Where is this deal, really?
Pick the one live deal that's keeping you up. Walk it down the five stages, and tick every statement you can honestly say yes to. The first gate you can't clear is where the deal is actually stuck – not where the paperwork says it is. Nothing you tick or type is saved or sent; it's yours for this sitting.
Prospecting
Decide who's worth the approach, before you spend a conversation on them.
Is there a reason {co} would move now – or does it just look like a fit?
A full pipeline reads as progress. A name on a list is a guess about where a deal might be, not a deal – and a busy pipeline of guesses is the most comfortable way to avoid finding out which ones are real.
There's a specific reason this one is worth researching properly – not just that they'd be a good logo.
Qualification
Do the homework: enter informed, not assuming.
Have you learned enough to walk in credible – while holding your picture of {co} loosely enough to be wrong?
Letting the research harden into a diagnosis. The business that "qualified well" as a growth case was really an owner who wanted out; that surface view would have sold the wrong thing.
You can enter the room informed, carrying a hypothesis you're willing to have overturned – not a pitch you're ready to give.
Discovery
Find the real need under the one they handed you.
Do you know what {co} needs in order to act – not just what you've been asked to quote?
Taking the brief at face value. What they asked you to price is their own guess at their problem. Qualification would have found a healthy business – discovery is where you find the owner inside it.
You can name what they actually need in a way they'd recognize as truer than the request they walked in with.
Scope & alignment
Shape the work together, and hear the conclusion in their words.
Can the decision-maker say back, in their own words, why this is worth doing – including the part they'd have to carry?
Mistaking your own clarity for theirs. You can see why it's worth it long before they do; alignment isn't reached until they've said it, not nodded at it.
The decision is effectively already made between you – the paperwork is the only thing missing.
Proposal
Write down the agreement you've already reached.
Is this a record of something settled – or a last attempt to talk them into it?
Using the proposal to do the selling. If it's carrying the persuasion, a stage upstream got skipped – and a polished proposal is the most expensive place to discover that.
Sending it changes nothing that wasn't already true. It confirms; it doesn't convince.
Tick the statements you can honestly say yes to. As soon as a stage has an unticked line, this will show you where the deal is really stuck.
Where you can't clear a gate – that isn't a lost deal, it's the deal telling you where it actually is. Go back and do the work that stage is asking for, rather than carrying an unearned deal forward into a proposal that was never going to land.
Want to see where your selling stands overall?
The two-minute sales scorecard places you – on the plateau, owner-held, or built to run without you – and points you to the areas worth starting with. No email, no sign-up.
This is yours to use, whether or not we ever speak.
Walking a real deal through the five stages is the same pass we'd do with you. The difference a fractional seat makes isn't the checklist – it's the judgment in the moment, on your actual deals, and the standing hand that keeps you running it. If that's what you're after, the first conversation is free.