How to multithread a deal so it does not depend on one contact

Why a deal with one contact is fragile

Most deals that die quietly had one thing in common: everything went through one friendly contact. They took the calls, shared the context and seemed to carry the deal. Then they went quiet, changed jobs or lost an argument inside their company that you never saw, and the deal went with them.

The deeper problem is what you cannot see. A group makes the decision, and one contact gives you one view of it, often a partial one. The person who signs has their own priorities, a technical lead can block on detail, and procurement has its own steps. Through one contact, the deal can look fine until the day it stops.

Which people a deal needs to reach

Multithreading is not collecting names. It is a purposeful line to each role that shapes the decision, because each one tells you something the others cannot.

• Your champion: the person who sells for you when you are not in the room. Essential, but one thread among several.
• The person who signs: the one who owns the budget and applies the final criteria. A deal that never reaches them is qualified on hope.
• The people who will use it or assess it: they can block on detail even when the signer is keen. Hear their concerns directly.
• Procurement, legal and security: they set the timing and the terms, and they appear late and painfully when nobody asked about them.

How to widen the deal with your contact, not around them

Sellers worry that reaching other people will offend their contact. Done openly, it does not. Present it as building agreement inside their company, so the decision is safer for everyone, including them. A good contact wants the deal to succeed and knows it needs support beyond them.

Ask your contact to make the introductions, and give them a reason and the words to use. It is also a test. A contact who can open the door to the person who signs has real influence. One who cannot, or will not, tells you the deal is weaker than it looked, and it is better to learn that early.

Qualification frameworks such as MEDDPICC ask whether the signer, the decision process and the champion are each covered. If you can only answer those through one person, the deal has one thread, whatever the CRM says.

Check who the deal actually shows

List the people your CRM, emails and calls show on the deal. For each one, note what they did: joined a call, replied to an email, or were only mentioned. A name in the CRM that nobody has met is not a thread.

The gap gives you the next move: the person who signs and has not appeared yet, the user nobody has spoken to, the approver you have only heard about. Pick one, agree with your contact how to reach them, and put a date on it.

An example on Halden Freight

Halden Freight is at the proposal stage, with a quote of 86,000 USD. Here is who the deal reaches today.

• Maya Lindqvist, COO: met. She signed off the pilot, and said on the 19 Sep call that anything above 50k goes to Tom, the CFO.
• Jonas Berg, Head of Dispatch: met. He offered to set up a meeting with Tom. Nothing is booked yet.
• Tom, the CFO: never met. He signs at this amount.
• Someone in the dispatch team prefers the current tool: mentioned, never met.
• The move: ask Jonas to book 20 minutes with Tom before the proposal goes out, and ask him who on his team uses the current tool, so you can hear their concern directly.

Signs a deal has only one thread

• Every email and call involves the same person.
• You learn about the decision process only through what your contact reports.
• The person who signs is named in the CRM but has never appeared in a call or an email.
• When your contact goes quiet, you cannot tell whether the deal is moving or stopped.