Close Plan: working back from the date that forces a decision
A Close Plan works the deal backwards from the date that forces a decision: the buyer's steps, every signoff between here and signature, what has to start when, and what could stall it. It ends with a version you can send your champion, written only from their own material.
Updated
When you reach for it
Wednesday, while the close date is still a date somebody typed.
Has the date moved once already? Why your deal keeps slipping.
How do I get the buyer to own the close plan?
Build it from their date and their steps, then send it to your champion to correct, not to approve. A plan the buyer has edited is theirs; a plan they nodded at is still yours.
Anchor it on their date, not your quarter. A renewal notice, an audit, a launch: something on their side that costs them if it passes. If you can't name one yet, that is the first question, and the compelling event page has the ones to ask.
Put a person against every step. Not a team. Where you don't know who, ask, and write the answer in.
Leave the durations you haven't been told empty. Then ask the step's owner how long it took last time. A date you worked out yourself is the first one to move.
Make each step cost them something small. A meeting they book, a letter they draft, a reviewer they bring in. A step that costs the buyer nothing tells you nothing about whether they'll buy.
The version you send your champion
The last section of the Close Plan is written to be forwarded. It is composed only from the buyer's own material: their steps, their dates, their people by name. Your rungs, your risk notes and your competitors are not in what it is written from.
Who to send it toMutual action plan template
A mutual action plan is a close plan the buyer can read and correct: their deadline, their steps with a name against each, and what each side still owes. The template below follows the Close Plan's sections in order, and the last one is the version you send.
Download the blank template: Markdown.
These are the sections SalesWolf's Close Plan is built from. In the product each one is written from the facts you've accepted on the deal. A section with nothing to stand on says what it's missing instead.
One of them is written out in full below, on the sample deal.
The date that forces a decision
The event on their side with a date on it, in their words, and what happens to them if it passes.
Compelling Event: stated · dated · consequenced
Their steps to a decision
Their steps from wanting it to deciding, in order, each with a person's name against it.
Decision Process: listed · owned · dated
Every signoff between here and signature
Legal, security, procurement and anything else, each with its owner on their side and how long it took last time.
Paper Process: listed · owned · dated
What has to start when
Every step and signoff, counted back from the date. A step with no duration on record keeps its place and gets a question instead of a date.
What could stall this
What could stall it, each next to the step it threatens, with the move that reduces it.
The version you send your champion
The same plan, written for your champion to read, correct and pass on.
How do I get the buyer to own the close plan?
Compelling Event
DraftThe current contract auto-renews at the end of January unless somebody writes in. Marta thinks the notice is ninety days; not confirmed — deadline about 2026-11-02, the last day to serve 90 days' notice before 2027-01-31; a different notice period moves this date, it does not remove it
Working back from the buyer's date
Halden Freight has a forecast close of 30 Sept. The date that forces a decision is a different one, and it came up on the first call:
It auto-renews end of January unless somebody writes in — ninety days, I think — and nobody’s going to pick that fight without Dervla behind it.
Marta Reiss · discovery call · 14 May · 18:52
The plan's real finding is the empty space. Between today and the notice date, one step has an owner but no duration. Legal, security and procurement are not on record at all, and nobody is on record to serve notice. The plan's job this week is to ask in the summer rather than the week before.
The second question in Thursday's Brief, right after who signs
Once that person approves a change, what specific legal, security, and procurement steps must happen before a contract is signed, and who leads each stage?
This is what comes out.
What goes in is the call you already had.
14 days free, no card, no call.