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Guides · Deals · Create and set up a deal

Create and set up a deal

A deal pairs one of your products with a named prospect. This page covers creating the deal, setting its stage and metrics, reading the deal workspace, and archiving the deal when you are done with it.

Before you start. You need a product whose value model has finished building. On the Products page, a product is ready for deals when its badge is green and market surveying is complete. A product still showing "Researching…" or "Surveying Market" is not ready yet. Check the workspace switcher in the top-left header before you create anything: the active workspace controls every list you see.

What happens when you create a deal

Creating a deal binds the product's value model to the prospect. valueIQ then researches the prospect from its website, decides which value drivers apply to this company, and builds a customer model: prospect-specific estimates for each variable, using the market values as starting points. It works each driver's equation with the customer's numbers to produce the value-driver breakdown and the deal's expected value.

The deal also takes a frozen copy of the value model and market values at the moment you create it. Later edits to the product do not move the numbers on an existing deal, so every calculation stays reproducible.

Create a deal

  1. Open the Pipeline. Left nav → Pipeline → + New Deal.
  2. Pick the product first. This binds the value model to the deal. Everything else in the dialog depends on it.
  3. Fill in the basics. Deal name, company, stage, expected value, and close date.
  4. Paste the customer's website into the Customer URL field. This starts the customer research workflow and pre-populates the customer variables. The deal shows "Researching…" until it finishes.
  5. Add optional details if you have them. Expand Optional details and fill in Deal goal, Division / location, and Notes. You can edit all three later from the deal header.

You can also start a deal from the workspace home screen with the Create a Deal button. That opens the Start a New Value Conversation dialog, which asks for the company name, its website, the department or business unit you are targeting, the buyer's title, and the problem you are helping them solve. Click Continue to create the deal.

Tip. The website and the customer problem do the most work. The website is what valueIQ researches, and the problem is what the Deal Copilot tailors its first coaching to.

The 12 deal stages

Stages run in this order: lead, qualified, demo, discovery, proposal, negotiation, verbal commit, contract sent, legal, and then one of closed won, closed lost, or closed other.

To change the stage, click the stage badge in the deal header. You can also drag the deal's card across columns on the Pipeline Kanban board.

Edit metrics inline

The Deal Metrics bar sits at the top of the deal page. Click the value or the close date to edit it in place. The bar also shows the payback period and the value-to-cost ratio. Toggle Show conservative in the Value Drivers panel and both the base case and the conservative case totals appear in Deal Metrics.

An inline-edit pencil appears next to every editable field on the deal page.

The deal workspace

The first time you open a deal, a short guided tour walks through the workspace. You can revisit it later from the deal page. The three main areas:

  • Deal Context (left panel). Your product, uploaded documents, deal notes, and the structured discovery sections: goals, pain points, stakeholders, technical context, and value story readiness. The Deal Copilot draws on this to tailor its coaching. See Deal context and discovery.
  • Deal Copilot (centre). The coaching chat for this deal. Ask about discovery, objections, stakeholder strategy, or next steps, and every answer is grounded in the deal's context. Threads are saved per deal.
  • Deal Studio (right panel). Deal Summary, Value Stories, Value Insights, and Value Drivers. This is where you build and share the business case.

Around them sit the Deal Metrics bar at the top, the Value Drivers panel with each driver's dollar impact and share of the total, the Coaching Memo with a readiness assessment and recommended next steps, the Model Insights tornado chart ranking drivers by impact, and the Customer Model panel with its Variables and Drivers tabs.

The tour also points at three numbers. Expected Value is the total value you deliver to the customer, calculated from the value drivers. Price is what you are proposing for the deal, as ARR or total contract value. VCR, which the tour expands as Value Capture Ratio, is Value Capture: price divided by expected value, the share of the value you create that your price captures. Setting a price is what turns on the ROI and deal-strength metrics.

Hover over a deal in the left sidebar, under Products and Deals, for a summary card with stage, estimated value, price, VCR, ROI, and days until close. You can triage deals from there without opening each one.

Researching and recalculating

Two indicators tell you the model is still working.

  • "Researching…" on the deal means the customer research workflow is still running. Variables fill in when it finishes.
  • "Recalculating…" with a spinner in the Deal Metrics bar means a recompute is in flight. The Value Drivers panel dims until it lands, then the numbers refresh on their own.

Most saves in Deal Context and the Customer Model trigger a recalculation. You do not need to reload the page.

Archive a deal

Deal header → ⋯ More → Archive. Archived deals are hidden by default. To see them again, turn on the Include archived toggle in the Pipeline filter bar.