Capability template for sales

Win-loss review

Once a quarter your sales lead sees, from the deals you closed, where the losses ended, which kinds of deal you win and lose, what the largest deals show, and which findings rest on enough deals to act on. Actions are proposed in proportion to the evidence, and nothing in your sales system is changed.

The outcome

The sales lead plans the next quarter from what the closed deals actually show, instead of from the two losses everyone still remembers. Win rates are laid out by lead source, deal type, segment and size, with the number of deals behind each, so a striking rate built on four deals is visible as exactly that. Every loss is placed at the stage where it ended, and every reason is counted as your record gives it.

Each finding carries a plain label. Firm means enough deals stand behind it to act on. Thin means it is worth watching, and the review says which test it misses: too few deals in the quarter, too few showing the finding, or a group too small to compare. Firm findings can lead to a change in how you sell. Thin ones lead only to recording something new or looking again next quarter, so the team does not rebuild its process on luck.

Where a note in the buyer's own words tells a different story from the reason in the record, the review shows both and proposes a correction for the person who keeps the record. It never ranks salespeople and never claims to know why a deal was lost; every finding comes with a question for the person who can find out.

Who starts the work, and when

The sales lead or revenue lead runs it once a quarter, after the quarter's deals are closed in the record and before the next quarter's plan is set. The person who keeps the deal record can prepare the export and notes.

The sales lead reads the review and decides which of the proposed actions to take, and who owns each one. The person who keeps the record makes any correction. The AI assistant sends nothing and changes nothing.

What they supply

  • Your closed-deal export. One row per deal, from your sales system or spreadsheet: segment, deal type, lead source, amount, the dates it opened and closed, its outcome, the last stage it reached, the reason it was lost and any competitor named.
  • Your facts. The period, your stages in order, your size bands, your list of reasons for losing with what each means, who reads the review, and the minimums for a firm finding if you want to set your own.
  • Your deal notes. Call notes and emails for the largest won and lost deals, each with the deal and the date, pasted as they are.
  • Last quarter's review, so the actions you agreed then are checked against what the record now holds.

What comes out

One review in a fixed order:

  1. Coverage. How many deals were read, which rows were not and why.
  2. Headline. At most two sentences on the firm findings, or a plain statement that none is firm this quarter.
  3. Win rates, overall and by each cut, with the counts behind every percentage and no percentage where a group is too small.
  4. Where the losses ended, stage by stage.
  5. Time and amounts: how long won and lost deals took, and what they were worth.
  6. Why you lost, reason by reason as the record gives it, with the buyer's own words where a note has them, and the competitors named.
  7. The largest deals, one line each from the record and the notes.
  8. What the wins share, where the notes of several won deals say the same thing.
  9. Findings, each firm or thin, each with a question for a named role.
  10. Proposed actions, each with its kind, its owner and the finding it comes from, and last quarter's actions carried forward.
  11. At odds, gaps and corrections: where the notes and the record disagree, what the record leaves blank, and the corrections to propose.

A good review is one the sales lead can take into the quarterly planning meeting and defend number by number, because every figure recomputes from the export.

An invented example

Illustrative example with invented data. The company, its accounts, its competitors, its people, the deals, the dates and the amounts below are all invented. The seller is an invented 45-person company that designs and installs pallet racking and shelving for warehouses. Its sales team is a sales lead, three account executives and a sales coordinator who keeps the deal record. 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 5 October 2026
Export taken: Monday 5 October 2026
Period: 1 July to 30 September 2026
Reads it: Sales lead

Our stages, in order: Enquiry, Site survey, Proposal, Negotiation.
Size bands: under $25,000; $25,000 to $75,000; over $75,000.

Our reasons for lost deals:
- Price: the buyer said our price was too high or over their budget.
- Lead time: we could not install by the date the buyer needed.
- Competitor: the buyer chose another supplier for a reason other
  than price.
- Timing: the buyer put the project off.
- No decision: the buyer went quiet or kept what they already had.
- Not a fit: we declined the work.

Minimums: the defaults.
Notes: for the five largest won and five largest lost deals.

