Why You Need A Structured Close Plan

“I don’t get it. We closed at 68% of forecast… again.”

The VP of Sales is stuck staring at their dashboard again, a familiar knot forming in their stomach. Three reps had sworn those deals were locked. The customers seemed enthusiastic. Yet here they are, another quarter-end disappointment, another round of explaining to leadership why their predictions had fallen short.

Does this sound familiar to you? 

This scenario plays out in thousands of companies every quarter, and not because the product is weak or the team lacks talent. The culprit is not necessarily what you’d expect: it’s the absence of a structured, repeatable close plan.

Classroom Training

Remember that sales methodology training everyone attended last year? The one that cost $2,500 per rep and took three full days? Three days that your reps could have been meeting clients and closing deals? 

Let me guess what happened next:

Initial excitement. A flurry of new terminology. Then… gradual regression to old habits as daily pressures mounted and those pristine workbooks gathered digital dust in shared drives. By month three, your team had reverted to their pre-training closing techniques – a mix of intuition, relationship-building, and crossed fingers.

This isn’t an implementation failure. It’s a systems failure.

Research has found the most profound retention loss happens within the first 24 hours. Within 90 days of the training, most individuals have forgotten between 84% and 90% of the information they learned during delivery.

The methodology isn’t failing you, it’s the lack of operational integration failing it.

The Problem With Most Sales Forecasting

“This deal is definitely closing this quarter.”

Sounds confident, doesn’t it? But dig deeper and you’ll often find this assessment is based on dangerously subjective criteria:

• The prospect seemed enthusiastic on the last call.
• They haven’t explicitly said no.
• The champion is pushing for it.
• “My gut tells me we’ve got this one.”

These are all guesses at best and yes, sometimes deals with this criteria will close. But more often than not, they’ll slip into next quarter and the cycle will repeat all over again. 

Without a structured framework, each rep develops their own definition of what “likely to close” actually means. One person’s “90% certain” might be another’s “50-50 chance”, rendering your entire forecasting process about as scientific as reading tea leaves.

These kinds of conversations are happening everyday:

“Have you confirmed the economic buyer is on board?” 

“Well, not directly, but…” 

“Do we understand their decision-making process?” 

“I think so…” 

“Is legal review factored into your timeline?” 

“I’m not sure they’ll need legal to…”

This isn’t a reflection on the rep’s capabilities. It’s what happens when there’s no systematic approach to closing. A customer can be incredibly enthusiastic about your product, but that doesn’t mean they have budget, or a timeline to implement, or an economic buyer who can sign for the product, so as much as you need enthusiasm in some instances, it’s definitely not something that should be relied on when forecasting. Deals that seemed certain suddenly become questionable when basic elements haven’t been verified.

When “Next Steps” Become “Missed Steps”

Sales is fundamentally a team sport, despite the stereotype of the lone-wolf closer. Modern complex deals are filled with stakeholders and require coordination between sales, solutions, implementation, legal, and finance teams.

Without a structured close plan, this coordination resembles a game of telephone:

• Rep tells sales engineer: “They’re interested in the enterprise package.”
• Sales engineer tells implementation: “Prepare for full enterprise deployment.”
• Implementation tells finance: “Rush this contract through.”
• Finance asks legal: “Who approved these non-standard terms?”
• Legal asks rep: “Did you get sign-off from procurement?”
• Rep: “Wait, I thought you were handling that…”

Each handoff becomes a potential breaking point. Each assumption creates new risk. The deal timeline stretches, enthusiasm wanes, and your competitors find openings.

What Actually Is a Structured Close Plan?

Put simply: a structured close plan is the bridge between knowing what to do and consistently doing it.

Imagine if every opportunity in your pipeline followed the same rigorous path:

1. Qualification: e.g. Why do you need a new solution? What challenges are you having today?
2. Pain Identification: e.g. How much business could you lose out on if you don’t implement this? 
3. Decision Criteria: e.g. What specifically are you evaluating? 
4. Economic Buyer: e.g. Who will sign off on this purchase?
5. Champion Development: e.g. Usually the person who is caused the most pain by NOT having a solution in place. 
6. Paper Process: e.g. Which departments need to sign off on this product? Legal, infosec, finance? Are there timeline challenges such as end of quarter or end of fiscal year coming up? 

Now imagine this framework living directly within Salesforce, not as a separate spreadsheet or mental checklist, but as an integral part of how every deal is managed.

