Deal Review Meeting Template
Every action typed by the authority it needs, the whole open book in one queue, and what each review changed a fortnight later.
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Action Tracker · Aldbury field service · open actions at 23 June
Every overdue action owned above the rep has nobody chasing it.
| Action | Authority | Owner | Due | Overdue | Chased by |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Map the four stakeholders on the forwarded list | rep | J. Okonkwo | 19 Jun | 4 | R. Ivens |
| Confirm the budget cost centre in writing | other function | Their finance director | 19 Jun | 4 | M. Byrne |
| Sign off the framework pricing schedule | manager | R. Ivens, Sales Director | 12 Jun | 11 | nobody |
| Hold the delivery slot until 31 July | manager | R. Ivens, Sales Director | 19 Jun | 4 | nobody |
| Call the COO directly and book the twenty minutes | exec | P. Deniard, VP Sales | 19 Jun | 4 | nobody |
| Build urgency with the COO | none | no actor exists | n/a | n/a | cut in the room |
The two overdue actions owned by the rep and by another function were both chased inside the week. The three owned at manager and executive level are the ones three deals are actually waiting on, and the chaser column is empty on all three. Nobody chases their own manager, which is why anything owned above the rep leaves the room with a named chaser who is not the rep.
Page one for this query is the meeting and nothing else. Four parts, Why Change, Why Now, Why Not, Feedback and Plan, published with twenty-one questions underneath them. A venture firm ships a downloadable template built on the eight qualification elements. A cadence table splits the weekly one-to-one from the bi-weekly team review. Every one of them ends the same way, with action items carrying named owners and deadlines. None of them asks what the action was worth.
So every action goes to the rep, and a room that cost seven person hours produced a list the rep already had. This pack types each action by the lowest authority that can actually cause it. Authority is delegated and bounded everywhere it is written down, and a sales action is no different. Get twenty minutes with the COO is an executive action once the rep has asked twice through the champion and been refused twice.
The second absence is a queue. Every template assumes the three deals in front of the manager are the right three, and none records what went unreviewed. Auditing settled this: a sample represents a population only when all items in it have an opportunity to be selected. So a census, checkable triggers, and a rotation from the remainder. The worked example finds a deal 214 days in Proposal that no review ever touched. The plan to signature and the scorecard the reviews read are separate jobs.
What is in the pack
Action Tracker
Every action typed rep, manager, exec, other function or none, aged against its due date, with a named chaser on anything owned above the rep.
Review Schedule
The whole open book in one sheet, with each deal marked census, triggered, rotation or not this cycle, and the reason left visible in the row.
Review Ledger
Each review logged with its attendees, its cost in person-minutes, the actions it produced by authority, and what the deal did fourteen days later.
Deal Risk Register
One row per risk as it was written in the room, with the observable event that settles it and the lowest authority that can cause that event.
Selection Rule
The census threshold, five triggers that fire on facts rather than opinions, and the rotation draw that stops the queue describing only your loudest deals.
Review Format
Twenty-five minutes, three people, four things established in order, and an exit condition that is the written note rather than the clock.
Question Set by Stage
Questions answerable only with something the buyer did or said on a date, plus the three common questions that are on no stage list and why.
Pre-Review Brief and Action Note
Worked examples on one deal: the page that goes out the night before, and the page written in the room before anybody leaves it.
How it works
- 1
Fill the schedule
Send the opportunity export for the whole open book. Every deal gets a row and a queue state, and the deals nobody has ever reviewed become visible.
- 2
Write the brief
Built from the calls and the thread rather than from the rep, leading with what the buyer did, and naming the blocker as one sentence.
- 3
Type the actions
Each action goes to the lowest authority that can cause it, wishes with no actor are cut, and anything above the rep gets a chaser.
- 4
Record what changed
A fortnight on, the ledger says what the deal actually did, so the cost of the reviews that changed nothing is one visible figure.
Frequently asked questions
Is this template free?
Yes. Five Word documents and four CSV sheets, downloaded as a zip, no signup. River is the optional half: it builds the brief, fills the schedule and types the actions. Single-shot jobs live in River's tool index and the rest in the template library.
What does typing an action by authority actually change?
It stops the reissue. An action the rep has already attempted twice through the same route is not a rep action, however it is phrased, and handing it back with a fresh due date reads as progress. In the worked example that pattern held one deal in Proposal for four months.
Why does the queue need a random draw?
Because a census and a set of triggers both select deliberately: for large, and for visibly in trouble. Reviews of only those tell you about large troubled deals and nothing else. Two rotation draws a cycle is what lets the rest of the book cycle through instead of never appearing.
Who should be in the room?
Three people. The rep, the manager, and one seat chosen from the risk register for the authority the deal needs. Formal buying processes fix this in advance: the source selection authority is designated and the evaluation team established before the solicitation goes out. How the rep ran the call is a separate meeting on a separate unit.
We already run MEDDPICC reviews. Does this replace that?
No. Keep the framework and the stage questions. What is missing underneath them is the queue that decides which deals get looked at, and the typing that separates an action requiring the room from one the rep would have taken anyway. Those sit around a methodology, not instead of it. Which stage the questions should press hardest on is the conversion diagnostic.
What if the overdue actions are all mine?
That is the usual result, and it is the reason the tracker ages by authority. A rep cannot chase their own manager, so manager and executive actions sit while rep actions get chased inside the week. Every action above rep level leaves the room with a named chaser who is not the rep.
How is this different from a mutual action plan?
Different audience. A mutual action plan is built with the buyer and holds their steps and dates. This is the internal side: which of your deals get inspected, what the inspection cost, and which actions needed somebody above the rep to exist at all.
Find out which of your reviews changed a deal
Send the opportunity export and the notes from your last few reviews. The first pass finds the deals nobody has ever looked at.
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