Capability template for sales

Sales pipeline review

Each week your sales lead sees the whole open pipeline on one page: value and age by stage, what moved since last week, the deals at risk and coverage against your target. Every figure traces to your export, and the forecast number is left for a person to commit.

The outcome

Your sales lead walks into the week holding the entire pipeline, not just the deals that happen to be loudest. The page shows how much sits in each stage and how long it has been there, which deals came in, moved forward, slipped back, closed or quietly vanished since last week, and a bridge that proves last week's total became this week's.

Deals that need attention are named with the exact reasons: a close date that has passed or moved out, no next step, weeks without activity, too long in one stage. Each comes with one question for its owner. Coverage of what is left of your target is a plain ratio against the bar you set.

The forecast stays a human call. The review lays out the figures a forecast rests on and leaves the number blank for the person who commits it. Rates are held back until enough closed deals sit behind them, so nobody steers by a figure built on three deals.

Who starts the work, and when

The sales lead, the owner or whoever keeps the deal record runs it once a week, on the same day, from that day's export and last week's. It is also worth running the morning of a forecast call or a board update, so the numbers on the table are ones you can trace.

The sales lead reads the review and chooses the week's actions. The person named to commit the forecast fills in the number. The AI assistant changes nothing in your sales system and sends nothing.

What they supply

  • This week's export. Every open deal, plus deals closed in recent months, from your sales system or spreadsheet, with fixed columns: deal, account, owner, stage, amount, close date, created date, date it entered its stage, next step and its date, last activity, status and closed date.
  • Last week's export, in the same columns, so the review can say what moved.
  • Your facts. The review date, the period you are selling into and its target, your stages in order with an optional weight and day limit for each, and who commits the forecast.

What comes out

One review in a fixed order:

  1. Coverage: what was read, what was not, and any deal that was open last week and is missing now.
  2. Headline: open deals and value, won so far, deals at risk and coverage, in two lines.
  3. By stage: count, value, last week's value and whether it truly moved, weighted value, average days in stage, missing next steps, quiet deals and deals over the limit.
  4. Since last week: new, advanced, moved back, close dates changed, amounts changed, won, lost and missing, ending in the bridge.
  5. This period: won so far, open deals closing in the period, the remaining target and coverage.
  6. Deals at risk, largest first, each with its reasons and a question for its owner.
  7. Closed-deal baseline: win rate and cycle length, or the counts alone when there are too few deals.
  8. For the forecast: the figures a forecast rests on, and a blank line for the person who commits it.
  9. Where to look first: at most three actions, each tied to a figure on the page, then the gaps in the export.

A good review is one the sales lead can defend number by number, because every number leads back to a row.

An invented example

Illustrative example with invented data. The company, its accounts, its people, the deals, the dates and the amounts below are all invented. The seller is an invented 30-person company that designs, installs and services warehouse racking and conveyor systems. Its sales team is a sales lead and two account managers, and the managing director commits the quarterly forecast. First come the inputs the sales lead supplied, in full, then the review the capability returned.

The inputs

1. Your facts (typed by the sales lead)

Review date: Monday 9 November 2026
This week's export taken: Monday 9 November 2026
Last week's export taken: Monday 2 November 2026
Period: 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026
Target for the period: $600,000 won
Coverage bar: 3.0
Stages, in order (weight; limit in days):
1. Qualified (10%; 21)
2. Site survey (25%; 14)
3. Quote sent (50%; 21)
4. Negotiation (75%; 14)
Quiet after: 14 days
Movement threshold: $25,000 and 20%
Closed deals needed for a rate: 20
Baseline window: the 180 days before the review date
Reads it: Sales lead
Commits the forecast: Managing director

