A few years back, in my first Enterprise selling role, I had a major mindset shift that I believe seriously altered the course of my selling career.

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At the time, I was working with an incredibly talented VP of Sales, who was investing a lot of time in helping me with my mindset.
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What was the mindset shift you ask?
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To begin approaching deals as projects to be managed and not deals to be closed.

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Up until that point in time, my career was selling smaller, transactional deals with 1-3 stakeholders/buyers. I'd not yet worked on a six or multiple six-figure annual deal with 5+ stakeholders, high complexity, high competition and a tight timeline to launch.
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With this mindset shift also came the need for a process to manage the key milestones in the project (evaluation).

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Enter the mutual action plan...
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Introduced to me by the same VP of Sales mentioned above, this play gave me the ability to collaborate with my Champion, technical buyer, exec sponsor and the many other stakeholders in a strategic deal.

The mutual action plan gave me a document to collaborate with my buyers on steps, meetings, action items while adding dates and assigning ownership on both the prospect's side and our side.

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It's a professional way to hold everyone internally and externally to deadlines (i.e. complete infosec review, budget approval, sign order form).
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In the years since I was first introduced to the project manager mindset and mutual action plan framework, I've closed many high ARR deals using this exact template. It's helped me to introduce good friction into my deals and be an expert and advisor to my prospects vs. just being a sales rep.

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Implementing a mutual action plan in your deals is something of an art form and may feel awkward at first, but I can promise you it will completely change the way you sell. When large budgets are being spent on tech, the mutual action plan will set you apart from your competition, add credibility and help everyone stay aligned.

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​→You can get a copy of my basic mutual action plan template here.​
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*If you'd like coaching around how to implement a mutual action plan in your deals or you want to see a more in-depth template, hit reply or schedule a no-cost 1:1 coaching overview call. ​
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Until next week!

-Jesse

Featured Episode: Making the Most of Your Tech Sales Career

Lessons on making the most of the tech sales career opportunity.

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