment | ||
| Evidence required to advance | ||
| Reasons to disqualify or pause |
2. Sales stages and exit criteria
These are illustrative stages, not universal CRM defaults. Adapt the criteria to your buyer's real process, and don't advance a stage just because an email was sent.
| Stage | Evidence required to exit |
|---|---|
| Discovery | Buyer confirms a relevant problem and agrees to further evaluation; fit and stakeholders are sufficiently understood. |
| Qualified evaluation | Success criteria, evaluation steps, stakeholders, and timing are agreed; there is a credible route to a decision. |
| Commercial review | Buyer has received and is actively reviewing a scoped commercial proposal; decision and approval steps are known. |
| Contracting | Commercial direction is agreed and the parties are completing legal, procurement, and signature steps. |
| Closed won | Required agreement is executed and the sale meets the company's defined booking policy; delivery handoff is recorded. |
| Closed lost / paused | Reason and evidence recorded; paused deals are separated from the active forecast and have an explicit revisit trigger. |
3. Weekly pipeline review agenda
- Review material changes since the last meeting.
- Inspect near-term decisions and stale opportunities.
- Separate facts from assumptions.
- Identify missing buyer commitments.
- Decide the next action, the accountable owner, and the date.
- Update the forecast and the CRM.
- Record one process improvement.
Keep the discussion on decisions and blockers. Don't read every CRM field aloud.
4. Worked example
A fictional software opportunity is marked "proposal" because a quote was emailed. The buyer has not confirmed a decision date, the economic buyer has not joined a call, and the procurement steps are unknown.
Call: keep it out of the committed forecast.
Next action: ask the champion to arrange a decision-process conversation with the relevant stakeholders.
Lesson: replace seller activity with buyer evidence.