2. This week's export (9 November 2026)

deal_id,account,owner,stage,amount,close_date,created_date,stage_entered,next_step,next_step_date,last_activity,status,closed_date
R-201,Account A,Account manager 1,Negotiation,84000,2026-11-20,2026-08-03,2026-10-27,Final terms call,2026-11-12,2026-11-05,open,
R-202,Account B,Account manager 2,Quote sent,126000,2026-12-15,2026-09-01,2026-10-12,Quote review with the operations director,2026-11-03,2026-10-20,open,
R-203,Account C,Account manager 1,Quote sent,58000,2026-11-27,2026-09-14,2026-10-26,Follow-up call,2026-11-13,2026-11-04,open,
R-204,Account D,Account manager 2,Site survey,210000,2026-12-18,2026-10-05,2026-10-16,,,2026-10-23,open,
R-205,Account E,Account manager 1,Site survey,47000,2027-01-29,2026-10-21,2026-11-03,Survey visit,2026-11-16,2026-11-03,open,
R-206,Account F,Account manager 2,Qualified,95000,2027-02-26,2026-10-28,2026-10-28,Discovery call,2026-11-11,2026-11-06,open,
R-207,Account G,Account manager 1,Qualified,,2027-03-31,2026-11-03,2026-11-03,Intro meeting,2026-11-18,2026-11-03,open,
R-208,Account H,Account manager 1,Negotiation,66000,2026-10-30,2026-07-20,2026-10-09,Send revised quote,2026-11-10,2026-11-02,open,
R-209,Account J,Account manager 1,Quote sent,38000,2026-12-04,2026-09-21,2026-11-03,Walk through the quote,2026-11-12,2026-11-05,open,
R-190,Account K,Account manager 1,Negotiation,112000,2026-10-14,2026-06-08,2026-09-21,,,2026-10-14,won,2026-10-14
R-194,Account L,Account manager 2,Negotiation,73000,2026-11-04,2026-07-27,2026-10-12,,,2026-11-04,won,2026-11-04
R-196,Account M,Account manager 2,Quote sent,41000,2026-11-06,2026-08-24,2026-10-05,,,2026-11-06,lost,2026-11-06
R-172,Account N,Account manager 1,Negotiation,64000,2026-06-12,2026-03-02,2026-05-25,,,2026-06-12,won,2026-06-12
R-175,Account P,Account manager 2,Quote sent,88000,2026-07-03,2026-04-13,2026-06-01,,,2026-07-03,lost,2026-07-03
R-178,Account Q,Account manager 1,Negotiation,52000,2026-08-21,2026-05-18,2026-08-03,,,2026-08-21,won,2026-08-21
R-181,Account R,Account manager 2,Site survey,30000,2026-09-09,2026-07-06,2026-08-10,,,2026-09-09,lost,2026-09-09

3. Last week's export (2 November 2026, open rows)

Only last week's open rows are shown, because the review reads only those.

deal_id,account,owner,stage,amount,close_date,created_date,stage_entered,next_step,next_step_date,last_activity,status,closed_date
R-201,Account A,Account manager 1,Negotiation,84000,2026-11-20,2026-08-03,2026-10-27,Final terms call,2026-11-12,2026-10-30,open,
R-202,Account B,Account manager 2,Quote sent,126000,2026-11-30,2026-09-01,2026-10-12,Quote review with the operations director,2026-11-03,2026-10-20,open,
R-203,Account C,Account manager 1,Quote sent,64000,2026-11-27,2026-09-14,2026-10-26,Send revised quote,2026-11-02,2026-10-29,open,
R-204,Account D,Account manager 2,Site survey,210000,2026-12-18,2026-10-05,2026-10-16,,,2026-10-23,open,
R-205,Account E,Account manager 1,Qualified,47000,2027-01-29,2026-10-21,2026-10-21,Book the survey,2026-11-03,2026-10-28,open,
R-206,Account F,Account manager 2,Qualified,95000,2027-02-26,2026-10-28,2026-10-28,Discovery call,2026-11-11,2026-10-28,open,
R-208,Account H,Account manager 1,Negotiation,66000,2026-10-30,2026-07-20,2026-10-09,Send revised quote,2026-11-10,2026-11-02,open,
R-209,Account J,Account manager 1,Site survey,38000,2026-12-04,2026-09-21,2026-10-19,Survey visit,2026-10-30,2026-10-30,open,
R-194,Account L,Account manager 2,Negotiation,73000,2026-11-04,2026-07-27,2026-10-12,Signature,2026-11-04,2026-10-30,open,
R-196,Account M,Account manager 2,Quote sent,41000,2026-11-20,2026-08-24,2026-10-05,Quote decision,2026-11-06,2026-10-27,open,
R-199,Account S,Account manager 2,Qualified,54000,2027-01-15,2026-10-07,2026-10-07,Discovery call,2026-10-30,2026-10-14,open,

