Mutual action plan for deal close

Use this process when a deal has a target decision date but several buyer approvals still sit between discovery and signature. You will turn scattered notes into a dated plan that the buyer can correct, own and use.

The aim is not a prettier task list. It is a shared route to a specific decision, with proof that each gate has actually cleared.

1. Collect the evidence before drafting

Put the following in one working document. Do not start with your CRM close date, because that date is often a seller assumption rather than a buyer commitment.

• Discovery notes, including business problem, impact, desired outcome and success measures.
• The buyer's stated target decision date and desired start date.
• Every person named in the process: champion, economic buyer, procurement contact, security reviewer, legal reviewer, finance approver and signer.
• Known process steps: evaluation, technical validation, business case, vendor onboarding, contract review, purchasing approval and signature.
• Open questions, objections and promised follow-ups.
• Your current proposal, pricing assumptions and any documents already shared.

Separate what the buyer said from what you inferred. For example, write Security review required, named by buyer rather than Security will take two weeks, unless the buyer gave that duration.

If your notes are long, ask the model you are using to extract only confirmed facts and unknowns. Give it the notes and use a bounded request such as:

Extract the buyer's confirmed decision process from these notes. Return:
1. target decision date and source wording
2. named stakeholders and their roles
3. approval steps explicitly mentioned
4. documents or evidence requested
5. unknowns that could delay signature
Do not fill gaps with assumptions.

Review the result against the notes. Model behaviour and available capabilities are version-dependent, so check the current guidance in the xAI documentation overview.

2. Set the date logic from signature backwards

Start with the target signature date, not the date you hope to announce a win. If the buyer only gave a decision date, ask whether that means preferred supplier selection, internal approval or signed agreement. These are different milestones.

Work backwards through the gates that must happen before signature. Leave time between gates for the buyer to respond, rather than putting every task on consecutive days. Use working dates, then validate them with the buyer.

A simple sequence often looks like this:

1. Confirm decision criteria and the approval route.
2. Complete the evaluation or technical validation.
3. Present the business case to the decision group.
4. Select a preferred supplier.
5. Start procurement, security and contract review.
6. Resolve commercial and contractual points.
7. Obtain final internal approval.
8. Sign the agreement.

Do not treat these as universal stages. Remove stages that do not apply. Add gates the buyer actually uses, such as data protection review, board approval or a purchasing threshold.

3. Write milestones that can be proved

Create one row per outcome, not one row per meeting. Security review complete is a milestone. Security call is only an activity, and it may achieve nothing.

Use this table in your account plan first. Dates below are placeholders. Replace them after your buyer confirms the route.

Date	Milestone and owner	Dependency	Evidence of completion	Risk
12 September	Confirm decision process, buyer champion	Champion has access to approvers	Buyer confirms names, gates and target signature date in writing	Champion cannot name the signer
19 September	Complete technical validation, buyer technical lead	Test scope and access agreed	Technical lead confirms agreed success criteria are met	Scope expands during testing
26 September	Approve business case, economic buyer	Value case and proposal supplied	Economic buyer confirms funding route and approval meeting	Savings claim lacks buyer evidence
3 October	Select preferred supplier, buyer decision group	Validation and business case complete	Champion confirms selection outcome and next process owner	Competitor remains in evaluation
17 October	Complete procurement and review inputs, procurement owner	Supplier documents submitted	Procurement confirms all required documents are accepted	New questionnaire or policy appears
24 October	Resolve agreement points, both commercial owners	Procurement review complete	Both sides confirm outstanding points and signing version	Redlines await an unavailable approver
31 October	Sign agreement, authorised buyer signer	Approval and final agreement complete	Signed agreement received by both parties	Signature authority is unconfirmed

For each risk, add a prevention action in your private version of the plan. For example, if signature authority is unconfirmed, ask the champion to introduce the signer before contract review starts. Do not present internal sales anxiety as a buyer task.

4. Check the plan for false progress

Before sharing, inspect the plan for gaps that make the dates look credible but are not credible.

If you see this	It usually means	Do this next
One buyer owns every step	The champion may be carrying a process they do not control	Name the actual owner for procurement, review and signature
A review has no input listed	The process will pause when a document is requested	Ask the reviewer what they need, then add the document and due date
Decision is the final row	Selection has been confused with contracting	Add approval, agreement and signature milestones
Dates have no source	The seller has set the timetable alone	Mark dates provisional and validate them in the next buyer meeting
Risks repeat across rows	The root issue is unresolved	Create one escalation action with an owner and date

Read each dependency aloud as a sentence: “This cannot happen until that is complete.” If the sentence is vague, rewrite it. Internal alignment is vague. Finance approval of the business case is checkable.

Also check the target signature date against the buyer's actual meeting calendar. A decision committee that meets monthly can make a weekly plan impossible. Do not hide the conflict by keeping the old date in the forecast note. Record the gap and the next fact needed to resolve it.

5. Send a buyer-ready version for agreement

Make a clean version with only shared milestones, shared risks and named owners. Keep internal qualification notes, deal strategy and forecast confidence out of it. The buyer should be able to forward the plan to procurement or an executive without editing your sales language.

Use this message after the relevant call:

Thanks for confirming the route to a decision. I have captured the milestones, owners and evidence needed to reach signature by [date].

Please check three points:
1. whether the dates match your internal calendar
2. whether each buyer owner is correct
3. whether any approval, review or document is missing

If you confirm or amend these, we can use this as the shared plan in our next meeting.

In the next meeting, share the plan row by row. Ask the buyer to amend it rather than merely agree that it looks sensible. End by confirming the next milestone, its owner, its due date and the evidence you will both accept.

6. Keep it alive until signature

Update the plan after every material buyer interaction. Change the date only when you record why it moved, who agreed the change and what it does to the target signature date. In your forecast note, distinguish confirmed completion from planned completion.

Use three statuses:

• Complete, evidence received or confirmed.
• On track, owner and dependency are still valid.
• At risk, a dependency, owner, document or date is uncertain.

When it does not work, do not add more optimistic rows. Return to the last confirmed milestone and find the missing fact. If the buyer cannot confirm the signer, approval route or target decision date, treat the plan as unvalidated and adjust your forecast accordingly. Ask for a short process-confirmation meeting with the champion, then rebuild the remaining dates from the buyer's answers.