2. The closed-deal export

deal_id,account,segment,deal_type,lead_source,amount,created_date,closed_date,outcome,stage_at_close,close_reason,competitor
Q-301,Account A,Distributor,New,Referral,92000,2026-04-20,2026-07-09,won,Negotiation,,Competitor A
Q-302,Account B,Manufacturer,New,Website,31000,2026-05-11,2026-07-14,lost,Proposal,Price,
Q-303,Account C,Distributor,New,Website,12500,2026-06-22,2026-07-16,lost,Enquiry,Not a fit,
Q-304,Account D,Distributor,Expansion,Referral,18000,2026-06-08,2026-07-21,won,Proposal,,
Q-305,Account E,Manufacturer,New,Trade show,84000,2026-04-27,2026-07-28,lost,Proposal,Price,Competitor A
Q-306,Account F,Manufacturer,New,Referral,46000,2026-05-18,2026-07-30,won,Negotiation,,
Q-307,Account G,Retailer,New,Website,22000,2026-06-15,2026-08-04,lost,Site survey,No decision,
Q-308,Account H,Manufacturer,New,Website,58000,2026-05-04,2026-08-06,lost,Proposal,Price,
Q-309,Account J,Manufacturer,New,Referral,27500,2026-06-01,2026-08-11,won,Proposal,,
Q-310,Account K,Manufacturer,New,Website,39000,2026-05-26,2026-08-13,lost,Proposal,Lead time,
Q-311,Account L,Retailer,Expansion,Trade show,9500,2026-07-06,2026-08-18,lost,Site survey,Competitor,Competitor B
Q-312,Account M,Distributor,New,Website,76000,2026-05-12,2026-08-20,lost,Negotiation,Competitor,Competitor A
Q-313,Account N,Manufacturer,New,Referral,64000,2026-05-19,2026-08-25,won,Negotiation,,
Q-314,Account P,Distributor,New,Website,14000,2026-07-13,2026-08-27,lost,Enquiry,Price,
Q-315,Account Q,Manufacturer,Expansion,Referral,21000,2026-07-01,2026-09-01,won,Proposal,,
Q-316,Account R,Distributor,New,Referral,52000,2026-06-02,2026-09-03,lost,Proposal,Competitor,Competitor A
Q-317,Account S,Retailer,New,Trade show,16500,2026-07-20,2026-09-08,won,Proposal,,
Q-318,Account T,Manufacturer,New,Website,61000,2026-06-09,2026-09-10,lost,Proposal,Price,
Q-319,Account U,Retailer,Expansion,Website,24000,2026-07-27,2026-09-15,won,Proposal,,
Q-320,Account V,Manufacturer,New,Referral,43000,2026-06-16,2026-09-17,lost,,,
Q-321,Account W,Distributor,New,Website,35000,2026-06-23,2026-09-22,won,Negotiation,,
Q-322,Account X,Retailer,New,Trade show,19000,2026-07-28,2026-09-24,lost,Site survey,No decision,
Q-323,Account Y,Manufacturer,New,Referral,47000,2026-06-29,2026-09-28,lost,Proposal,Lead time,
Q-324,Account Z,Distributor,New,Referral,81000,2026-05-25,2026-09-29,won,Negotiation,,
Q-325,Account AA,Distributor,New,Website,29000,2026-08-17,,open,Proposal,,
Q-298,Account AB,Retailer,New,Referral,15000,2026-04-06,2026-06-24,lost,Site survey,Timing,

3. Deal notes (pasted from the team's call notes and email)

Q-301, 9 July 2026 (account executive): The warehouse manager walked
the site survey with us and preferred our layout to Competitor A's.
Came to us through an existing customer.

Q-305, 28 July 2026 (account executive): Email from the operations
director: "Competitor A came in about 12% lower. We've gone with them."

Q-306, 30 July 2026 (account executive): Warehouse manager at the site
survey. Our installation date fitted their stock-take shutdown.

Q-308, 6 August 2026 (account executive): Call with the operations
manager: "We liked the design, but your earliest installation is after
our peak season starts."

Q-312, 20 August 2026 (sales lead): The warehouse manager was at our
site survey. Operations director by email: "Competitor A will also
inspect the racking every year. You don't offer that."

Q-313, 25 August 2026 (account executive): Site survey with the
warehouse manager and their safety lead. The safety lead asked for an
inspection plan, which we sent with the proposal.

Q-316, 3 September 2026 (account executive): Purchasing manager: "We're
staying with Competitor A. They already supply our shelving."

