Deal slippage is when an opportunity’s expected close date moves later, often more than once. It usually means that a condition which had to be met by the original date was not — the budget was not released, an approval was not scheduled, or a decision unit had not yet been engaged.
A deal has slipped when the customer says “let’s look at this next quarter” or “we need to wait for next year’s budget”. The slip itself is not the answer to anything. It is a signal that something did not happen the way the original timeline assumed.
What It Is Often Confused With
Slippage is not silence. When a customer goes quiet, the rep does not know what has happened. When a deal slips, the customer has given a new date. Both need interpreting, but slippage at least gives the rep a concrete question to ask: why did the original date stop being true?
Slippage is not a lost deal. A slipped deal is still alive; only the timing has changed. But repeated slippage is often a sign that the deal is quietly being lost, especially when no specific reason is given for each delay.
Changing the date is not dealing with the slip. Many reps simply move the close date in the CRM without finding the cause. That makes another slip likely. What needs dealing with is the condition that was not met.
An Example
A regional hospital is evaluating new infusion pumps, and the rep has forecast a close in the third quarter. In September, the department head says it will have to wait until the fourth quarter. Rather than just moving the date, the rep asks why, and learns that the amount exceeds what the department can spend on its own. It has to go into next year’s capital budget, which is reviewed in November.
Once that condition is known, the new date means something. The rep now knows the next step is to help the department head prepare the budget request and confirm finance’s review timetable — not to wait until the fourth quarter and ask again.
Read Next
Slippage is one form of a stalled deal. To find the real cause, see why B2B sales deals get stuck, and how to find the real blocker. If the customer has gone quiet rather than given a new date, see when a prospect goes silent: reading a quiet deal. The unmet condition behind a slip is usually a sales blocker.
VINEQRA flags opportunities that appear stuck and suggests a next step based on the blocker, so the cause of a slip gets found rather than just the date changed. See how VINEQRA works