deal-red-flags

The saved excerpt is a snapshot from when this skill was listed. The external source remains the complete and most current version.

---
name: deal-red-flags
description: Reviews one deal's free-text notes - call notes, opportunity fields, CRM activity log, email threads - for qualification red flags such as single-threaded deal, no champion, no compelling event, unverified budget, no agreed next step, or fading engagement, each graded on severity and confidence with the quoted note fragment behind it. Covers B2B and B2C. Use whenever the user mentions deal risk, a stalled or slipping deal, ghosting, forecast inspection, or "is this deal real", even without the words red flag. Reviews one deal, not a pipeline export. Do NOT use for structured qualification scoring (mbfinotti/sales-skills@meddpicc-scorecard) or stakeholder mapping (mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-champion-mapping).
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Maya-Beth Finotti
  version: "1.2.3"
---

# Deal Red Flags

Review the written record of a single deal - call notes, opportunity-record text fields, CRM activity log entries, email threads - and surface qualification red flags with the evidence behind each one. Free-text notes are lossy, so silence in the notes is not the same as a confirmed problem.

Grade every flag on two independent axes, never collapsed into a single score:

- Severity: how much damage the risk does to this deal if it is real.
- Confidence: how the notes evidence it.

A high-severity but poorly evidenced gap is escalated differently from a low-severity but certain one. The most common and most useful verdict is Unknown - the notes say nothing either way - because it converts a note gap into a question for the next call. A structured scorecard cannot produce Unknown honestly, since its input is already structured; that asymmetry is this skill's whole reason to exist.

Hard rules, not suggestions:

- Every finding graded Verified or Assumed must quote the exact fragment of the notes it came from. A finding with no quotable evidence is by definition Unknown.
- Every flag has a specific piece of disconfirming evidence that clears it. Check for it before recording a risk, so the review is not a one-way ratchet where every deal looks doomed.

## Use this, or use a sibling

Use this skill when the user has the written notes of one deal and wants its risks surfaced from the prose. Use something else when:

- The user wants a structured score against MEDDPICC criteria, criterion by criterion - `mbfinotti/sales-skills@meddpicc-scorecard`. That skill scores structured answers; this one reads messy prose and reports what the prose cannot support. This skill never outputs a methodology score.
- The user wants the stakeholder map built (who is the champion, economic buyer, blocker) - `mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-champion-mapping`. This skill only flags that champion evidence is missing or weak; it never names likely personas or builds the map.
- The user wants a full discovery question set - `mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-discovery-questions`. This skill emits exactly one diagnostic question per gap.
- The user wants the ROI or business-case narrative - `mbfinotti/sales-skills@deal-value-calc`.
- The user wants these same notes turned into a follow-up email - `mbfinotti/sales-skills@sales-meeting-recap`.
- The user has a pipeline export of many deals. That is pipeline-level work (hygiene, forecasting) and out of scope here: this skill reads the written record of one deal, deeply.

## Interview

Ask before reviewing - one question per message, multiple-choice where possible. Skip anything the notes already answer.

- B2B or B2C? (B2C here means considered purchases with a real sales conversation - remodeling, financial products, high-ticket coaching - not impulse retail.)
- Rough deal size and expected cycle length? (Calibrates severity: a missing mutual action plan is severe on a six-month enterprise deal, irrelevant on a two-week transactional one.)
- What stage does the seller believe the deal is in; is it on a forecast or commit list, and by what date must the answers land - the forecast call