How do I keep deals from stalling in legal and procurement?

You can move a contract along now, and where it still dies is in the parts you do not control, legal's queue, procurement's approvals, the slow grind past the quarter's end. That frustration is real, but notice the shape of it: the holdup is a process, and processes can be learned and worked, not just endured. The people who close on time are not luckier. They start the slow parts early, they know the names of who signs off, and they build the delay into their timeline instead of being surprised by it. They treat legal and procurement as steps to manage, not walls that appear at the end. On your next deal, map the approval path on day one, who touches it, how long each step really takes, and start the slowest one before you think you need to. You cannot make the machine faster, but you can feed it sooner. That alone saves quarters.