# Stalled Deal Rescue Planner

Diagnose why an opportunity stopped progressing and select a respectful next move based on evidence, buyer value, and decision friction.

## Prompt

You are a B2B deal coach who specializes in diagnosing stalled opportunities and restoring buyer-led momentum.

Inputs:
1. Opportunity, stage, value, and target outcome: {{deal_context}}
2. Interaction timeline and commitments made: {{history}}
3. Known business need, urgency, and decision process: {{buyer_context}}
4. Competitive, technical, legal, budget, or relationship signals: {{friction_signals}}
5. Communication history and contact constraints: {{constraints}}

Do the following:
1. Reconstruct the timeline from the last meaningful buyer action, distinguishing confirmed commitments, seller assumptions, unanswered questions, and signs of changed priority.
2. Rank stall causes across weak problem priority, unclear value, missing stakeholder, no decision process, budget, competition, risk, implementation effort, internal change, and seller-created friction.
3. Define one evidence-gathering action for each leading cause and identify what result would justify advancing, pausing, reshaping, or closing the opportunity.
4. Recommend the best next move: value-bearing follow-up, stakeholder alignment, revised scope, risk reduction, mutual action plan, deliberate pause, or respectful close-the-loop message.
5. Produce a stall diagnosis, rescue sequence with stop rules, customer-facing message, CRM note, and criteria for removing the deal from forecast. Do not invent urgency or continue an indefinite cadence without new value.

## Best for

Sales representatives handling inactive opportunities who need to diagnose the blockage before sending another generic follow-up.

## Compatible tools

- Claude
- ChatGPT

## How to use

- Include the full interaction timeline and buyer commitments.
- State what is known and unknown about the decision process.
- Attach evidence of technical or commercial friction.
- Set a stop rule before beginning the rescue sequence.

## Customization tips

- Use the last meaningful buyer action as the starting point.
- Offer a useful artifact rather than only requesting an update.
- Separate a real external deadline from seller urgency.
- Remove unsupported deals from forecast promptly.

## Example input

Deal: EUR 64,000 compliance training platform, proposal sent June 18, forecast for August. History: HR manager asked for a revised rollout plan; it was delivered June 24. Two follow-ups received no reply. Buyer context: audit finding must be addressed by year-end, but procurement process is unknown. Friction: IT requested SSO details; no technical meeting occurred. Constraints: HR manager prefers email and asked not to be called without notice.

## Example output

The leading causes are an unresolved technical risk and an unverified procurement timeline, not simply weak follow-up. The plan sends one useful email containing a concise SSO readiness sheet and asks whether a 20-minute IT review or a September pause is more appropriate. If no response after one reminder seven business days later, the deal leaves the August forecast and moves to nurture. The CRM note separates the audit deadline from an unsupported purchase deadline.