Mutual Action Plans (MAPs)

A Mutual Action Plan is a jointly-owned, dated plan from current state to signed contract or value milestone, signed off by the buyer. It operationalizes MEDDPICC's Decision Process and Paper Process and converts qualification into execution. Without a MAP, sellers manage deals by hope; with one, slips become visible the day they happen.

• They surface the full Decision Process and Paper Process in writing — no late surprises
• They commit the Champion publicly to specific actions, which is itself a Champion Test
• They give procurement, legal, and security visibility before they become the bottleneck
• They convert 'we'll get back to you' into a dated, owned action
• They turn deal slippage from a quarter-end shock into a week-1 conversation

A useful MAP is one to two pages and includes:

• Outcome statement — the business outcome the customer is buying, in their words
• Target signature date — the date that drives every milestone backward
• Workstreams — typically: business case, technical evaluation, security review, legal review, procurement, executive approval, signature
• Milestones per workstream — date, deliverable, owner on each side
• Decision gates — the named meeting where each workstream is reviewed
• Risks and dependencies — what could slip and who owns the mitigation
• Sign-off line — Champion's name and date

Keep it scannable. A 12-page MAP no one updates is worse than a one-page MAP everyone references weekly.

Never email a draft MAP cold. The standard motion:

1. Earn the right by completing strong discovery and validating Pain at the EB level
2. Frame: 'For deals like yours we typically run a joint plan — it keeps everyone aligned and surfaces risks early. Worth 30 minutes to build it together?'
3. Walk the Champion through a starter draft on a screen-share, editing live
4. Ask the Champion to circulate it internally and bring back edits — this is itself a Champion Test
5. Once aligned, capture the Champion's written sign-off (email is enough)
6. Reference the MAP in every subsequent meeting; update visibly when dates move

A signed MAP is leverage; an unused MAP is paperwork. Operationalize:

• Open every customer call with a 60-second MAP review
• When a milestone slips, ask 'what changed and what does it imply for signature?' — never silently roll dates
• Use the MAP in internal deal reviews — it is the source of truth for stage and forecast
• Mirror the MAP in your CRM next-step fields
• Escalate visible slips early; vendor-side executive sponsor can break ties

• Vendor-only plans — the seller writes a 'plan' and shares it once; the customer never engages. Not a MAP.
• No buyer sign-off — the Champion 'agrees verbally' but never confirms in writing. Easily disowned later.
• No dates — workstreams without dates are aspirations, not commitments.
• No procurement / legal / security workstreams — the most common cause of late-quarter surprise.
• No enforcement — slips are ignored politely; the MAP becomes decorative.
• One-time artifact — built at Stage 3, never referenced again.

The MAP is where MEDDPICC becomes operational. Decision Process is the spine; Paper Process is a workstream; Economic Buyer is named in the executive-approval gate; Champion is the signatory; Compelling Event is the target date. A deal with a strong MEDDPICC score and no MAP is still exposed; a deal with a weak score and no MAP is fiction.

An AE forecast a $1.6M deal as commit, expecting signature by quarter-end. No MAP existed. The customer's security review queue was 6 weeks; the seller learned this in week 4 of the quarter. The deal slipped two quarters. A peer team on a similar deal had built a MAP at Stage 3 that surfaced the security queue immediately; they front-loaded the security questionnaire and pre-aligned with the customer's security architect. Their deal closed in-quarter at the same value. The product was identical; the discipline was not.