Most enterprise deals that slip do not fail because the buyer stopped wanting the product. They fail because nobody mapped out what had to happen between "yes, we're interested" and a signed contract. Legal review took three weeks longer than expected. Security found a gap. A budget holder nobody had met asked to restart the evaluation. The forecast said this quarter. The deal closed two quarters later, or never. It is a common story: Ebsta’s 2024 benchmarks found that between 34 and 46 percent of deals slipped past their close date each quarter in the first half of that year.
A mutual success plan fixes this. It is a shared document, built with the buyer, that lays out every step needed to reach a decision and a successful go-live, who owns each step and when it will happen. Done well, it is the most useful tool in an enterprise deal. Done badly, it is a spreadsheet nobody opens.
These are the tenets that separate the two.
1. Anchor it to the buyer's goal, not your close date
The plan should start from the outcome the buyer is trying to achieve and the date that matters to them: a product launch, a peak season, a board meeting, a contract renewal with an incumbent. Work backwards from that date. If the only date in the plan is the end of your quarter, the buyer will treat it as your plan, not theirs.
2. Build it together
A plan you write alone and send over is a proposal. A plan you build with your champion on a call is a commitment. Walk through it line by line. Ask, "What have I missed? Who else needs to sign off? What happened the last time you bought software like this?" The answers will tell you more about the deal than any discovery call. Gartner has described the B2B buying journey as close to unnavigable without significant help, and a plan built together is exactly that help.
3. Name an owner for every step, on both sides
Every line needs a person, not a department. "Legal review" is not a step. "Sarah in procurement sends our MSA to legal by the 14th" is. Include the steps your side owns too: the security questionnaire, the reference call, the pricing approval. It shows the plan is mutual, and it keeps your own team accountable.
4. Surface the hidden steps early
The steps that delay deals are rarely the ones anyone talks about in the first meeting. Ask about them directly and put them in the plan from the start:
- Security and IT review
- Legal and procurement, including redlines on your contract
- Budget approval and who holds the final signature
- Data privacy or regional compliance checks
- Any internal business case or steering committee
If your champion does not know how one of these works, that is a finding in itself. Ask them to find out, and put that on the plan too. The MEDDPICC framework calls this the paper process: every step between a buyer saying yes and a signed contract.
5. Go past the signature
A plan that ends at "contract signed" is a closing plan. A success plan continues through onboarding, first value and the first review. Including implementation milestones tells the buyer you care about the result, and it gives their executives confidence that the project will land. It also sets up the expansion conversation a year later.
6. Keep it short and live
Fifteen to twenty-five lines is usually enough. Keep it in one shared place both sides can edit, and review it at the start of every call. Update dates as they move, and be honest when they do. A plan that is never revisited becomes fiction quickly, and so does the forecast built on it.
7. Use it to qualify, not just to close
A buyer's willingness to build the plan with you is a strong signal. If they engage, name owners and give you access to the people involved, the deal is real. If they will not commit to next steps or keep dates vague, you have learned something important early, while you can still do something about it. That makes the plan one of the best forecasting tools you have.
A simple structure to start with
Each line in the plan needs five things:
- Step: what needs to happen, in plain language.
- Owner: one named person.
- Side: buyer or seller.
- Due date: agreed, not assumed.
- Status: not started, in progress, done or at risk.
Group the lines into phases: evaluation, business case, security and legal, commercial approval, signature, onboarding and first value. Put the buyer's goal and target date at the top, where nobody can miss it.
Where to start
Pick your three largest open deals. For each one, book thirty minutes with your champion this week and build the plan together. You will find at least one step nobody had accounted for. Finding it now is much better than finding it in the last week of the quarter.