Q-318, 10 September 2026 (account executive): Purchasing manager: "Your
price was fine. We couldn't wait 14 weeks for installation."

Q-321, 22 September 2026 (account executive): Signed after one
revision. The purchasing manager ran the whole process.

Q-324, 29 September 2026 (account executive): The warehouse manager
joined the site survey and asked for two changes to the layout.

4. The previous review (the part the capability reads)

WIN-LOSS REVIEW: 1 April 2026 to 30 June 2026 (reviewed 6 July 2026)
Actions the sales lead accepted:
1. Record a close reason on every lost deal. Kind: start recording.
   Owner: Sales coordinator.
2. Bring the installation lead to site surveys on deals over $50,000.
   Kind: change how we sell. Owner: Sales lead.

The output

WIN-LOSS REVIEW: 1 July 2026 to 30 September 2026

For: Sales lead. From: closed-deal export of 5 October 2026, 26 rows; your stages (Enquiry, Site survey, Proposal, Negotiation); size bands (under $25,000; $25,000 to $75,000; over $75,000); your reason list (6 reasons); notes for 10 deals; previous review of 6 July 2026. Minimums: 20 deals in the set, 10 deals in a group, 5 deals for a firm finding, 20-point gap.

Coverage: Rows read: 24 (10 won, 14 lost, closed between 1 July 2026 and 30 September 2026). Not read: Q-325, open; Q-298, closed 24 June 2026, outside the period. Amount missing: none. Outcome: complete.

Headline: Half the quarter's losses, 7 of 14, ended at Proposal. Referral deals won 7 of 10, and website deals won 2 of 10.

Win rate: overall 10 of 24 (42%).

  • By lead source: Referral 7 of 10 (70%). Website 2 of 10 (20%). Trade show 1 of 4, too few to read.
  • By deal type: New 7 of 20 (35%). Expansion 3 of 4, too few to read.
  • By segment: Manufacturer 4 of 11 (36%). Distributor 4 of 8, too few to read. Retailer 2 of 5, too few to read.
  • By size band: Under $25,000 4 of 9, too few to read. $25,000 to $75,000 4 of 11 (36%). Over $75,000 2 of 4, too few to read.

Where the losses ended: Enquiry 2 of 14 (14%). Site survey 3 of 14 (21%). Proposal 7 of 14 (50%). Negotiation 1 of 14 (7%). Stage not recorded 1 (7%).

Time and amounts: Median days from created to closed: won 72 (10 deals), lost 85 (14 deals). Won $425,000, median $31,250. Lost $568,000, median $41,000. Left out: none.

Why we lost, as the export records it:

  • Price: 5 of 14 losses, $248,000. Deals: Q-302, Q-305, Q-308, Q-314, Q-318. Of these, 2 have a note naming a different reason: Q-308, Q-318. In the buyer's words: "Competitor A came in about 12% lower. We've gone with them." (Q-305, operations director, note of 28 July 2026).
  • Lead time: 2 of 14 losses, $86,000. Deals: Q-310, Q-323. No note.
  • Competitor: 3 of 14 losses, $137,500. Deals: Q-311, Q-312, Q-316. In the buyer's words: "Competitor A will also inspect the racking every year. You don't offer that." (Q-312, operations director, note of 20 August 2026).
  • Timing: none.
  • No decision: 2 of 14 losses, $41,000. Deals: Q-307, Q-322. No note.
  • Not a fit: 1 of 14 losses, $12,500. Deals: Q-303. No note.
  • Other, as recorded: none.
  • Not recorded: 1, $43,000. Deals: Q-320.

Competitors named on lost deals: Competitor A: 3 (Q-305, Q-312, Q-316). Competitor B: 1 (Q-311). Named on won deals: Competitor A: Q-301. No competitor recorded: 10 lost deals.