The output

SALES PIPELINE REVIEW: Monday 9 November 2026

For: Sales lead. Forecast committed by: Managing director. Period: 1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026. From: this week's export of 9 November 2026, 16 rows; last week's export of 2 November 2026, 11 open rows (exports 7 days apart). Stages: 4; weights Qualified 10%, Site survey 25%, Quote sent 50%, Negotiation 75%; limits in days Qualified 21, Site survey 14, Quote sent 21, Negotiation 14. Quiet after 14 days. Movement threshold: $25,000 and 20%. Rates need 20 closed deals. Defaults used: none.

Coverage: Rows read: 16 (9 open; 2 won and 1 lost in the period; 4 closed earlier in the baseline window). Not read: none. Open last week and missing now, under Could not assess: R-199, Qualified, $54,000. Outcome: partial: R-199 was open on 2 November and is not in this week's export.

Headline: 9 open deals, $724,000 (1 amount blank); weighted $297,250. Won in the period so far: 2, $185,000. Deals at risk: 3, $402,000. Coverage of the remaining target: 1.4 against your bar of 3.0.

By stage:

  • Qualified: 2 open, $95,000 (1 amount blank); last week 3, $196,000 (moved: down $101,000, 51.5%). Weighted $9,500. Average 9 days in stage (limit 21). No next step: 0. Quiet 14+ days: 0. Over limit: 0.
  • Site survey: 2 open, $257,000; last week 2, $248,000 (up $9,000, 3.6%: under the threshold). Weighted $64,250. Average 15 days in stage (limit 14). No next step: 1. Quiet 14+ days: 1. Over limit: 1.
  • Quote sent: 3 open, $222,000; last week 3, $231,000 (down $9,000, 3.9%: under the threshold). Weighted $111,000. Average 16 days in stage (limit 21). No next step: 0. Quiet 14+ days: 1. Over limit: 1.
  • Negotiation: 2 open, $150,000; last week 3, $223,000 (moved: down $73,000, 32.7%). Weighted $112,500. Average 22 days in stage (limit 14). No next step: 0. Quiet 14+ days: 0. Over limit: 1.
  • Total: 9 open, $724,000; last week 11, $898,000 (down $174,000, 19.4%: under the threshold). Weighted $297,250.

Since last week: exports 7 days apart.

  • New: R-207, Qualified, amount blank.
  • Advanced: R-205, from Qualified to Site survey; R-209, from Site survey to Quote sent.
  • Moved back: none.
  • Close date changed: R-202, from 30 November 2026 to 15 December 2026.
  • Amount changed: R-203, from $64,000 to $58,000.
  • Won: R-194, $73,000, 4 November 2026.
  • Lost: R-196, $41,000, 6 November 2026.
  • Missing from this week's export: R-199, Qualified, $54,000.
  • Bridge: $898,000 + $0 − $73,000 − $41,000 − $54,000 − $6,000 = $724,000.

This period (1 October 2026 to 31 December 2026):

  • Won so far: 2, $185,000 (R-190, R-194). Lost: 1, $41,000 (R-196).
  • Open with a close date in the period: 6, $582,000; by stage: Site survey, 1, $210,000; Quote sent, 3, $222,000; Negotiation, 2, $150,000. Close date already passed: R-208.
  • Weighted: $276,000.
  • Target: $600,000. Remaining: $415,000. Coverage: 1.4; weighted 0.7; below your bar of 3.0.

Deals at risk: 3, $402,000

R-204 · Account D · Account manager 2 · Site survey · $210,000 · close 18 December 2026

  • Flags: no next step; quiet 17 days (limit 14); in stage 24 days (limit 14).
  • To ask Account manager 2: What is the next step with Account D, and on what date?

R-202 · Account B · Account manager 2 · Quote sent · $126,000 · close 15 December 2026

  • Flags: close date moved later since last week, from 30 November 2026; next-step date passed on 3 November 2026; quiet 20 days (limit 14); in stage 28 days (limit 21).
  • To ask Account manager 2: Has the quote review with the operations director taken place, and what moved the close date from 30 November to 15 December?

