Happy Monday to 7,809 SaaS sales professionals!

We are deep into Q3, historically the worst quarter for many sales organisations.

Prospects are slowly coming back from vacations. For us as sellers it's a slow fight out of the summer slump.

In today's newsletter I want to highlight the difference between FAKE pipeline and REAL pipeline: Mutual Action Plans!

Let's dive in 

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The Pipeline Problem

Everyone defines pipeline differently. What exactly defines pipeline?

• A call connect?

• An intro meeting booked?

• A discovery call booked?

• A demo scheduled?

• A pricing call scheduled?

I believe none of these are pipeline criteria. 

They are just steps in the sales cycle.

The real definition of pipeline = qualified deals.

But what qualifies a deal? 

I believe the only thing that qualifies a deal is if you have a Mutual Action Plan in place.

What Is A Mutual Action Plan?

Mutual Action Plans (short = MAPs) are literally a map for your deals.

A MAP is a mutual agreement between you and the prospect about how the sales cycle is going to go.

MAPs include the following:

1. Timeline: from discovery to signature to go live.

2. Agenda: every meeting to be held, with a clear agenda, outcome and deliverables.

3. Participants: who needs to attend each meeting from the buyer and the vendor side.

Image: Example of a high level MAP slide

MAP Prerequisites

Before you can set up an effective MAP there are some prerequisites to consider:

1. The prospect admits they have a painful problem. No problem, no sale.
2. There is a clear cost of inaction. If not, there won't be any urgency for the prospect to change.
3. The prospect is committed to solving the problem. In other words, they are willing to change. Otherwise they will simply reject your MAP.
4. You are talking to a champion or directly to the economic buyer. If not, there is no point in setting up a MAP with the wrong person.

MAP Process

Here's a quick step-by-step on how to set up Mutual Action Plans:

1. Introduce the idea of a Mutual Action Plan to the prospect in the first discovery call. Leave 5-10 minutes at the end for next steps.
2. Schedule a dedicated MAP meeting after the discovery call. This should happen BEFORE you involve further resources on the deal.
3. In the MAP meeting uncover the compelling event, aka the desired go live date.
4. Reverse engineer a timeline from go live to signature date. Validate that signature date with the prospect.
5. Lay out all the steps of the evaluation process. Highlight the value of each step for the prospect. Get their buy in.
6. Multi-thread: involve all the relevant stakeholders and decision makers.
7. Share a MAP asset with all stakeholders. Give them full editing rights.
8. Revisit the MAP before, during and after every meeting.

Image: Example of a shared MAP asset in Google Sheets. You can also use Notion, Quip, it doesn't matter - as long as the buyer side can edit the doc.

That's it! Now you have the full step by step on how to qualify deals with MAPs.

Whenever you're ready there are 2 ways I can help you: 

1. Sales Coaching (For Individual Contributors): apply for a spot in our Accelerator Program

2. Sales Training (For Teams): book a call with Christian