ACT PlaybookPlaybook: Create the Engine
Sales Motion: Sell the way your buyer buys
Define the stages, tasks, and exit criteria that move a deal from first call to close, and keep growing the account after it.
Why It Matters
Building sales is a different job than building product
A great product gets you the first customers. After that, revenue stalls when every deal depends on the founder’s intuition and hustle. Companies that grow reliably run their sales on a repeatable system, and they build it around one question: how does my buyer buy?
Buyers follow predictable steps, several people are involved in the decision, and each of them needs different information at each step. When your process follows their buying process, deals move faster, and you always know what has to happen next.
Key Benefits
What a defined sales motion enables
Know where every deal stands
Each stage ends with criteria the buyer meets, so you see which deals move and which only feel busy.
Spend your time on real opportunities
A missing champion, unconfirmed pain, or no next step shows up early, while there is still time to fix it or move on.
Keep deals from stalling
A mutual engagement plan and the next meeting in the calendar keep momentum between conversations.
Forecast from evidence
Your CRM stages match your exit criteria, so the pipeline shows what buyers have actually committed to.
Hand the process to your first sellers
Defined stages and exit criteria let new people repeat what already works for you.
How Buyers Buy
Four steps from intent to results
B2B buying works as a cycle more than a straight line. The buyer moves through four steps from the first sign of a problem to a signed contract, and every renewal, cross sell, and upsell starts a smaller sales cycle with the same customer. What the buyer needs at each step guides your messaging, your discovery, your demo, and your proof of value. The metrics along the cycle make it measurable: the conversion rate from one metric to the next shows where deals get stuck, so you find your bottlenecks and know which one to fix first.
- 1
Intent
Needs Clarity
I have a problem, and I need to understand it and what it costs me.
- 2
Discover
Needs Relevance
There are solutions. Which ones fit my situation?
- 3
Select
Needs Confidence
This is what we need, and I can defend the decision internally.
- 4
Use & Expand
Needs Results
The product delivers value. I need more of it, and I tell others about it.
Choose Your Motion
Match the motion to deal size, volume, and complexity
Which steps apply depends on your product. Your annual contract value, the number of deals, and the complexity of the decision set how much human guidance a buyer needs.
Velocity Motion
Below $10k ACV
High volume, low complexity
Buyers want to move fast and educate themselves, implementation is light, and markets are often price-sensitive. Automation and the product guide most buyers, and people step in when judgment is needed.
Guided Motion
$10k to $40k ACV
Medium volume, medium complexity
Buyers research on their own, then need context and reassurance before they decide. Your team shapes the evaluation, runs tight discovery, and keeps momentum, while automation handles routing, qualification, and follow-up.
Strategic Motion
Above $40k ACV
Low volume, high complexity
Deals involve several stakeholders, security reviews, a proof of value, and legal steps. Your team engages many people in the account, shapes the decision criteria, builds strong champions, and maps the buying process with the customer.
Stages and Exit Criteria
Six stages from first meeting to active customer
Each stage follows a step in the buying process. The tasks describe what your team does to move the deal forward. The exit criteria describe what the buyer has done, and only then does the deal move to the next stage. How much of each stage you need depends on your motion. A velocity deal may pass Scope and Validate in a single call, while a strategic deal spends weeks in each, so shape the stages to fit your product and the complexity of the decision.
| Stage | 1Discovery | 2Scope | 3Go / No-Go | 4Validate | 5Negotiate | 6Closed Won |
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Buyer | Intent to solve a problem | Define requirements, select vendors | Confirm technical and commercial fit | Confirm technical and commercial fit | Finalize and procure | Build and go live |
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Exit Criteria |
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Clear exit criteria keep you from mistaking a good meeting for progress. The Go / No-Go meeting with the economic buyer makes this explicit with one question:
"Hypothetically speaking, if all criteria are met and we can demonstrate the value, will you execute a purchase?"
A yes justifies the effort of a proof of value and a business case. Without it, you invest weeks in a deal that has no buyer.
Opportunity Validation
Six signals that a deal is real
Founders often read a good conversation as a sign of a real opportunity. The six signals show whether it actually is, so check them before you invest in a full sales cycle. If some are missing, close the gaps first or move on to the next prospect.
A strong potential champion
Someone who cares about the problem, is responsible for solving it, and has the influence to move the deal internally, especially with the economic buyer.
Pain confirmed in the first meeting
The customer describes a real problem in their own words and ideally connects it to measurable business impact.
Urgency with a timeline
The champion confirms when the problem must be solved and what doing nothing will cost.
Specific use cases
You talk about named applications, teams, and projects, and the customer starts to map your solution to their own environment.
A mutual engagement plan
You and the champion agree on the meetings, the stakeholders, the timeline, and the success criteria of the evaluation.
The next meeting within two weeks
Book a real date in the calendar, because deals die in the gaps between meetings.
Never leave a meeting without the next one in the calendar. If the buyer hesitates, suggest a short 15-minute follow-up. And if you do not know how to proceed, the customer will not know either.
After the Close
Growth starts with the first deal
Expanding an existing customer is easier than winning a new one. Your sales motion continues after the contract is signed, with the same care you put into the deal.
Deliver value through onboarding
The first weeks decide whether the customer sees the value you promised in the business case.
Capture the value realized
Measure the metrics you agreed on, and turn the results into proof for the next deal.
Expand into new teams
A customer who gets results opens the door to other departments, upsell, and renewal.
Build case studies
Every successful customer sharpens your customer profile and gives new buyers a reason to trust you.
Close the feedback loop
What you learn from customers flows back into your value architecture and your product.
Every customer conversation produces insight. With a shared deal language and consistent metrics, AI extracts the key facts from call notes and emails into your CRM. Conversion rates per stage show where deals stall, loss analysis shows why, and both flow back into your value architecture.
Build Your Own
Five steps to your own sales process
- 1
Define your stages
Start with the six default stages. Add a stage or an exit criterion for technical evaluations or security reviews if your product needs them, and keep short stages short.
- 2
Fill in tasks and goals
Ask for each stage what your buyer needs to feel confident enough to move on. Then translate that into what your team has to do.
- 3
Define clear exit criteria
Describe the buying action that ends the stage, measurable and often a plain yes or no. For example, the customer agrees to a proof of value with written success criteria, or confirms the business case.
- 4
Connect it to your CRM
Your stages and exit criteria become your pipeline stages, your forecast method, and your deal health view.
- 5
Test it on real deals
Map three to five open deals into the stages. You see right away which ones meet the exit criteria and where a champion, a decision criterion, or a buyer action is missing.
Make it your own, and keep it simple. Founders who spend months designing the perfect process never get to run it. Start with a first version, learn from every deal, and review the stages at least once a quarter.
Keep Reading
Qualify your deals and run the rhythm
The six validation signals are where deal qualification starts. Your stages and exit criteria become the base for forecasts, pipeline reviews, and the learning loops of your operating rhythm.
Find out where your deals get stuck
Take the free Value Architecture & Sales Motion Assessment. It shows which parts are already in place and where to start.