Scaling with Simplicity Masterclass: Part 2

I can predict the outcome of your deal in just 60 seconds with even more accuracy than your CRM. Now, I know that's a bold claim to start off with, but here's the thing: I don't actually need to understand your product or your industry. Why not? Well, because your prospects don't understand your product either.

That executive you're trying to reach will spend, at most, 60 seconds entertaining your message—and that's assuming it even makes it to their inbox in the first place. So if I can understand why your deal matters in just 60 seconds, so can they. And if I can't, neither can they, which means that deal is already dead—we just haven't admitted it yet.

The problem with most deal reviews is that they are way too long, completely aimless, and totally unproductive. You spend 30 minutes talking about a deal and then you walk away knowing less than when you started.

Here's something I learned from the entertainment industry, and it changed the way I looked at deals forever. Thousands of screenplays get written every single year. They take months to write but only seconds to die. When a screenplay gets submitted to a studio, they read the first and the last page.

The first page sets up who the main character is at the beginning, and the last page shows you who they've become at the end. Together, these pages show you how much they've changed. If there's enough contrast, it's interesting. If not, it's too boring and they just delete it.

The exact same thing happens with your deals. That executive is thinking, "Is this project interesting? Is there enough contrast between the problem today and the payoff tomorrow to make it move?" If not—delete.

This is why I have a saying: The deal is not real unless it's in writing. You should be able to pull up the "script"—a simple written record of where any deal is at any point in time—and get the headlines in just 60 seconds. Not a cluttered CRM opportunity record, not a long pipeline review meeting; just a simple narrative that your champion would remember, repeat, and forward around internally.

The deal is not real unless it's in writing. You should be able to pull up the 'script'—a simple written record of where any deal is at any point in time—and get the headlines in just 60 seconds.

When I'm running a 60-second deal review, I'm always looking for five very specific things:

1. The Big Idea: Can I understand why this matters in three sentences or less? Because if you can't explain the big idea quickly, your champion definitely can't remember and explain it to their team.

2. Direct Edits from Our Champion: How many changes did they make to our messaging? I want to see redlines, comments, or completely rewritten sections. No changes means you're not yet there; it's not a true partnership.

3. Unique Language: Does this sound like it's written for a persona, or does it sound like it's written for this specific person at this specific company? I should see their internal language, their phrases, their project names, and their priorities all written out.

4. Numbers and Dates: Are we using specific data from their environment or some type of generic ROI calculation? Deals with numbers in the problem statement close at three times the rate of those without numbers.

5. Contrast: What's the gap between the current state and the future state? Is it wide enough that we're going to get above a director level in the deal, or are we just stuck in some type of workflow process efficiency that's only going to get us to a manager-level meeting?

Qualified pipeline—that's the next-level metric that's going to get us to a VP. But cost to acquire a customer—that's what gets us to the CMO. What you'll notice about this approach is that it reveals the execution gaps in your process. If the written narrative is weak, deal execution and discovery are also likely very weak. And if there's no narrative at all, there's no deal.

Let me show you how this all works in practice. I pull up a business case from one of your deals, and in the first 20 seconds, I'm reading the headline and the opening paragraph. Does this grab my attention? Can I understand what's at stake immediately?

In the next 20 seconds, I'm scanning for their language versus ours. Did they edit this? Is it unique? Is it specific? Or does it sound like corporate jargon and vendor-speak?

In the last 20 seconds, I'm looking for specific numbers and dates. Is this built from deep discovery or from a template?

Now, here is what I am not asking: "How is the relationship?" "What's the timeline?" "Who's involved?" Those are important questions, for sure, but they don't actually predict an outcome. The written artifact with the unique specifics—that's what's going to get us to the outcome.

If I can understand the first and last chapter of the story we're building with the customer—the current problem, the future outcome—and there's real contrast using their words and their data, now we've got a deal that's worth forecasting.

If I can't, you've probably got a sheep that has fallen through the bridge. It's fallen out of the pipeline and it's not going to make it to the other side: Closed-Won, where we go from the buying journey to the customer journey.

To make this even easier, we put all five points from the checklist into a simple 60-Second Deal Review template. You can use this in every single one-on-one and deal review that you do starting this week. So stop asking your reps "How's it going?" and instead start asking the right, thoughtful, detailed questions to inspect the health of your deal. Not only will your deals and your reps thank you, so will your forecast accuracy.