Largest deals read:

  • Lost: Q-305 · Account E · $84,000 · ended at Proposal: export reason Price, competitor Competitor A; "Competitor A came in about 12% lower. We've gone with them." (operations director, note of 28 July 2026).
  • Lost: Q-312 · Account M · $76,000 · ended at Negotiation: export reason Competitor, competitor Competitor A; the warehouse manager was at our site survey; "Competitor A will also inspect the racking every year. You don't offer that." (operations director, note of 20 August 2026).
  • Lost: Q-318 · Account T · $61,000 · ended at Proposal: export reason Price; "Your price was fine. We couldn't wait 14 weeks for installation." (purchasing manager, note of 10 September 2026).
  • Lost: Q-308 · Account H · $58,000 · ended at Proposal: export reason Price; "We liked the design, but your earliest installation is after our peak season starts." (operations manager, note of 6 August 2026).
  • Lost: Q-316 · Account R · $52,000 · ended at Proposal: export reason Competitor, competitor Competitor A; "We're staying with Competitor A. They already supply our shelving." (purchasing manager, note of 3 September 2026).
  • Won: Q-301 · Account A · $92,000: the warehouse manager walked the site survey and preferred our layout to Competitor A's; the deal came through an existing customer (note of 9 July 2026).
  • Won: Q-324 · Account Z · $81,000: the warehouse manager joined the site survey and asked for two changes to the layout (note of 29 September 2026).
  • Won: Q-313 · Account N · $64,000: site survey with the warehouse manager and their safety lead; the inspection plan the safety lead asked for went with the proposal (note of 25 August 2026).
  • Won: Q-306 · Account F · $46,000: warehouse manager at the site survey; our installation date fitted their stock-take shutdown (note of 30 July 2026).
  • Won: Q-321 · Account W · $35,000: signed after one revision; the purchasing manager ran the whole process (note of 22 September 2026).

What the wins share: The warehouse manager attended the site survey: stated in the notes of 4 of 5 won deals with notes, and of 1 of 5 lost deals with notes.

Findings: 2 firm, 5 thin

  1. Firm. Seven of 14 losses (50%) ended at Proposal. Counted: 7 losses that ended at Proposal; contested: 0. Question for the sales lead: What happens between sending the proposal and the buyer's answer on the deals we lose?
  2. Firm. Lead source: referral deals won 7 of 10 (70%); website deals won 2 of 10 (20%), a 50-point gap. Trade show, 1 of 4, lies between them. Counted: 10 closed deals in the smaller of the two groups (each has 10); contested: 0. Question for the sales lead: What do referred buyers already have when they reach us that website enquiries do not?
  3. Thin, misses: group minimum (expansion, 4 deals); firm-finding minimum (4 deals counted). Deal type: expansion deals won 3 of 4 (75%), a group too small to read on its own, with Q-304, Q-315 and Q-319 won and Q-311 lost; new deals won 7 of 20 (35%), a 40-point gap. Counted: 4 closed deals in the smaller group, expansion; contested: 0. Question for the sales lead: Why do existing customers who buy again choose us, in their own words?
  4. Thin, misses: firm-finding minimum (3 deals counted). Price is the reason the export records most often: 5 of 14 losses (Q-302, Q-305, Q-308, Q-314, Q-318). Counted: 3 losses recorded as Price with no note naming another reason (Q-302, Q-305, Q-314); contested: 2 (Q-308 and Q-318, whose notes name installation lead time). Question for the account executives: When a buyer gives price as the reason, what else did they say?
  5. Thin, misses: firm-finding minimum (2 deals counted). Lead time: the export records it on 2 losses (Q-310, Q-323), and notes name it on 2 more that the export records as Price (Q-308, Q-318), 4 in all. Counted: 2 losses recorded as Lead time (Q-310, Q-323); contested: 2 (Q-308, Q-318). Question for the sales lead: How many buyers this quarter needed installation sooner than we could offer it?
  6. Thin, misses: firm-finding minimum (3 deals counted). Competitor A is named on 3 lost deals (Q-305, Q-312, Q-316) and on 1 won deal (Q-301). Counted: 3 lost deals the export names it on; contested: 0. Question for the sales lead: Where do we meet Competitor A, and what did the buyers who chose them say they valued?
  7. Thin, misses: firm-finding minimum (4 deals counted); group minimum (5 won and 5 lost deals with notes). The warehouse manager attended the site survey: stated in the notes of 4 of 5 won deals with notes (Q-301, Q-306, Q-313, Q-324) and 1 of 5 lost deals with notes (Q-312). Counted: 4 won deals whose notes state it; the lost deal is not counted; contested: 0. Question for the account executives: On which other deals this quarter was the warehouse manager at the site survey?

