So, You Want To Sell Solutions? Part 5: Staying Aligned With Your Customer

Alignment with your customer is every bit as important as your plan of approach.
You cannot force the process and you cannot force the sale.

"There are no shortcuts to success, there are many shortcuts to failure."

The alignment should begin on the initial contact and be maintained through product/service delivery by a comprehensive adoption plan/sponsor letter that lays out the milestones and go/no go's that need to be reached in order to deliver your product or service.

Most large organizations move painfully slow through the procurement process, your job is to help guide them and remind them that life is what happens while we are making other plans.
That is to say, the issues and pains that drove them to seek a solution have not diminished since they sought help, but have intensified and will continue to grow until they have deployed a solution to address them.
Keep reminding them of this simple truth, also let them know that you need their internal assistance to help achieve fulfillment.
Your internal advocate needs to understand and believe that what you are offering is the best means of resolving his organization's critical issues and needs to champion you at funding and acquisition sessions.
I use the following approach in my sponsor letters:

Recap- Use the customers statements and the facts to lay out what you discussed with regard to pain, document the current method, the results and the impact it's having and will have if left unaddressed.
Detail your solution and its impact and potential value add to his organization.
Then detail the next steps needed to reach the delivery.
Use hard step dates. These can be modified as needed, but without firm milestones set, and dates for achievement agreed to you are like a boat adrift with out a compass.
Remember, while you are presenting and aligning with the project manager or whoever your point of contact is internally, they are most likely not the ones who cut the checks and create the PO. This is typically handled through a purchasing agent who likely has very little knowledge about the project or the value add you bring.
Your internal advocate can be a big help here in navigating these complex channels.
Many projects fail because there is no cohesive plan for coordinating the project and its deadline ac cross the organization you are delivering to.

If you have done your job properly, this is no longer a sales push, it is now an administrative push and you have secured your sale.
Now you just need to to get through the purchasing process.
Use your advocate/sponsor here to help. Always reminding them that you are a team now and need to work together to finalise all the details needed t0 deliver their solution.