Deal Forensics

The Slip Pattern

The deal was going well. The champion was engaged. Meetings were happening. The rep was confident. Then:

"They need more time to evaluate."
"The decision got pushed to next quarter."
"They went dark."

The deal slipped. The forecast missed. Everyone acts surprised.

They should not be surprised. The deal was signaling distress for weeks before it died. The signals were ignored because no one was trained to see them.

Deals do not fail suddenly. They decay gradually. The decay produces observable behaviors that, when recognized, provide warning. Warning enables intervention. Intervention can save deals or, at minimum, provide accurate forecasting.

Deal Forensics is the practice of reading these signals and responding before decay becomes death.

Stall Signals

A Stall Signal is an observable behavior that correlates with deal failure. Each signal, in isolation, may not be decisive. In combination, they indicate a deal at serious risk.

Category 1: Engagement Signals

Champion Goes Dark
Your internal advocate stops responding. Emails take days instead of hours. Meetings get pushed or canceled. Calls go to voicemail.

What it means: Your champion has deprioritized the evaluation. Something else is consuming their attention, or they have received internal signals that the deal is unlikely.

Meeting Quality Declines
Meetings happen but feel perfunctory. The buyer is distracted. Questions are superficial. Next steps are vague.

What it means: The buyer is going through motions. The genuine interest that drove early engagement has faded.

Stakeholder Access Narrows
You were meeting with multiple stakeholders. Now you are only meeting with one. Requests to include others are deflected.

What it means: Internal support has weakened. Your champion is protecting you from stakeholders who would deliver bad news.

Category 2: Process Signals

"Internal Alignment" Is Mentioned
The buyer says they need to "align internally" or "socialize" the decision. No specific timeline or process is provided.

What it means: There is internal disagreement. Your champion either cannot or will not tell you what the disagreement is. Resolution is uncertain.

Legal/Procurement Delays
The contract was supposed to go to legal two weeks ago. It has not arrived. Procurement review was "starting this week" for three weeks straight.

What it means: Either the deal is not actually progressing to close, or there are issues surfacing in review that the buyer has not shared.

Timeline Keeps Moving
The decision was supposed to happen last month. Now it is this month. Soon it will be next month.

What it means: There is no real timeline. The buyer is either not committed or does not have internal alignment to make a decision.

Category 3: Competition Signals

New Questions Emerge
The buyer starts asking about features or capabilities that were not part of the original evaluation. The questions feel like they came from a different source.

What it means: A competitor is in the picture. The buyer is using their evaluation framework to interrogate you.

Request for Proposal Revisit
The buyer wants to see the proposal again. Or wants a new proposal. Or wants to "clarify some terms."

What it means: They are comparing your offer to alternatives. The proposal is being reviewed against competitive benchmarks.

Reference Request Shift
Early in the deal, references were not needed. Now they are urgent. Or the type of reference requested changed (specific industry, specific use case).

What it means: The buyer is validating against a concern that has emerged, possibly raised by a competitor or skeptical stakeholder.

Category 4: Decision Signals

Decision Maker Is Absent
The economic buyer was engaged early but has not appeared in recent conversations. Requests to meet with them are deferred.

What it means: Either the deal has lost executive sponsorship, or the economic buyer has delegated to someone without authority to close.

"We Need to Think About It"
No specific concerns are raised. No specific next steps are defined. They just need time.

What it means: They are not going to buy. They are being polite. If they wanted to buy, they would tell you what they needed to proceed.

Urgency Disappears
The problem that was urgent three months ago is no longer discussed. The pain that drove evaluation has become tolerable.

What it means: The buying window has closed. The problem was downgraded in priority. Without renewed urgency, there is no purchase.

Signal Pattern Recognition

Individual signals warrant attention. Signal combinations warrant action.

Risk Levels

Yellow (Caution): Single signal or minor signals

• Champion response time has increased
• One meeting pushed
• Generic "internal alignment" mention

Action: Investigate. Ask direct questions. Monitor for escalation.

Orange (At Risk): Multiple signals or significant signal

• Champion dark for 1+ week
• Decision maker absent from recent interactions
• Timeline moved once
• Competitor evidence emerging

Action: Intervention required. Change approach. Escalate internally if warranted.

Red (Critical): Strong signals or signal pattern

• Champion dark for 2+ weeks
• Multiple timeline slips
• "Need to think about it" response
• Decision maker cannot be scheduled
• Legal/procurement has stalled

Action: Confront reality. Either force a resolution conversation or re-categorize the deal. Continuing as-is is wasting resources.

The Decision Audit

The Decision Audit answers a simple question: "What must be true for this deal to close?"

Every deal has conditions for close. Some are explicit (budget approval, legal sign-off). Some are implicit (champion keeps their job, project does not get canceled). The Decision Audit makes these conditions visible.

The Audit Framework

For any deal, answer these questions:

1. Who makes the decision?
Name the specific person with authority to say yes. If you cannot name them with certainty, you do not know who decides.

2. What is the decision process?
Describe the steps between now and signature. Who reviews what? In what order? What approvals are required?

3. What is the decision timeline?
When will each step occur? What drives the timeline? Is it internally mandated or rep-hopeful?

