Deal risk assessment · Sales
Find out which of your open deals are about to be lost or late.
A quotation has sat open for two months. The salesperson says the buyer is keen, yet nobody has met the person who signs the purchase order, and the payment terms have not come up. That deal looks the same in the sheet as one where all of those are settled.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
Deal risk assessment is a short, written check on each open deal that shows what is missing before the order can arrive. GullySales builds the checklist with your sales head, writes a risk note on every live deal, and agrees what the owner does about each red one, without inventing a probability.
Deal risk assessment puts the differences on paper. Each open deal is checked against the same few questions: has the decision-maker been met, who owns the budget, is a competitor in the room, is the specification agreed, and have payment terms been discussed. A gap becomes a written note and a named next step.
This is not a stage review or a forecast. Pipeline management tracks where each deal sits, sales forecasting turns the pipeline into an order number, and deal desk services settle discounts and terms. This service tells you which deals need your attention this week.
Who it is for
This is written for you if these sound familiar.
- Manufacturers and dealers with a handful of large quotations that decide the quarter
- Equipment and project suppliers whose orders need technical, commercial and finance approval from the buyer
- Software and services firms selling to buying committees, and clinics or institutions selling high-value packages
- Owners who sign off every discount because they cannot tell which deals are real
- Sales managers who inherit a deal list with no written reason behind any date
Not for
It is not the right fit if.
- Businesses that sell over the counter or by walk-in, where there is no open deal to assess
- Teams with no deal list at all. A basic record of open quotations has to exist first
- Anyone wanting a score that predicts the exact chance of winning. We do not invent probabilities
The problem
Does this sound like your business?
Common situations this work addresses.
“I only hear about a lost deal after it is gone”
The buyer went quiet weeks ago, but the record still says follow-up pending. Nothing in the sheet separates a quiet deal from a healthy one.
“We never met the person who actually signs”
The salesperson talks to an engineer or a purchase assistant, while a director or a trustee approves the spend. The deal stalls at a desk nobody has visited.
“We find out about the competitor at the last minute”
A rival quote or a lower tender price appears only when the buyer asks for a discount. By then the specification has already been written around the other supplier.
“The order came, then the payment did not”
Terms were never raised during selling, so the buyer's own payment cycle surfaced at invoice time. The deal was won on paper and late in the bank.
What we do
The work we can include.
Each deliverable and the purpose it serves. Your written scope confirms what is included, who is responsible, and what it costs.
Deal risk checklist
A one-page checklist written with your sales head. It covers decision-maker met, budget owner known, competitor present, specification agreed and payment terms discussed, and adds questions specific to your trade.
Risk note on each open deal
A short written note per deal listing which checks are met, which are missing and what the evidence is. Green, amber and red are labels for gaps found, not a percentage.
Decision-maker and budget record
A line on each deal naming who signs, who owns the budget and who has actually been met. Where the name is unknown, the record says so plainly.
Competitor and specification log
Which rival is quoting, whether the buyer's specification, drawing or scope has been agreed in writing, and who on the buyer's side confirmed it.
Payment terms check
A note on whether credit period, advance, milestones and the buyer's approval route for payment have been discussed. Questions about payment rules for small suppliers go to your own adviser.
Red deal action sheet
For each red deal, one decision for the owner: a senior call to the buyer, a revised scope, a termed offer, or closing the deal out with a reason. Each action has an owner and a date.
Checklist handover
A working session on your own deals so your sales manager can run the checklist and write the notes without us.
How the result is measured
- Open deals with a named and met decision-maker
- Red deals with an owner decision and a dated action
- Deals where the specification is agreed in writing
- Deals with payment terms discussed before the order
- Risk notes compared with the final outcome of each deal
Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.
Before you decide
Agree the work. Know how to judge it.
Deal risk assessment: use these checks to prepare, choose the scope, and review what changes.
Bring the right evidence
List the records your team uses and show how an enquiry becomes an order today. Bring examples of duplicate entries, missing owners, and reports that require manual correction.
Make the scope clear
Agree the stages, required fields, access roles, and integrations before configuring the system. Separate software subscriptions from setup, data work, and training.
Check the work in use
Ask the people who will use the CRM to complete a real handover and find the next action without help. Check that the management report can be traced back to individual records.
Know when to change course
If the process is unclear, buying a more complex CRM adds more places for confusion. Start with the minimum fields and rules the team can use consistently.
These are discussion points, not a fixed package. GullySales confirms the deliverables, responsibilities, fee, and term in writing after reading your brief and speaking with you.
How it works
How the deal risk assessment work runs
The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.
- 1
Deal list and checklist scope
After your requirements brief and a first conversation, we see how open deals are recorded today in a CRM, spreadsheet or quotation file. Scope, fee and term are put in writing.
- 2
Checklist design
We draft the questions with your sales head, then test them on five or six real deals your team knows well. Questions that do not separate good deals from bad ones are removed.
- 3
First pass through every open deal
Salespeople answer each question with something they can point to: a name, a message, a signed drawing. A claim without evidence is marked missing.
- 4
Risk notes and owner decisions
We write the note on each deal and bring the red ones to you. You decide the action; your team carries it out with the buyer.
- 5
Re-check and learning
Deals are checked again after the agreed actions. Outcomes are compared with the earlier notes, and questions that missed what actually went wrong are rewritten.
Before you hire anyone
Do this first yourself.
List your open quotations on one sheet and answer five questions about each before you ask anyone for help.
- Write each open deal on one line with the buyer, the value and the date of the last real reply from the buyer.
- Mark whether you or your salesperson has met the person who signs the purchase order, not just the person who asked for the quote.
- Write the name of the budget owner, or write unknown.
- Note whether you know of a rival quote, and whether the buyer's specification or scope is agreed in writing.
- Record whether credit period and payment route were discussed before the quote was sent.
- Pick the three deals with the most unknowns and decide what you will do about each this week.
Judge any provider
What to ask any provider of this service.
Useful whoever you choose, including us.
- Which questions will be on the checklist, and how will they be changed to suit our trade?
- What counts as evidence for each answer, and who checks it?
- Do you give a probability to each deal, and if so, where does the figure come from?
- Who decides what to do about a red deal, and who talks to the buyer?
- How will you check afterwards that the notes matched what happened to the deals?
- What do you need from our records, and what happens if they are incomplete?
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 6, closing. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
Will you give each deal a percentage chance of closing?
How is this different from pipeline management or sales forecasting?
Does this work for B2C businesses such as clinics or schools?
Will you contact our buyers or negotiate terms for us?
Can you guarantee we will win more deals?
How do we start, and how is the fee decided?
How long is the contract?
How soon will we see results?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
By industry
Deal risk assessment, written for your industry.
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