What to gather before you request the Pipeline Revival Audit.
You do not need a perfect CRM. You just need enough signal to show where stale opportunities live, what they were worth, and how your team normally follows up.
This page makes the audit easier to buy and faster to deliver. Gather what you already have, skip what you do not, and avoid over-preparing.
The fastest useful input set
If you only gather a few things, gather these. They create enough visibility to rank stale segments and estimate recoverable pipeline without slowing the project down.
Stale opportunity counts
Approximate counts for ghosted proposals, silent deals, old inbound leads, and no-decision opportunities. Rounded estimates are fine.
Typical deal value
Average proposal size, retainer value, project value, or ACV so recoverable pipeline estimates stay grounded in your real economics.
Recent examples
2–5 stale threads, proposals, or deal records that show what a dead opportunity currently looks like in your system.
Current follow-up reality
How your team actually follows up now: manual, inconsistent, founder-led, AE-led, no sequence, or "we mean to but don’t."
What helps most by source
You do not need every source below. Use whatever already exists and skip the rest.
CRM / pipeline tool
- Deal stages with approximate counts
- Last-contact date or stale-stage view
- Open, lost, or no-decision status patterns
- Owner notes if they explain why deals drifted
Inbox / email threads
- Ghosted proposal emails
- Pricing requests that went quiet
- Referral introductions that stalled
- Examples of weak or delayed follow-up
Proposal system
- Recent proposal volume
- Accepted vs ghosted patterns
- Typical proposal size
- Where the handoff breaks after sending
Founder / sales memory
- Segments you suspect are still warm
- Deals that "should have closed"
- Offers that tend to reopen faster
- Constraints that shape the reactivation plan
What not to waste time on
The audit is designed to work before your systems are clean. Do not delay the request trying to build a perfect handoff package.
Do not clean the CRM first
Messy data is normal. The audit exists because the current system leaks follow-through. A rough export beats a cleanup project.
Do not write a long narrative memo
Short bullets are enough: what the business sells, what a typical deal is worth, where stale opportunities pile up, and what is currently breaking.
Do not wait for perfect numbers
Directional counts and sample records are enough to rank revival segments and identify the fastest first pass.
Simple gathering checklist
Send whatever you can from this list. If you only have half of it, that is still enough to start.
Business context
- Main offer(s) you sell
- Typical deal value or retainer range
- Sales cycle length if known
Stale pipeline context
- How many old leads or deals feel neglected
- Which stale segment worries you most
- Whether these are inbound, outbound, referral, or proposal-driven
Examples
- 2–5 example deal records or proposal threads
- Any message sequence already used
- Any obvious objection pattern you keep hearing
Execution constraints
- Who would actually run the follow-up
- Whether the founder must be involved
- Any brand, compliance, or tone constraints
The audit gets faster when the prep stays simple.
Do not turn this into an internal ops project. Gather the rough signal, submit the intake, and let the audit sort which stale segment deserves the first recovery pass.