The Most Powerful Sales Tool I've Ever Used

What if there was a sales tool that could:

· Give you insight in to the decision making process at your prospect

· Give you permission to call above your main contact

· Keep your deals from being stuck in legal

· Hold your prospect accountable for their deliverables

· Help you forecast with incredible accuracy

· Identify key points along the buying process

There is such a tool, and it’s called the Mutual Activity Plan. When used well, it accomplishes all of these and more.

To explain the Mutual Activity Plan (MAP), let’s break it down by each of its words.

MUTUAL: This is a plan that is co-created by you and the prospect. It is not something pre-conceived that you drop off on their desk as a leav- behind. You and the prospect are actively involved in its creation and ongoing upkeep.

ACTIVITY: The outcome of the plan is a specific set of action items that are steps along the way to consummating a transaction and delivering your services. It is not a detailed Scope of Work (SOW). That comes later, if at all. These actions steps are really aimed at helping the buyer and seller understand the steps in the sales/acquisition process.

PLAN: The outcome of the MAP exercise a document that outlines the major steps in the buying/selling process. Key elements of the plan are the activities, due dates, associated commentary, and ownership.

Blog continued below…

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In order for the MAP to be successful, it needs to be co-developed with the prospect. They must be actively engaged in its creation. If you find that they are not actively engaged then cut the process short. You may not have a real deal on the table, or the decision maker is not in the room. That said, the champion or coach should be able to work through most of the MAP with you.

The MAP can be used just about any time during the sales process. I’ve seen it used successfully from the early sales stages all the way through receiving a verbal commitment to buy. There is no science to determining the exact time to use the MAP. That said, you should not be cavalier with it either. The MAP process will be a key differentiator for you and your company.

To start a MAP exercise, you say something simple like, “If money was no object, when would you like to take delivery of the product?” You’ll get one of two responses to this question. One will be something like, “Well, yesterday of course. That’s why we’re having this conversation.” The other, “Wait a minute. We haven’t made the decision to use you. We’re just in the information gathering stage.” Either answer is acceptable.

If you get the first response, “Well, yesterday of course... ” , you respond with something like, “Of course! But since that isn’t possible, let’s talk about more realistic timeframes. If everything goes smoothly, I expect that we could deliver product in 90-days. How would that work?”

If you get the second response, “Wait a minute. We haven’t made the decision to use you... ” then you answer with something like, “Of course. I don’t want to presume that you have selected us, I just want to understand the buying process and what those timeframes might look like. After all, I’ve never sold this to your company before, and I don’t think you’ve ever bought this from us. I thought it would make sense to understand what that process would look like.” This will help bring down their guard and get them involved in the conversation. So you suggest a 90-day delivery (this time frame is entirely up to you and how long it takes your company to deliver its product/service) and size up their response.

Now that you’ve gotten their buy-in that 90-days might be reasonable, you stand up and walk over to the dry erase board (Yea! No more PowerPoint. And, by making that move, you have now differentiated yourself from 90% of all sales reps.) and you start with that date 90-days out. For sample purposes, let’s say that date is December 31^st. Now you ask, “So what would need to happen on your end to get the product here by then?” Now listen and be amazed! Procurement activities, committee approvals, product testing, executive sign-off, compatibility testing, proofs, connectivity, and contract negotiation are just a few milestones that you’ll hear about. And typically the prospect will be very candid. After all, you’re beginning to build some trust with them.

You document all of the activities on the board, validating your understanding, asking questions, and very importantly, asking about ownership. This is how you get some really hard-to-get information from your prospect. As you go through the process asking the “Ownership” question you’re bound to hear something like, “My boss needs to sign off.” To that you say, “Okay, great. I haven’t met your boss. Who is that?” Most times they’ll give you the name. Let’s say they respond by saying, “That would be Mike.” Then you say, “Since Mike is part of the decision making process, I’d like to meet him at some point. Would you mind setting that up?” BINGO! You’ve now just gone around your contact in a very constructive and non-threatening way. It works almost every time.

As you work through the MAP, you speak about the things that need to happen on your end. Things like, final product specifications, resource allocation, any kind of queue that the project will fall in, contracting, etc. You take ownership of those activities and begin to introduce the other players in your company that will participate.

An important and often overlooked aspect of the MAP is regularly scheduled project plan check points. These need to be added to the MAP so that you have pre-arranged permission to call the prospect and see how the buying process is moving along. This is especially important if you develop the MAP early in the sales process and your company has not been selected yet. As a rule, divide the length of time represented in the MAP by three and insert those calls accordingly. In a 90-day plan, you’ll check in every 30 days. This will keep the prospect from “going dark” on you.

When you are complete, the dry erase board will have a grid with the following headings:

· Activity

· Comment

· Owner

· Due Date

· Status

On that grid, the agreed-to buying process should be well documented. You now know the exact steps for winning this business. Now make sure to transcribe the information from the board in to a spreadsheet or Word document and send it to the customer. It will serve you well as a plan for moving forward. It is what I refer to as “A Project Plan for Dummies”. But what it represents is a MUTUAL agreement between you and the prospect regarding key steps to consummating a transaction.

The MAP is an incredibly powerful resource that you almost can’t screw up. I’ve seen it used many times, and it has always helped the sales process along. Try it out and let me and the other readers hear how it worked for you.