Map the people behind the buying decision.

Write the purchase decision in ordinary language: approve a substitute component, appoint a maintenance supplier or agree a campaign brief. Add the buying unit and the current step. A map for technical acceptance may involve different people from a map for contract approval, even within the same opportunity.

Use the account research brief to establish the company and operating context. Then narrow the map to what this decision requires. An organisation chart can suggest where to investigate; it cannot tell you which people are involved in this particular purchase.

Keep three kinds of involvement distinct: someone affected by the result, someone contributing knowledge, and someone whose approval is required. One person may have more than one role. Record the overlap when known, without making every helpful contact responsible for securing the purchase.

For each person or unknown role, capture their involvement, the evidence and date, the relationship owner on your side, and the next question. “Procurement approval required, according to the site manager in Tuesday’s scope review” is more useful than “decision-maker” selected from a dropdown with no explanation.

Distinguish access from influence. A contact may answer operational questions but have no authority over budget. Another may approve the order without joining early discussions. If someone supports the proposal, record what they have actually done: provided requirements, explained the internal process or agreed to introduce the relevant reviewer.

Tools can help discover people. LinkedIn’s Relationship Explorer documentation describes suggested contacts and updates such as job changes. Treat those as research inputs. A suggested persona or a past relationship does not establish current decision authority.

Ask which question the new person can help answer. Prepare a short context note: the decision under discussion, what is already agreed, what remains open and why their input matters. Confirm the proposed introduction with the existing relationship owner. This respects the work the customer has already done and reduces contradictory approaches from your team.

Keep the request proportionate. A technical reviewer may need a specification comparison, while procurement may need commercial terms and approved supplier information. The quote follow-up guide helps keep the correct revision attached to that discussion.

Record a declined or deferred introduction as useful information. It may indicate that the timing is wrong, the role is unnecessary or the customer prefers a different route. Do not turn an unaccepted introduction into an automated sequence aimed at the same person.

Revisit the map when scope changes, a new site becomes involved, approval moves to another entity or someone changes responsibilities. Keep the previous role with its dates. Replacing a contact name everywhere can erase who made an earlier commitment and why the current account owner believes it remains relevant.

A familiar contact may remain at the company while losing influence over this purchase. A buyer moving to a new employer creates a separate research question. The relationship-change guide explains how to assess those situations without transferring old assumptions to a new role.

Review missing roles in the pipeline meeting, where the team can decide how to resolve them. Keep the broader relationship history in the account plan. The map should support those records rather than becoming another disconnected document that disagrees with them.

Choose one active opportunity and give the map to a colleague who was not in the last conversation. Can they explain who is involved, which approval remains unclear and what should happen next? Ask them to find the agreed introduction and current document without help from the relationship owner.

Anything they have to guess is a gap in the map or its underlying research. Resolving those gaps makes a handover more useful than adding more names to the opportunity.

You can commission focused research into the relevant people, roles and contact routes. Plan can be purchased independently; research can also support the agreed contact and response work in a Build campaign. Research into an active deal’s approval process may need more depth than finding an initial contact. A workflow that maintains role records would have its own agreed scope. Agree which information is needed, who may update it and who receives it.