R-208 · Account H · Account manager 1 · Negotiation · $66,000 · close 30 October 2026

  • Flags: close date passed on 30 October 2026; in stage 31 days (limit 14).
  • To ask Account manager 1: Now that 30 October has passed, what close date should the record show, and is the revised quote still going out on 10 November?

Closed-deal baseline (13 May 2026 to 8 November 2026): 7 closed: 4 won, $301,000; 3 lost, $159,000. Rates not computed: 7 of 20 closed deals.

For the forecast, for the Managing director to commit:

Won so far $185,000. Open closing in the period $582,000 (6): at risk $402,000 (3), not flagged $180,000 (3). Weighted $276,000. Remaining to target $415,000.

Forecast committed: ________ by Managing director on ________. This review does not set a number.

Where to look first:

  1. Set a dated next step on R-204, for Account manager 2, because it is the largest deal at risk closing in the period, at $210,000, with no next step and 17 days quiet.
  2. Decide how the remaining $415,000 will be covered, for the sales lead, because coverage is 1.4 against your bar of 3.0.
  3. Confirm what happened to R-199, for Account manager 2, because it was open last week at $54,000 and is missing from this week's export.

Gaps in the export: R-207: amount blank.

Prepared from the exports of 9 November 2026 and 2 November 2026. Nothing has been sent, and no record has been changed.

Where it fits

  • Sales: the weekly look at the whole pipeline, done the same way every time.
  • Analytics and reporting: the pipeline turned into figures someone can check.
  • Professional services: engagements of very different sizes sit side by side, and value by stage tells more than a deal count.
  • Software technology: many deals move through several stages at once, and a weekly bridge shows where value went.
  • Manufacturing: large orders with long cycles, where a close date that keeps moving out is the early warning.
  • Logistics and trade: contract bids pile up near quarter end, and coverage against the target says whether there is enough in play.
  • Growth & scaling: the pipeline has outgrown the sales lead's memory and needs one page that everyone reads the same way.

It sits beside Stalled-deal review, which takes the deals flagged here one at a time and reads each against its stage, and Sales call preparation brief, which prepares the call where an owner's question gets answered.

What has to change for your company

  • Your export. Agree the columns once. If your sales system names them differently, write down which column is which; the assistant stops and asks rather than guess.
  • Your stages. List them in order. Add a weight for each if you use weighted pipeline, and a day limit if you want long stays flagged.
  • Your thresholds. How many quiet days count as quiet, how big a change counts as movement, and how many closed deals a rate needs. Sensible starting values are given.
  • Your target and bar. The target for the period and the coverage you consider healthy. Without them the review shows the pipeline but makes no comparison.
  • Who commits the forecast. Name the person. The review never fills in that number.
  • Your platform. The instructions are written to be pasted into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini. It works from the exports you supply and needs no connection to your sales system.

What has been checked

Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 9 November 2026. It was tried on its invented example in Claude on 9 November 2026, and the record of that run, which replaced an earlier one from the same day after the instructions were revised, is published with the template. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.

Testing in your environment means running it on past weeks your sales lead remembers well, plus hard cases written in advance, each with its expected behavior: an export whose headers differ, a deal with no amount, a deal that disappears between weeks, a close date pushed out, too few closed deals for a rate. The sales lead checks every figure against the exports before anyone relies on it. Pilot acceptance-test preparation builds that test set, and What we test before we call an AI workflow ready shows the record.

The full capability template

Everything above is the outline. The complete capability template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.

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Next step

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Talk with us Discuss adapting this

  • Stalled-deal review

    Your sales lead sees, from the record alone, which open deals have stopped moving, what each one's stage still lacks and whose move it is, and where every recent no ended and why. Nothing in your sales system is changed; corrections are proposed for a person to make.

  • Sales call preparation brief

    Your salesperson, partner or account manager walks into every meeting with a brief they can read in five minutes: who will be there, what has been said and promised so far, what is still open, and a plan for the call. Every line traces to your own notes or a public page, and anything inferred is labelled.

  • Sales proposal preparation

    Your account executive answers an RFP in minutes, not weeks, with a proposal draft where every claim traces to approved company information and every gap is already a question for the right person.