Mutual Action Plan Template

Propose the plan once the buyer agrees there's a problem worth solving and a date that matters to them. Frame it as their project, not your forecast: "Can we write down what has to happen on both sides for you to be live by February?"

Work backward from the date they care about, usually a go-live tied to something real, such as an audit or a busy season. Subtract implementation time to get the signature date.

The shared plan fits on a page or two:

• The goal in the buyer's words, and the date it depends on
• The people on each side, by name and role
• Each step to signature, with one owner, a due date and a status
• Dates neither side controls, such as a budget deadline
• What each side is doing next

Don't ask how purchasing works there. Ask what happened last time: "Walk me through the last tool your team bought, not what should have happened but what did." A described process looks like an org chart. A remembered one includes the delays.

Do this on a call, stage by stage. By email you'll get "the usual process, about three weeks," and nothing you can plan against.

Note every name you hear, with their role. A stakeholder and champion map shows who has to sign off and who you still need to meet.

Give every row one person, never a team. If nobody can be named, the step is too big or its owner is unknown. Split the first kind. For the second, write "unnamed" and ask on the next call.

Procurement hides the most steps. In the US, accounts payable will usually ask for a Form W-9. The IRS describes it as how you give your taxpayer identification number to whoever must report what they pay you¹. Sellers based outside the US usually send Form W-8BEN-E instead.

Some buyers also ask to be named as an additional insured. IRMI, an insurance reference publisher, defines that as an organization added as an insured under your policy at your request². Your usual certificate won't do: the policy itself has to cover them, so ask your broker early.

The buyer may also confirm your bank details by phone before paying you. That check guards against business email compromise, where criminals use hacked email accounts to redirect payments. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center reports $55 billion in exposed losses³ from it between 2013 and 2023, and advises verifying account changes through a second channel. Ask who in accounts payable makes the call.

Security splits the same way: the questionnaire, follow-up questions, any required audit report, such as a SOC 2, and the reviewer's sign-off. A security questionnaire response template helps with the answers. If finance needs a business case attached to the requisition, give it a row.

Date steps from evidence, not a template's defaults or the buyer's optimism. Bent Flyvbjerg, who studies why big projects overrun, recommends reference class forecasting: basing a forecast on how comparable past projects actually performed⁴. For a sales plan, those projects are your closed deals.

Pull dates from recent closed deals, lost ones included: a deal that died in legal still spent weeks there. For each step, note the median, the worst case and the number of deals. Below a minimum you set, such as eight deals, plan on the worst case.

1. 1

   Start at signature

   List what must happen just before it, then before that, until you reach a step that can start today.

2. 2

   Add up the days

   Total your own durations for the steps on that chain. That chain is your critical path.

3. 3

   Compare with the calendar

   If the chain is longer than the days left, the date has already moved. Say so, with the number.

4. 4

   Name the one step

   Write one sentence: the step, its owner, its date and what happens to the deal if it slips.

Then find the dates neither side controls: a budget period closing, an approval committee that meets monthly, a reviewer's vacation. Budgets that expire create a rush to spend. Economists Jeffrey Liebman and Neale Mahoney found US federal procurement spending in the fiscal year's last week was 4.9 times the weekly average for the rest of the year⁵.

Ask when the buyer's budget period closes. If that falls before your signature date, it's your real deadline.

Open each call with the plan. Mark steps done on the date they actually finished, add new steps you've learned about, and confirm who owns what's next.

When a date moves, don't overwrite it. Keep the original in its own column, put the new date beside it, and log who moved it and why. Edited in place, a step that has slipped four times looks like one that never moved.

Blocked isn't the same as slipped. If a step can't start yet, record what's blocking it and leave its date alone. Then sort slips by side: delays on your side are the ones you can fix this week.

On signature day, write a kickoff note for delivery: why they bought, in their words, and every promise made along the way, including ones made only on a call. Carry its names and dates into a customer onboarding plan.

For a faster start, open this template with Edit with AI. River takes the buyer's process apart into steps with one owner each and dates them from the closed deals you send.