Why does it matter whether a deal is real?
A forecast is a promise the leader makes for the whole team. Each deal in it rests on a seller's judgment, and judgment drifts toward hope when evidence is thin. In a February 2020 release on its State of Sales Operations Survey, Gartner reported that only 45% of sales leaders and sellers had high confidence in their organization's forecasting accuracy. Gartner named poor data quality as one of the main contributors and gave no sample size.
A second cost sits in deals that end with no decision. Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna studied more than 2.5 million sales conversations for their 2022 book, The JOLT Effect. In a 2022 interview, Dixon put the share of deals lost to the customer doing nothing at 40% to 60%. The interview names neither the companies studied nor the full method. The questions below separate evidence from effort while there is still time to help the buyer decide.
What deal inspection questions show if a deal is real?
Use these deal inspection questions on any deal you plan to count. Each one asks for evidence from the buyer's side of the table.
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What did the buyer do in the last two weeks, and what did we do?
Activity is easy to log and easy to misread. A deal with twenty seller emails and no reply looks busy in the CRM and tells you little about the buyer. Listen for actions the buyer took on their own time, such as a meeting they scheduled, an agreement they returned with redlines, a colleague they brought in or a site they opened for a walk-through. When every recent entry starts with your seller, the deal is moving on one side only.
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Who signs, and have we spoken with them?
Every agreement has someone who approves the spend, and a strong, helpful contact may hold a different role. Listen for a name and a conversation that already happened. In its May 2026 release on a survey of 645 B2B buyers, Gartner reported that sales reps remained the most important information source for buyers securing internal support for a purchase. Your seller can help build that support, and it is far harder to do for a signer nobody on your team has met.
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What happens to the buyer if they do nothing this quarter?
A buyer with no cost to waiting will wait, however good the proposal. Listen for a consequence the buyer named in their own words, such as an incumbent agreement that expires, a failed inspection, a budget that lapses at year end or a site that opens on a fixed date. When the only deadline in the deal is your quarter, the buyer has a reason to buy and no reason to buy now.
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Does the close date come from the buyer's calendar or ours?
A real close date ties to an event on the buyer's side, such as a board meeting, a budget release, a contract expiry or a planned start of service. Ask what has to happen inside the buyer's business before that date and who on their side owns it. A date on the last business day of the quarter deserves a second look. If nobody can name the event behind the date, the date belongs to the seller.
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Who else is the buyer talking to?
Assume the buyer is comparing, even when your seller hears no names, and count the current arrangement as one of the options. In the same 2026 Gartner survey, buyers reported using an average of seven information sources during a recent purchase. Listen for a seller who can name the alternatives and say why the buyer might choose each one. "They're only talking to us" deserves a follow-up question.
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What is the buyer worried about getting wrong?
In the same 2022 interview, Dixon said a preference for the status quo accounts for less than half of no-decision losses. The bigger share, in his words, comes from buyers "worried about making a big mistake." Listen for a seller who can name the specific worry, such as a messy handover from the incumbent or a past provider who let the buyer down. When nobody knows the worry, nobody can help the buyer past it.
"Which deal in my forecast has evidence only on our side?"
Put this question to yourself after the others. The deal to find is the one where every answer comes from the seller's account and none from something the buyer did. That deal may still close. Count it once the buyer gives you a reason to.
What are the signs a deal is real, or not?
Good signs
- The buyer scheduled the next meeting and put a date on it.
- Someone who can approve the spend has met your team.
- The buyer described the cost of waiting in their own words.
- The close date matches an event on the buyer's calendar.
- The buyer shared something they did not have to share, such as an internal timeline or a budget figure.
Warning signs
- Every recent entry in the deal record was written by the seller.
- The seller reports the signer's views secondhand.
- The close date has moved and the buyer gave no reason.
- The only deadline is the seller's quarter.
- The seller says the buyer is talking to nobody else and cannot say why.
Case study Fictitious numbers
A PE-backed facility services company has 18 sellers across three regions. Five weeks before quarter end, one regional manager has six multi-site maintenance agreements in commit, worth $2.1 million in first-year value. She works through the questions with each seller.
Four agreements, worth $1.3 million, show buyer action in the last two weeks. A facilities director booked site walks at four locations. A procurement team returned its agreement with redlines. On the third, the CFO joined the pricing review, and the fourth buyer tied the start date to the expiry of the incumbent's agreement.
The other two agreements, worth $800,000, show eleven seller emails and two revised proposals between them. Neither buyer has replied since the first site visit. Both close dates sit on the last day of the quarter.
- Buyer action in the last two weeks
- Activity on the seller side only
- A facilities director booked site walks at four locations
- A procurement team returned its agreement with redlines
- The CFO joined the pricing review
- The buyer tied the start date to the incumbent's agreement expiring
- Eleven seller emails between the two
- Two revised proposals
- No buyer reply since the first site visit
- Both close dates on the last day of the quarter
The manager reports the $1.3 million she can defend. She tells her VP the other $800,000 has no buyer action behind it yet, and asks each of those two sellers to request one specific step from the buyer that week. The four supported agreements sign for $1.3 million. One of the other two moves when the buyer's operations lead agrees to a site walk, and it signs the following quarter. The last one goes quiet.
She reported the $1.3 million she could defend, and all of it signed.
FAQ
What are the signs a deal is going to stall?
The clearest sign is a buyer who has stopped doing things. Meetings get moved by the buyer and never rebooked, and the close date slides with no reason from the buyer's side. None of these proves the deal is lost. Each one is a cue to ask the seller what the buyer is worried about and who else has a say in the decision.
How do you know if you are talking to the decision maker?
Ask your contact who approves a purchase of this size and what that person needs to see before saying yes. A contact who answers both in detail is close to the decision. A vague answer, or a claim to decide alone on a large agreement, is worth testing gently. The strongest evidence is a meeting with the person who signs that your team took part in.
What is a no-decision loss?
A no-decision loss is a deal that ends with the buyer choosing nothing. No competitor wins. The buyer keeps the current arrangement or lets the project drift. In a 2022 interview, Matthew Dixon put the share of deals lost this way at 40% to 60%, based on his study with Ted McKenna. The interview does not publish the method, so treat the range as a prompt to count your own.
How do you ask a rep about a deal without it feeling like an interrogation?
Ask about the buyer and leave the seller's effort out of it. Use the same questions on every deal so no one feels singled out. When a seller says they don't know, treat the answer as useful. It shows you both where to look next, and finding out becomes the seller's next step with the buyer.
Sources
- Gartner Says Less Than 50% of Sales Leaders and Sellers Have High Confidence in Forecasting Accuracy, Gartner, 12 Feb 2020 checked 9 Oct 2026
- The JOLT Effect: How High Performers Overcome Customer Indecision, Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna, Portfolio, 20 Sep 2022 checked 9 Oct 2026
- The problem of customer indecision and how to get over it - Interview with Matt Dixon, Adrian Swinscoe, CustomerThink, 12 Oct 2022 checked 9 Oct 2026
- Gartner Survey Finds 69% of B2B Buyers Turn to Sales Reps to Validate AI-Generated Insights, Gartner, 20 May 2026 checked 9 Oct 2026