You know that feeling when you start the quarter owning the room? Deals lining up. Forecasts looking sharp. Then 2 months later, suddenly a bunch of those “sure things” have ghosted, tripped over some surprise blocker, or just quietly died. No, it’s not the universe messing with you. It’s how traditional forecasting is rigged to fail.
Let’s rip into why that happens, spot the warning signals, and get you back in control so your forecast isn’t a fairy tale.
What the Research Shows
- Low forecast accuracy is the norm: Fewer than 20% of sales teams hit forecast accuracy above 75%. That’s not “missed by a little,” that’s “oh crap, where’d my deals go?” territory.
- Stage-based forecasting overweight’s rep confidence, underweights hidden risk: In a study of ~10 million enterprise deals, Clari Labs found that top sellers relied less on “hoping stage equals close” and more on external indicators like legal review timing or vendor policy alignment.
- Intelligence helps significantly: Gartner reports that only ~7% of orgs achieve forecast accuracy ≥ 90%. Using more signal intelligence (buyer behavior, external peer intel, real activity vs. stage statements) boosts predictability and surfaces problems earlier.
Why Stages Fail in Enterprise Deals
Stages are like slippery definitions. “Proposal sent” might mean your buyer’s legal has read it, or it might mean they glanced at it during their lunch break. You don’t always know.
Deals that look like they’re at the finish line can still be in the middle of the starting block if contract reviews, vendor compliance, or other approvals haven’t even begun. And of course, just when you thought the path was clear, new stakeholders from legal, finance, or security will pop up and wreck your timeline. Their priorities, risk tolerance, and speed are rarely what your original sponsor promised you.
Then there’s your inner optimist. Your “deal-won’t-die” bias. You want to believe. So when replies slow, or questions go unanswered, or legal hasn’t made a sound move, you rationalize. But those are often the clearest clues you’ve got. Ignore them at your own peril.
Behaviors & Markers That Predict When a Deal Will Close (or Leak)
To turn the tables, instead of asking “Which stage is deal X in?”, start looking for these real behavior-based markers. These are things buyers or your deal’s environment do that tend to correlate strongly with whether the deal will actually close:
- Executive or economic buyer alignment: Are you meeting people who control budget, policy, or contract terms, not just champions? Without decision-makers visible and aligned, deal moves stall in approval stages.
- Formal procurement / vendor policy engagement: Has procurement raised questions or started their review? Any formal contract drafting begun? Once procurement is involved, there’s a process path you can predict.
- Legal reviews & redlines surfaced early: Are there contract drafts? Are legal terms under negotiation? Any risk about IP, liability, security standards? Legal delays are one of the biggest “forecast killers.” If they begin late, you often blow past your expected close date.
- Behavioral urgency: Is the buyer pulling in others, wanting pricing sooner, comparing alternatives aggressively, asking for delivery timelines? Or are responses slow, meetings rescheduled? Urgency signals tie strongly to deal momentum. Comms slow = momentum lost.
- Cross-functional stakeholders surfaced: Are security, finance, operations, vendor management, legal all looped in (or at least scheduled)? Do you see questions from them? Hidden stakeholders are a risk. Their concerns often trigger hold-ups.
Intelligence-Based Forecasting: What That Looks Like in Action
You can’t see “everything,” but you can build a forecast strategy that uses both internal and external sources to give you a more accurate guess. Here’s a playbook:
- Deal history / peer intel: Evaluate Kandir Deal Retros or offer Intelligence Requests to AE’s who have sold into this same account. What legal terms held them up? Did procurement push back on policy? Was there a budget freeze mid-deal?
- Real-time buyer signals tracking: Beyond meetings or stage changes, track “soft” but predictive signals. Speed of reply from legal or procurement, number of stakeholders asking questions, quality of questions (security vs product vs pricing), whether documentation is being requested (not just slides).
- Weighted probability based on behavioral signals: Instead of using a fixed % by stage (e.g. “70% for ‘contract review’ stage”), adjust probabilities by presence/absence of key behavioral markers. For example, “contract review stage + legal redline drafts + procurement questions = 90% probability; contract review alone = maybe 50-60%.”
- Regular deal review with focus on risk, not just status: In your 1:1 or team reviews, bring up “What are the risks I haven’t surfaced yet?” Make visible the blockers that could delay close (legal, procurement, etc.). Don’t just say “we are at proposal stage,” say “legal has shown us contract, but redlines X and Y haven’t been addressed. Procurement hasn’t started review. Sponsor has changed.”
Tactical Moves for Right Now with Kandir
Here are what you can do this week to ensure your forecast is tighter by the end of the month:
- For each of your top 3 deals, write down all known risks (legal, procurement, vendor policy, etc.). Then compare with what Kandir and your peers have seen in those accounts.
- Ask your champion “Who else beyond you will need to approve / negotiate contracts / review terms / sign off?” If they've not named all the relevant cross-functional people suggested in Kandir intel, that’s a warning.
- Specifically, look for signal in the Deal Retro answers to the questions:
- “What could the buyer have done better?
- “Did the buyer change the evaluation criteria, and if so, how?”
- “What were the legal team’s main points of contention, and how did you mitigate/address them?”
- Get legal or procurement to share their process/timeline. Even a rough sense (“legal typically has 2 rounds of redlines, each taking 5-7 business days”) gives you a schedule you can work backward from. Check this against what others have said. If there are discrepancies, dive in.
Traditional forecasting’s setup is “deal looks good until it doesn’t.” But with the right signals, smart intel, and a ruthless eye for risk, you can dodge the surprises.
Dodged a deal disaster thanks to this little love letter? Share it with one poor rep who’s about to get dumped.