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Mutual Action Plans (or MAPs) are critical for aligning with customers and keeping long, complex deals or implementations on track.
While each MAP will vary depending on your sales motion and your customer’s needs, there are some basic best practices to keep in mind. Following these will increase the likelihood of your buyers engaging with the MAP and help set your deal up for success.
Here are seven best practices that will take your Mutual Action Plans from 9/10 → 10/10.
1. Keep it simple! 🙌
The goal is to capture everything your buyer needs to know to complete their journey – without overwhelming them.
a) Aim for 3x3 to 3x5 (3 stages with 3-5 steps each).
Tip: use subtasks within each step to help you further break down larger tasks.
b) Include a short description on each step.
2. Draft a compelling executive summary ✍️
The executive summary is the #1 reason your buyer will engage with and invite other stakeholders to your Mutual Action Plan.
Think of the summary as a running doc where you'll add information gained during discovery and throughout the sales process. You'll align with your buyer on their pain points and how your solution solves that pain, arming them with the necessary information to sell on your behalf.
a) The executive summary should tell a compelling story about the value your solution can bring to the customer.
b) Your champion should be excited to share it with their senior leadership.
c) It should answer all the questions your champion will need answered when sharing this information with their team, while still being concise (try to keep it one page or less).
3. Establish a timeline 📆
It's important to uncover a compelling event and do a work-back plan with every customer, so you can control the deal or implementation timeline.
a) Pick a milestone (usually the day the customer gets to value).
b) Work backwards and assign dates to key steps leading up to the milestone.
4. Guide customers to value, not their signature 🏆
Your customer doesn’t care about signing the deal – they care about solving their problems.
a) Orient your Mutual Action Plan around a go-live, value, or success date, not a close date.
b) Even if you’re not handing off the MAP to your CS team, include an onboarding or implementation stage so your buyer can see what the post-sale process includes.
5. Assign an owner to every step 👯♀️
While many stakeholders will be involved in the deal, you are making a commitment with your champion, and holding them accountable.
a) Most steps should be owned by you (the AE / CSM).
b) The rest should be owned by the champion.
6. Organize & share helpful resources 📁
Along with the summary, resources are a common reason buyers will engage with your Mutual Action Plan. Make life easy for them by centralizing all the resources they’ll need.
a) Include every resource that you’ll share during the process, and organize them based on resource type.
b) Pin the most important resources to the top or make them easiest to access.
7. Define key stakeholders 👋
Use your Mutual Action Plan to uncover all the stakeholders who need to be involved for the deal or implementation to go successfully.
a) Create placeholders for the stakeholders who need to be represented.
b) Refer to stakeholders by their title within the organization or their role within the deal (eg. CRO or Exec Sponsor).
More Mutual Action Plan Resources 💥
Ready to dive in and start creating your own 10/10 Mutual Action Plans? Here are a few more resources to help:
- Mutual Action Plan template (created with 30 Minutes to President’s Club)
- Proven playbook examples from top B2B sales teams
- Rally your reps around MAPs (masterclass with Todd Caponi & Drift’s Brooke Freedman)
Figma, Stripe, & Atrium use Accord to execute 10/10 Mutual Action Plans on every deal. Book time to get your free Accord workspace and see how it can help up-level your sales.
