Mutual action plan builder

Purpose & When to Use

A Mutual Action Plan is not a close plan. A close plan is one-sided — it tracks what the seller does to push the deal to signature — and buyers have zero interest in it. A MAP is the opposite: a shared, co-created roadmap that helps the buyer navigate their own internal buying process toward value. Done right, it turns skepticism into partnership and it forces one honest question at every step: what has the buyer actually achieved? — not what did we send them?

Run this skill when any of these are true on a live deal:

• The champion asks "what are the next steps" or "how do we get this over the line."
• You are entering scoping, POC, security review, legal, or procurement.
• The deal has slipped once, or stalled with no mutual, written timeline.
• You cannot name who on the buyer side owns each decision gate.
• The buying committee is unclear or larger than your single champion.
• You are about to push a "next steps" email and want to replace it with a plan the buyer co-owns.

Do not run this if the need and value are not yet validated. Gal's rule: a MAP only lands when there is clear, agreed value you are both working toward. Drafting one on an unqualified deal produces a document nobody believes.

Procedure

Inputs you need

Collect these before drafting. Where something is missing, do not fabricate it — mark it [CONFIRM WITH BUYER] and make confirming it the very first buyer task.

• Deal context: company, your champion (name + role), deal stage, expected/contracted close date, deal value if known.
• The business problem and desired outcome the buyer stated — in their words, ideally a direct quote or paraphrase from a call.
• Who else is involved: every stakeholder you know of (security, legal, procurement, finance, exec sponsor, end users, IT/RevOps) with name, role, and sentiment if known.
• The buyer's timeline and why — what's driving it (board commitment, fiscal year, launch date, a cost pressure).
• The buyer's internal process: security/procurement/approval steps they must run, and any board or signature gates.
• Your own seller-side steps: what you (and your team: SE, legal, CS, exec sponsor) must do to support them.
• Success criteria / ROI the buyer expects post-close (e.g. onboarding time cut, cost saved, revenue enabled).

If you are missing the value summary, the buying committee, or the timeline, stop and treat confirming those as the first milestone — see Step 6.

Step 1 — Write the value summary in the buyer's words

Write 2–3 sentences that state the solution's benefits from the buyer's perspective. Not what you sell — what they get. Pull it directly from what the buyer said on a call; if you can, lift their exact phrasing. If you only have your own pitch, flag it as a draft and schedule confirmation.

• Weak (seller voice): "Aligned helps you manage deals with digital sales rooms and mutual action plans."
• Strong (buyer voice): "We'll cut enterprise deal cycle time by ~30% and give our AEs a single room where every stakeholder can self-serve, so we stop losing momentum to email chaos and missing execs."

Keep it concrete and tied to an outcome the buyer cares about. No adjectives the buyer wouldn't use.

Step 2 — Map the full buying committee

List every stakeholder involved in the purchasing decision — not just the champion. For each, capture name, role, which "buyer job" they own, and their current stance (supportive / neutral / skeptical / blocker / unknown). Gal is explicit: you are usually influencing a buying committee, not an individual.

For each person answer: what does this person need to say yes, and what buyer evidence proves they're there? Unknown names or roles become [CONFIRM] items in Step 5 — and confirming them becomes a buyer task, because only the buyer knows their own org.

Step 3 — Define milestones as buyer evidence, not seller activities

This is the core of the framework. Rewrite every milestone as buyer evidence — a state the buyer reaches and can point to — never as a seller activity.

• Seller activity (old): "Demo done," "Proposal sent," "Follow-up call completed."
• Buyer evidence (new): "Problem identified and agreed across the team," "Vendor chosen and shortlisted," "Timeline agreed," "Impact validated by multiple stakeholders," "Executive sponsor assigned a team," "Security review passed," "Procurement terms approved," "Signature authority confirmed."

If you catch yourself writing a milestone that starts with a seller verb ("we send," "we deliver," "we follow up"), rewrite it. The milestone is what the buyer can show, not what you did. Seller actions still exist — they become the supporting tasks under each buyer milestone (Step 5).

Step 4 — Work backward from the buyer's timeline

Anchor the plan to the buyer's target date and the reason behind it, then work backward. Gal's sequence: confirm clear need and value → identify and work backward from the prospect's timeline → share your process and align it with theirs → identify all stakeholders → set partnership expectations → list tasks → define timeline and owner for every task → set up tracking → review regularly.

If there is no firm timeline or no reason behind it, that is a red flag — the deal is not yet a real MAP candidate. Make "timeline and its driver agreed with champion" the first buyer-evidence milestone.

Step 5 — Assign every task an owner and a target date, on BOTH sides

Under each buyer-evidence milestone, list the concrete tasks required to reach it — and assign each a single named owner and a target date. Owners come from both teams: buyer stakeholders and seller-side people (you, your SE, legal, CS, exec sponsor). Shared ownership is the point. A task with no owner or no date is not a task; it is a wish.

