The Command Plan is how GitLab has operationalized Command of the Message (a customer value-driven sales methodology) and MEDDPPICC (a proven methodology used for strategic opportunity management and complex sales process orchestration for enterprise organizations) into the opportunity management process. Access the Effective Command Plans to Help You Win More Deals e-learning course.
The Command Plan consists of the below 3 sections. The Opportunity Overview section is required for ALL opportunities in stage 2-Scoping or later. The remaining sections (MEDDPPICC and Close Plan Details) are only required for opportunities at or above defined ARR thresholds ($50K+ for Enterprise, $20K+ for Mid-Market, and $10K+ for SMB).
At the enterprise account level, the Command Plan is owned by the Strategic Account Executive who creates the plan and updates the contents accordingly. It is used as a living pre-sales document, and its objectives are converted into Gainsight Success Plan objectives at the time of account onboarding.
You can find the Command Plan button in the Opportunity Detail section of the Salesforce opportunity object (see image below) or in Clari. Please note that Command Plans are capped at 5000 characters in Salesforce to encourage sales team members to be crisp and succinct. To do so, the Command Plan should focus on future-looking plans and remove details that are no longer relevant to the current close plan. For information you'd like to remove from the Command Plan but keep for historical purposes, please add that information as a new activity record on the opportunity.
This section consists of 5 mandatory fields:
There are a total of 9 MEDDPPICC fields (see details here).
This section is comprised of the following 3 fields:
Continuing to improve the fidelity of Command Plans is a critical success factor to winning more deals and improving productivity and predictability. As such, at the bottom of the Command Plan is a section for Managers and above to enter review notes from opportunity consults (and/or Lightweight Deal Reviews for Commercial Sales) conducted. Manager Review notes should begin with “YYYY-MM-DD” to indicate the date when the opportunity consult was conducted, and the notes should succinctly highlight:
Note: The Manager Review Info section (immediately below the Manager Review section) will auto-populate based on information entered in the Manager Review section.
An opportunity consult should be conducted with Strategic Account Leaders (SAEs) at least once a month for every $50K+ opportunity. For SAEs with fewer than three $50K+ opportunities, consider conducting monthly opportunity consults for their top 3 opportunities.
An opportunity consult should be conducted with Mid Market Account Executives (AEs) at least once a month for every $20K+ opportunity and with SMB Account Executives (AEs) at least once a month for every $10K+ opportunity.
