Mutual Action Plan for Enterprise SaaS
Mutual Action Plan
Guide your champion through the evaluation, validation, and purchasing process with a centralized, collaborative plan.
New Relic is a cloud-based observability platform that helps companies visualize, analyze, and troubleshoot their software. Enterprise AE Nick King works with companies of 1000-5000 people across verticals, including SaaS, medical, and telecommunications. Nick uses a Mutual Action Plan to guide prospects from evaluation to validation to purchase, providing a streamlined buying experience and setting the customer up for success.
Why should I use this playbook?
Guiding buyers through evaluation with a shared playbook provides a smoother experience, and makes it easier for the buyer to buy (and the seller to sell!)
Previously, Nick used spreadsheets for his mutual plans, which wasn’t ideal for collaboration or organizing all the necessary resources throughout the process. By switching to a customer-facing playbook in Accord, it’s easy for buyers to engage with the process, access all the information they need in one location, and align their teams to make a decision.
In addition, using a playbook that your team can access increases internal visibility. Leadership can get the context they need and instantly understand the progress of each deal, and you can easily loop in others on your team who may need to help with the buying process.
What’s in this playbook?
With the Mutual Action Plan, Nick guides his buyers through three key stages:
- Evaluation Kickoff
Introduce the product and learn about the prospect’s challenges, goals, timeline, and purchase/approval requirements, so the buyer and seller can align on the best solution and process going forward.
- Technical Validation
Recommend a technical solution and evaluation options, begin Proof of Value, and schedule regular check-ins throughout the validation/POV process.
- Partnership Formalization
Confirm the solution scope, review and approve the proposal, vendor onboarding, legal approval, and final signatures for purchase.
Nick typically invites two key stakeholders from the buyer’s side into the playbook: an executive buyer and the evaluation lead. These stakeholders can then share information from the playbook with the rest of their team as needed.
Who is this playbook for?
The minimum deal size that this Mutual Action Plan can work for is around $50K, but that number can be much higher. Nick targets deals in the 6-7 figure range, and his average deal duration is about three months. This playbook example is for a SaaS buyer, but it can be applied to companies across many industries and segments.
How should I use this playbook?
Nick typically formalizes the Mutual Action Plan after a couple initial calls with the prospect, when the key stakeholders are ready to keep moving through evaluation and validation.
When customizing this playbook for your process, technical validation is the stage that will change the most, since it largely depends on your specific product. The evaluation and partnership formalization stages will likely be similar across companies, but you can adapt the steps as needed.
Nick’s advice for getting the most out of the Mutual Action Plan: the playbook doesn’t sell it for you! It’s helpful to have all the steps defined, but you still need to hold stakeholders accountable and have active conversations with them frequently. Invest in the process and be proactive instead of reactive to keep your buyers engaged and the timeline on track.
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