Deal review questions
The questions a manager asks in deal reviews shape how reps run deals. Ask about the economic buyer every week and reps go find out who it is.
These questions test evidence, not enthusiasm.
Short answer
Deal review questions test a deal's qualification rather than accepting the rep's optimistic narrative. They probe the champion, economic buyer, quantified pain, compelling event, competition, and path to signature. Asking these consistently in reviews surfaces gaps and coaches reps to close them. Copy the question bank below for your deal reviews.
The question bank
Ask these in every deal review.
- Champion: "Who is selling this internally when you are not there, and what have they actually done?"
- Economic buyer: "Have you met the person who controls the budget? What did they say?"
- Pain: "What is this problem costing them, in their numbers?"
- Compelling event: "What is the real deadline, and what happens if they miss it?"
- Decision process: "Walk me through exactly how this gets approved and signed."
- Competition: "What else are they considering, including doing nothing, and why do we win?"
- Next step: "What is the specific next action, and when is it scheduled?"
- Risk: "What is the single biggest reason this deal could slip or die?"
How to use them
Inspection drives behavior.
- Ask consistently so reps qualify to the questions.
- Probe for evidence, not the rep's optimism.
- Turn every gap into a next step with a date.
Use this in Ardovo
You do not have to start from a blank page. Tell Rook, Ardovo's AI operator, what you need (for example, "deal review questions") and it drafts a version grounded in your real pipeline, personalizes it to the specific deal or contact, and saves it to the record in one step. Every framework lives in one shared library, so the whole team runs the same play.
Frequently asked questions
What questions should I ask in a deal review?
Questions that test qualification: who the champion is and what they have done, whether the rep has met the economic buyer, the quantified pain, the compelling event, the decision process, the competition, the scheduled next step, and the biggest risk. These probe evidence rather than accepting an optimistic story.
How do deal review questions improve deals?
They shape how reps run deals. When a manager asks who the economic buyer is every week, reps go find out. Consistent inspection questions train the team to qualify to the standard, surface gaps early, and turn each gap into a next step, which lifts win rates and forecast accuracy over time.
How do I keep reps from just telling me a happy story?
Ask for evidence, not enthusiasm. Instead of "how is the deal?" ask "what did the economic buyer say when you met them?" Specific, evidence-seeking questions expose the gaps a narrative hides, and asking them consistently trains reps to come prepared with facts rather than optimism.