This will create transparency across every deal in your pipeline.

High-performing sales organizations consistently implement structured processes. The structure doesn’t limit creativity, it creates the foundation that allows your team’s relationship skills to actually deliver results.

The Transformation

When companies implement a structured close plan, the transformation affects every aspect of the sales organization:

• Pipeline reviews transform from subjective opinions (“I feel good about this one”) to data-driven discussions (“We’ve completed 4 of 6 critical steps, with economic buyer confirmation pending.”)
• Coaching becomes specific rather than general (“I notice you haven’t documented the decision criteria on your last three deals, let’s work on that approach.”)
• Handoffs between teams are smooth because everyone works from the same documented understanding of each opportunity’s status.

Don’t forget about stress. When everyone knows exactly what “good” looks like at each stage, the last week of the quarter shifts away from fire-fighting to smoothly closing business.

How Plan2Close Makes Structure Stick

Even the best process falls apart without seamless integration into existing workflows.

Plan2Close tackles this by living entirely within Salesforce, the system your team already uses daily. There’s no switching contexts, no duplicate data entry, and no “one more thing to check.”

Instead of abstract methodology, Plan2Close gives you:

• Real-time visibility: Color-coded deal health indicators that instantly show which opportunities need attention and why.
• Guided execution: Step-by-step prompts that turn methodology into action without requiring perfect recall of training materials.
• Objective scoring: Data-driven assessment that removes the subjectivity from forecast calls.
• Manager insights: Clear visibility into which reps need coaching on specific aspects of the closing process.

Within the first year of adopting Plan2Close, Peoplesafe saw a 25% boost in revenue for deals managed through the new process. This wasn’t a coincidence; by focusing on high-potential opportunities and using a disciplined framework, the team could close deals faster and more consistently, resulting in a direct impact on revenue.

“Having deployed Sales Methods’ tools, we have embedded the process into our sales DNA. On analysis, we have enjoyed a 25% increase in revenue achieved for the deals that we put through the Plan2Close process. This has given us an ROI within the first year of deployment.”

Find out more here. 

The system adapts to your terminology and approach rather than forcing you into rigid templates. Using MEDDPICC? BANT? Your own custom methodology? Plan2Close is configurable to reinforce what you’re already teaching, not replace it.

Beyond Closing

The benefits of structured close plans extend far beyond individual deals:

• Onboarding accelerates when new hires have clear guidance on exactly how deals progress in your organization.
• Cross-functional alignment improves as teams share a common language and process for opportunity management.
• Resource allocation becomes strategic when you can objectively identify which deals deserve additional support.

Perhaps most importantly, the data captured through structured processes creates a continuous improvement engine. When every deal follows the same framework, patterns emerge:

• Which industries require longer paper processes?
• Which decision criteria correlate with higher close rates?
• Which champions are most effective at navigating internal approvals?

These insights don’t come from gut feeling, they come from consistent process execution that generates comparable data.

The Real Question: Can You Afford Not To?

Let’s do some simple math:

• Average deal size: $100,000
• Pipeline: 50 active opportunities
• Current close rate: 25%
• Revenue: $1.25M

Now, what happens with even a modest improvement from a structured close plan?

• Close rate improvement: +5% (to 30%)
• New revenue: $1.5M
• Difference: $250,000

That’s a quarter-million dollars from the same pipeline with the same team, simply by executing with more discipline.

The question isn’t whether you can afford to implement a structured close plan. It’s whether you can afford not to.

Your Next Move

There’s a saying in sales: “Hope is not a strategy.” 

Yet without a structured close plan, hope is precisely what many teams rely on, hope that reps remember their training, hope that critical questions get asked, hope that everyone follows through on commitments.

You wouldn’t run your manufacturing operation on hope. You wouldn’t run your financial reporting on hope. Why accept it in your revenue engine?

Take an honest look at your current process. Ask yourself:

• Do we have a clearly defined, step-by-step approach that every deal follows?
• Is that approach embedded in our CRM or does it exist only in training materials?
• Can our forecasting directly tie back to completion of specific close plan elements?
• Do our managers have visibility into which critical steps are being missed?

If you’re answering “no” to these questions, you’ve identified your biggest opportunity for improvement.

Because ultimately, sales success isn’t about having the perfect pitch or the most charismatic reps. It’s about consistently executing a proven process that leaves nothing to chance.

Your competitors are figuring this out.

Are you?

Reach out today for a free trial!