Actions proposed, for the sales lead to decide: 5

  1. Read the seven deals lost at Proposal with the account executives, and agree one change to what happens between sending a proposal and the buyer's answer. Kind: change how we sell. Owner: Sales lead. From finding 1.
  2. Decide whether to ask existing customers for introductions. Kind: change how we sell. Owner: Sales lead. From finding 2.
  3. Add a second close reason to the record, so that a buyer who names both price and lead time is counted under both. Kind: start recording. Owner: Sales coordinator. From findings 4 and 5.
  4. Record who attended the site survey on every deal. Kind: start recording. Owner: Sales coordinator. From finding 7.
  5. Read expansion deals and deals naming Competitor A again in the next review. Kind: watch next quarter. Owner: Sales lead. From findings 3 and 6.

Carried from the last review: Record a close reason on every lost deal (Sales coordinator): close_reason filled on 13 of 14 lost deals this period. Bring the installation lead to site surveys on deals over $50,000 (Sales lead): not shown in the export; ask the sales lead.

At odds with the record: Q-308: the export says "Price"; the note of 6 August 2026 quotes the operations manager: "your earliest installation is after our peak season starts." Q-318: the export says "Price"; the note of 10 September 2026 quotes the purchasing manager: "Your price was fine. We couldn't wait 14 weeks for installation."

Gaps in the record: Q-320: stage_at_close and close_reason blank.

Corrections to propose, for the sales coordinator to make: Q-308: close_reason, now "Price", proposed "Lead time", from the note of 6 August 2026. Q-318: close_reason, now "Price", proposed "Lead time", from the note of 10 September 2026.

Findings describe these deals; they do not show why they happened. Prepared from the closed-deal export of 5 October 2026 and the notes supplied. Nothing has been sent, and no record has been changed.

Where it fits

  • Sales: the quarterly look back at what was won and lost, done the same careful way every time.
  • Analytics and reporting: counts and rates from your own export, each with its sample size, and no claim beyond what the counts show.
  • Professional services: a firm closes a few dozen engagements a quarter, exactly the scale where a pattern and a coincidence look alike.
  • Software technology: deals come from several lead sources and buyer types, and the cuts show which ones close.
  • Manufacturing: an order can be lost on lead time or capacity even when the record says price.
  • Engineering firms: bids won and lost are few and large, so knowing how many deals stand behind a finding matters.
  • Established businesses: a company with a few years of closed deals and a sales process worth checking against them.

It sits beside Stalled-deal review, which reads the open pipeline every week, Objection answers and sales one-pager, which prepares answers to the reasons buyers give, and Sales call preparation brief, which carries what the review teaches into the next call.

What has to change for your company

  • Your reason list. Write down each reason a deal can be lost for and what it means, so the record and the review use the same words. The review counts reasons exactly as recorded.
  • Your stages and size bands. Name your stages in order and set the size bands that matter to you.
  • Your export. Agree the columns once. If your sales system names them differently, write the mapping down; the assistant stops and asks rather than guess.
  • Your minimums. The defaults ask for twenty deals in the quarter, ten in any group compared and five behind a firm finding. A company that closes hundreds of deals a quarter can raise them.
  • Your notes habit. A dated note with the buyer's own words is what lets the review check a recorded reason.
  • Your platform. The instructions are written to be pasted into ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini. It works from files and notes 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 on 9 November 2026 in two runs; the record of the second is published with it. The first run saw part of the example's answer before writing its own, and the session that ran the second had not seen it. The record lists the small edits made afterward that have not been run again. 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 a past quarter your sales lead remembers well, plus hard cases written in advance, each with its expected behavior: an export whose column names differ, a quarter with too few deals, a recorded reason a buyer's note contradicts, a small group with a striking win rate, a lost deal with no stage or reason. The sales lead recomputes the figures from the export before anyone relies on them. 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.

View the full template

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Next step

Bring a real piece of this work to a call. We’ll walk through what it takes to fit this capability to your rules, prove it on your work and put it in the hands of the roles that own it.

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.

  • Objection answers and sales one-pager

    Walk into the call with an answer for every objection you expect, each with its honest limit and the proof behind it, and one page to leave behind. Everything is built from the facts you supply, so nothing on the page is a claim you cannot stand behind.

  • 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.