Sales
How to run a weekly pipeline review
A short, honest look at live deals beats a long meeting with stale cards. Leave with owners and dates, or you had a chat, not a review.
6 min read
Pipeline meetings fail when people read the board aloud. The meeting should change dates, owners and next steps, or it is theatre. If the cards look the same after thirty minutes of talking, you spent the half hour on storytelling.
A good review is slightly uncomfortable. Stuck work gets named. Lost work gets marked lost. Someone leaves with a call they had been avoiding.
A good review is slightly uncomfortable. Stuck work gets named. Lost work gets marked lost. Someone leaves with a call they had been avoiding.
If the cards look the same after thirty minutes of talking, you spent the half hour on storytelling. The meeting should change dates, owners, and next steps, or it is theatre.
If last Friday's meeting left the board looking the same, you had a tour of hope. The next one should change dates in the room.
Only live work
If it has not moved in two weeks, it is the first topic. Either follow up or mark it lost. Do not start with the exciting new lead while zombies sit on the right of the board making the forecast look kind.
Live means there is a next step with a date in the near term. Everything else is either won, lost, or pretending.
One next step each
Leave with an owner and a date, not a feeling. If it cannot be named, it is not a step. 'Keep warming them' is a feeling. 'Send the revised quote Wednesday, call Friday' is a step.
Update the card in the room. If you wait until after, you will not, and next week's meeting starts from the same fiction.
- ✓What is stuck, and for how long
- ✓What needs a decision, from them or from you
- ✓What can be closed: won, lost, or parked with a real date
“Our Friday reviews used to be a tour of hope. Then we capped it at thirty minutes and refused to finish a card without a next date. The board got smaller and more true. We sell more now because we stopped rehearsing dead jobs.”
Keep it to thirty minutes
Long reviews reward storytelling. Short reviews reward updating the record in the room. If you need an hour, the board is too big or the stages are too vague. Fix the board. Do not extend the meeting.
Stand-up around a screen is fine. A slide deck of the pipeline is a smell. You already have the board.
Who needs to be there
People who own deals. Not spectators. If someone has no cards, they do not need to sit through other people's next steps. Bring them in for a specific decision, then let them leave.
One person should drive: keep the clock, force the next date, stop the war stories.
Update live, or it was a chat
If the board is unchanged after the meeting, you had a chat, not a review. The point is a board that still matches Friday afternoon, and a Monday that starts with named calls rather than a recap of the recap.
Start with what has not moved
If it has not moved in two weeks, it is the first topic. Either follow up or mark it lost. Do not start with the exciting new lead while zombies sit on the right of the board making the forecast look kind.
Live means there is a next step with a date in the near term. Everything else is either won, lost, or pretending.
Kind boards are late boards. Honesty is faster.
One next step each, named in the room
Leave with an owner and a date, not a feeling. Keep warming them is a feeling. Send the revised quote Wednesday, call Friday is a step.
Update the card in the room. If you wait until after, you will not, and next week's meeting starts from the same fiction.
Cap it at thirty minutes. Long reviews reward storytelling. Short reviews reward updating the record. If you need an hour, the board is too big or the stages are too vague.
- ✓What is stuck, and for how long
- ✓What needs a decision, from them or from you
- ✓What can be closed: won, lost, or parked with a real date
Only deal owners need to sit through it
People who own deals. Not spectators. If someone has no cards, they do not need to sit through other people's next steps. Bring them in for a specific decision, then let them leave.
One person should drive: keep the clock, force the next date, stop the war stories.
A slide deck of the pipeline is a smell. You already have the board. Stand-up around a screen is enough.
If the board is unchanged, it was a chat
The point is a board that still matches Friday afternoon, and a Monday that starts with named calls rather than a recap of the recap.
If you finish a card without a next date, you did not finish the card. Refuse to move on. That one rule shrinks the board and makes it true.
Refuse to leave a card without a date
That one rule shrinks the board. Stuck work gets a call or gets marked lost. Storytelling runs out of time.
If a card cannot earn a date, it cannot earn a place in the forecast.
Keep spectators out
People who own deals stay. People who came to listen can read the board later. A review is not a show.
One person drives the clock. War stories get cut. Next steps get written while everyone is still looking.
Do this in Foxtra on the pipeline itself. The point is a board that still matches Friday afternoon. Short, honest, updated live. Anything else is a meeting you could have skipped.
Do this on the pipeline itself. Short, honest, updated live. Anything else is a meeting you could have skipped.
Owner, date, next step, in the room. If the board is unchanged after the meeting, you had a chat, not a review.
Thirty minutes, live updates, named next steps. If the board is unchanged, skip the meeting next week and work the list instead.