Mutual action plan

A mutual action plan, or mutual close plan, sets out the steps customer and seller agree to take, with an owner and a date for each. It runs from the evaluation to a signed contract and the start of implementation. The plan shows buying progress when the customer's people complete the steps they own.

Ask for these inputs

1. The customer's buying steps as far as they are known, with names where known.
2. The date the customer needs the result, what they need to achieve by then, and who said so.
3. Whether a Proof of Value is planned.
4. For an existing plan: who gave each date and what has been completed.

Steps

1. Start from the customer's buying steps. Use four columns: the step, its owner by name, the date that owner agrees and what shows the step is done.
2. Agree the applicable steps and their sequence with the customer. Ask your contact which steps in the example below their company has and who runs each. Include the seller's own decision before the proposal.
3. Write a person's name for every customer step, never "procurement" or "legal". Where the person is unknown, finding out is the next thing to ask.
4. Set dates backwards from the date the customer needs the result; the seller's quarter-end is no evidence of the customer's deadline. For each step's length, ask how long it took last time, then check with the step's owner. Legal's own estimate beats your contact's guess.
5. Put two go or no-go points in the plan. Before the proof: a line owned by the economic buyer, dated before technical validation, where the account executive and sales engineer confirm the outcomes, the timeline and the step after a successful proof. After the proof: the seller's internal decision whether to go to a proposal, which rests on the customer's line before it (whether the people who wrote the success criteria have read the results against them).
6. Continue past signature: the value presentation and the success criteria become the customer's success plan, so the last lines hand the deal to Customer Success.

Example plan

Replace each role with a person's name, and add the date that person confirms. Both go or no-go lines are dated before the step they gate.

Grade the evidence on every customer line

Treat each customer line as an evidence claim: what do we know, how, who confirmed it, what remains an assumption, and which conversation or action could create the missing evidence? Then mark one of three levels:

• Agreed by the champion: the champion accepted the step on someone else's behalf.
• Confirmed by its owner: the responsible person confirmed what the step involves, its date and what will show completion.
• Done: the step happened and the agreed evidence is available.

Where only the champion agreed a step, talk next with its owner. Completing the seller's tasks does not supply that confirmation.

When a step slips

Ask the owner for a revised date and what the delay changes for the later steps. Until that conversation, mark the completion date unconfirmed, and keep the other evidence of the owner's involvement.

Reading the plan in a deal review

Start with the customer's steps. For each line not done, ask who owns it by name, who gave the date and what will show it is done. Mark owner and date unconfirmed until that person confirms them. Then name the next conversation for each open line: for an unconfirmed approval, a meeting asking the economic buyer what they can approve and whose agreement they need; for a security review without a date, a call with the person who runs the review.

Output

The filled plan with an evidence-level column (champion / owner / done) and the next conversation for every open line.

Checks

• A department name in the owner column means the owner is unknown.
• A date from the seller's forecast or the contact, without the owner's confirmation, is unconfirmed.
• A plan ending at signature lacks the handover.

Based on: Mutual action plan template: what it holds and proves

The template as a spreadsheet to fill in: Excel or CSV.