Are Mutual Action Plans dead?

It’s hard to survive as an acronym. It’s even harder when none of the words in your name seem to be particularly accurate.

For those who haven’t used MAPs, they’re incredibly common in the sales world. They are a list of all the tasks and events required to close a deal and assign the personas who are in charge of each task. The idea is great, and, even without great execution, the numbers prove over and over again that MAPs work. The most common origin story I’ve heard is that they hail from PTC’s sales teams in the 80s, but I haven’t been able to find confirmation of this anywhere.

What is easy to find is salespeople’s opinions of MAPs today: they aren’t mutual, they aren’t actionable, and they rarely reflect the actual plan for the deal. In fact, the MAP brand is damaged enough that they now go by limitless names (Mutual Accountability Plans, Mutual Success Plan, Path to Partnership, etc.).

I’ve had thousands of conversations about MAPs, and they always center around a crucial problem: buyers don’t use them! So… why not?

For one, MAPs are often difficult to consume. They’re usually built in a pretty ugly excel spreadsheet that doesn’t invite collaboration. Secondly, MAPs tend to be inflexible and frustrating to adapt to reality.

And, finally (and most importantly), MAPs are not for buyers! Sure, they’re built for buyers, but they’re built for buyers to help close a salesperson’s deal. The proof? They often stop at “sign agreement” and don’t even consider the first 90 days of deployment and change management.

The buyer is in a project while the seller is in a deal… there’s nothing mutual about making the engagement about the deal. We’re Sangria. We love a celebratory libation, but you’re totally missing the mark as a seller if you send champagne when the deal closes. That’s like celebrating at the end of the first half.

In the past few years, more sales tools are incorporating MAPs to free them from their spreadsheet past, and it’s a huge UI/UX improvement.

There’s still a problem: they’re seller-centric.

I don’t think MAPs are quite dead, but I do believe they’ll be unrecognizable in the next couple years. MAPs in the near future will be project management tools built around the unique effort of buyer, selling, and implementing software together.

Sangria is a project management platform that empowers buyers and sellers to effortlessly work together, track progress, and eliminate guesswork. We don’t have all the answers yet, but we’re already increasing successful deployment rates by 80%*.

*Oh, and we’re raising close rates by 73% if you’re wondering about those, too.

And so MAPs will stay alive the way cassette tapes stay alive: by their music. Now, we’re just putting great music into a buyer/seller collaboration platform instead of a spreadsheet or sales tool. Rock on.