4. What must be true for a yes?
List the conditions. Technical fit must be proven. Business case must be approved. Budget must be available. Stakeholders must agree. Alternatives must be rejected.

5. What evidence exists for each condition?
For each condition, document what you know. Not what you assume. Not what you hope. What you have verified.

6. What could cause a no?
List the risks. Champion leaves. Budget gets cut. Competitor wins. Project gets deprioritized. For each risk, assess likelihood.

Audit Example

Deal: Enterprise platform, $180k annual contract

Question	Answer	Evidence
Who decides?	CFO (budget), CTO (technical)	Both identified, met CTO, CFO scheduled
Decision process?	CTO recommends, CFO approves, procurement processes	Champion described process
Decision timeline?	CTO rec by 15th, CFO approval by 22nd, sign by month-end	CTO confirmed; CFO timeline is assumption
Must be true?	(1) Technical validation, (2) ROI accepted, (3) Budget available, (4) Procurement approves	(1) Done, (2) In progress, (3) Uncertain, (4) Not started
Could cause no?	Budget not available (medium risk), Competitor (low)	Budget is the primary uncertainty

Audit Conclusion: Deal is real but budget is unverified. CFO timeline is assumption, not commitment. Deal should be Upside, not Commit, until budget evidence exists.

Audit Discipline

The Decision Audit should be completed for every deal above a significance threshold (e.g., all deals >$50k or all deals in Stage 4+).

Update the audit as new information emerges. When evidence changes, categories should change.

An audit is not a one-time exercise. It is a living document that tracks the evolving evidence landscape.

Intervention Tactics

When signals or audit reveal risk, intervention is required. The worst response is to wait and hope.

Tactic 1: The Direct Question

Stop dancing. Ask directly.

"I noticed we have not been able to connect in the past two weeks. Has something changed on your end that I should know about?"

"When we first spoke, this was a priority for Q2. Are you still targeting Q2 for a decision?"

"Is there anything about our solution or terms that is giving you hesitation?"

Direct questions feel uncomfortable. They risk hearing bad news. But bad news now is better than bad news later. And direct questions sometimes surface issues that can be addressed.

Tactic 2: The Champion Check

Assess your champion's position.

"How is this project being received internally? Is there any pushback I should know about?"

"If you were to recommend moving forward, what would happen next? Who else needs to be on board?"

"On a scale of 1-10, how confident are you that this will get approved?"

The champion knows more than they have shared. Give them permission to tell you.

Tactic 3: The Voice Change

If the rep is stuck, bring a different voice.

Sales engineer to discuss technical concerns. Executive to discuss business alignment. Customer reference to discuss outcomes. A new voice can unlock conversations that have become stuck.

Tactic 4: The Forcing Function

Create urgency where it has faded.

"Our pricing is guaranteed through the end of the month. After that, I cannot hold these terms."

"We have implementation capacity starting March 1. If we miss this window, the next available slot is May."

"I want to make sure we are not wasting your time. If this is not a priority right now, I would rather pause and reconnect when timing is better."

Forcing functions either accelerate decision or expose that there is no decision to accelerate. Both outcomes are valuable.

Tactic 5: The Graceful Exit

Sometimes the deal cannot be saved. The signals are too clear. The conditions are not met.

Exit gracefully. Thank them for their time. Express willingness to reengage when circumstances change. Close the opportunity in CRM.

Graceful exits are not failure. They are resource reallocation. The time that was going into a dead deal can now go into live ones.

Case Study: The Early Warning System

A Remotir client (B2B software, $15M ARR, 20-person sales team) had a pattern: deals were slipping in the final week of the quarter. Reps were confident until the end, then deals pushed.

The Diagnosis:

We analyzed 30 slipped deals from the prior two quarters and identified that 87% had exhibited at least two Stall Signals three or more weeks before slip:

• Champion response time had increased
• Decision maker had not been engaged
• Timeline had moved at least once
• "Internal alignment" had been mentioned

The signals were present. No one was looking for them.

The Implementation:

1. Trained reps on Stall Signal recognition
2. Added signal checkboxes to opportunity records
3. Required Decision Audit for all deals >$30k
4. Instituted weekly "signal review" in pipeline meetings
5. Created intervention playbook for Orange/Red status deals

The Results (next two quarters):

• Slipped deals decreased 62%
• Deals identified at risk 3+ weeks earlier
• Win rate on intervened deals: 34% (vs. 0% for undetected slips)
• Forecast accuracy improved from 74% to 89%

The insight: The company did not suddenly get better at closing. They got better at seeing. Deals that were going to slip were identified earlier, enabling intervention or accurate re-forecasting.

Conclusion: Deals Talk

Deals communicate through behavior. They tell you when they are healthy and when they are sick. They signal momentum and they signal decay.

Most sales teams ignore these signals. They rely on rep confidence and buyer politeness. They are surprised when deals fail because they were not listening.

Deal Forensics is the practice of listening.

Learn the Stall Signals. Recognize the patterns. Conduct the Decision Audit. Know what must be true and what evidence exists.

When the signals say the deal is dying, believe them. The signals are more accurate than optimism.

The deals that are going to close are signaling momentum. The deals that are going to fail are signaling decay. Your job is to read the signals and respond.