One canvas per live customer. Map who matters, what they care about, where you can win and what happens next, gate by gate.
Fill in who’s who before anything else. A buyer role with no name against it tells you where to look next.
Write down what the customer actually says about their pains and goals, not your summary of it.
Gate 3 asks where you can win, and whether you should try. A no is a useful answer.
Every action or question at Gate 6 gets a name and a date, or it won’t happen.
Type straight into it. Add people, actions and items as you need them, and the boxes grow as you write. When you’re done, save it to your laptop, or print it or save it as a PDF on A4 or A3.
Canvas
Strategic account planning · one per live customer
Thinking Canvas
Gate 1 · Identify: the account is chosen and live
Gate 2 · Understand
Map every person who matters, inside the customer and inside our own business. Which buyer roles have no name against them? Who might be hidden?
| Name and role | Buyer type | Strength (1–6) | Advocacy | Our relationship owner | Remove |
|---|
Buyer type: EB Economic · BB Business · TB Technical · IB Influencing
Strength (Timperley): 1 acknowledgement · 2 understanding · 3 acceptance · 4 respect · 5 trust · 6 bond Advocacy: + champion · +/– neutral · – blocker
What do they do? (jobs)
What pains do they face in doing it?
What goals or aspirations do they have? (gains)
Who supplies them, or helps them solve this, today?
Gate 3 · Analyse
Where can we win? Should we try?
Gate 4 · Solution
How do we help them do it better, remove pain, and reach their goals? Product, service, expertise, or a mix?
What we own
What we integrate
What we partner for, and with whom
Gate 5 · Float ideas
Anchor on what they care about. Never lead with product. Already pitched? What’s the next conversation?
Their words we’ll anchor on
The idea we’ll float
The proof they’ll want
Gate 6 · Propose: what gets us to a pitch and proposal with them
| Action or question | Who can help (our expert, partner, or customer) | Owner | By when | Remove |
|---|
If the canvas surfaces something you’d rather not work through alone, that’s usually the one worth talking about.