Structure each milestone block as:

• Milestone (buyer evidence phrase).
• Why it matters (one line tying it to the value summary or a decision gate).
• Buyer-side tasks — each with owner + target date.
• Seller-side tasks — each with owner + target date.
• Owner of the milestone (the single buyer accountable for declaring it done).
• Target date for the milestone.

Step 6 — Handle missing information honestly

This skill is designed to be run mid-deal, when you won't have everything. For each gap, do one of three things:

• If it blocks the plan's credibility (value summary, timeline, exec sponsor, security/procurement process), make confirming it the first buyer-evidence milestone and the first buyer task.
• If it's a stakeholder you can't name, list the role and mark [CONFIRM WITH CHAMPION]; the buyer fills the name, not you.
• If it's an unknown date or dependency, mark it [TBD] and add a task to confirm it before the dependent milestone can be scheduled.

Never invent a stakeholder name, a date, or a quote. A MAP built on guesses is worse than no MAP — it destroys the trust the whole thing is meant to build.

Step 7 — Frame it for co-creation

Produce the plan as a draft to bring to the buyer, not a finished document to hand over. Explicitly mark sections you want the buyer to edit: the value summary ("is this how you'd describe the win?"), the stakeholder list ("who are we missing?"), the timeline and its driver ("is this the real date, and what's behind it?"), and every [CONFIRM] / [TBD] item.

The opening message to the champion should make the co-creation intent explicit: "I've drafted a shared plan so we both know how this gets done on your side — it's a draft, not a prescription. Can you tear it apart and tell me what I've got wrong about your process?" Collaborate, don't dictate.

Step 8 — Set the tracking and review cadence

A MAP is a living document, not a set-and-forget artifact. State the review cadence explicitly: a recurring check-in (weekly is typical, tied to milestone completions) where both sides update status, surface slippage early, and adjust the plan. Note where the plan will live and who can edit it. Deals rarely follow the first blueprint — continual review is what keeps it real.

What it produces

A single MAP document containing:

• Value Summary — 2–3 sentences, buyer's words.
• Stakeholder List — full buying committee with roles, buyer jobs, stances, and the single milestone owner per person.
• Timeline & Driver — target date and the reason behind it, working backward.
• Milestones — each as buyer evidence, with buyer-side and seller-side tasks, owners, and target dates.
• Co-creation prompts — the sections flagged for the buyer to edit and the opener message to the champion.
• Review cadence — where the plan lives and how often both sides revisit it.

What Good Looks Like

A great MAP reads like the buyer wrote half of it. The value summary sounds like something their VP would say in a budget meeting, not like your landing page. The stakeholder list names people you've actually spoken to — or, where it doesn't, it openly asks the champion to fill the gap instead of pretending the gap doesn't exist. Every milestone is something the buyer can point to and say "yes, that happened": impact validated, exec sponsor assigned a team, security passed. There is not a single "proposal sent" or "demo delivered" masquerading as progress.

Signs it's working:

• The champion edits the draft and sends it to people you've never heard of — that's the buying committee revealing itself, which is the whole point.
• You start hearing dates and constraints you didn't know existed, because the plan made it safe to share them.
• Slippage surfaces as a milestone slipping, not as silence — you see the risk weeks before the "close date" evaporates.
• Both sides have tasks with their names on them; the buyer is doing work, not just receiving yours.

Failure modes to watch for

• It's a close plan in disguise. Every milestone is something the seller does. Rewrite them as buyer evidence. If you can't, the buyer isn't really engaged yet — go back to value validation before drafting.
• Only the champion is listed. A one-person "committee" is a deal that dies the moment that person goes on vacation or changes role. Push to map the full group; unknown members are a first milestone.
• No timeline or no reason behind it. A date without a driver is a guess. Without the why, you can't protect the date or re-anchor when it slips.
• Overwhelmed with complexity. If the plan looks daunting, it's structured for the seller's comfort, not the buyer's ease. Cut it down. A MAP should simplify the buying process, not complicate it.
• Set-and-forget. A MAP nobody reviews is dead on arrival. If there's no recurring check-in on the calendar, add one — that is part of the deliverable, not an afterthought.
• No co-creation framing. If the document is presented as finished, the buyer treats it as your sales tool and ignores it. It must arrive visibly as a draft, with explicit invitations to edit. Co-creation is what turns skepticism into partnership — the methodology collapses without it.
• Fabricated details. Any invented stakeholder, date, or buyer quote is a trust landmine. Leave [CONFIRM] markers and let the buyer fill them. The honesty of the gaps is what makes the buyer trust the rest.