Framemaking Foundational, Ep. 24 - Mutual Plan & Sequence of Events

The Mutual Plan. It's been a go-to B2B sales tool for years, and arguably never more important than it is today. After all, if today's B2B buying journey is long, hard, and fraught, strewn with obstacles, deadends, and circle-backs, then it's invaluable to have a kind of raodmap to determine both where things stand and where we go next. So, understandably, many sellers are trained to write it all down--to document with their cutomer which stakeholders need to be involved, in what order, and along what time line. Then, in the spirit of a "mutual" plan, sellers can pinpoint for the customer the specific steps they'll take to "add value." (Marketers have their own version of this exercise they call "mapping our selling journey to customer's actual buying journey"). For most companies, however, notice the primary posture of a Mutual Plan tends to be documenting or "receving" the plan, rather than proactively guiding it, shaping it, or leading it. Which naturally begs an increasingly pointed question: What if customers don't actually know how to navigate their purchase process? What if the last time they tried, they got so frustrated with their own company's internal processes, consensus building, budget debates, end-user buy-in, etc., that they're now more overwhelmed with buying than sellers are with selling? This is why we can't have nice things. If there's one thing B2B buyers need today more than ever, it's a roadmap. Guidance. Help. And this is where the Mutual Plan (or a "sequence of events") in the hands of a Framemaking Seller becomes a completley different kind of tool for selling more by selling different. Here's how... #framemakingsale #b2bsales #b2bmarketing