# Buyer Commitment Mapper

> Map content, CTAs, and sales discovery questions to the specific stage of buyer commitment they serve, using a six-stage arc across three phases (Recognize, Explore, Decide). Use whenever a user is planning a content calendar, auditing a website or nurture flow, building sales discovery questions, or asks why "good content" isn't converting. Trigger this whenever content or a CTA is proposed without a stated buying stage — an asset with no assigned stage is decorative, not functional, and this skill exists to catch that before budget is spent producing it.

- Skill: `christopherswarup/buyer-commitment-mapper` (Agent Skill)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add christopherswarup/buyer-commitment-mapper`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/christopherswarup/buyer-commitment-mapper/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Product & Planning
- Author: christopherswarup (https://skillmd.com/u/christopherswarup)
- Updated: 2026-09-17
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/christopherswarup/buyer-commitment-mapper

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# Buyer Commitment Mapper

A buyer doesn't move from "stranger" to "signed" in one step — they climb a ladder of increasingly specific internal commitments. Content, CTAs, and discovery questions only work if they're built for the specific rung the buyer is actually standing on.

## Inputs to gather

**Required:**
- An inventory of existing content/assets — titles and one-line descriptions are enough, doesn't need to be a formal spreadsheet

**Helpful, not blocking:**
- Current conversion or funnel data by stage, if tracked
- Target persona definitions (who's supposed to be reading/watching this)
- The specific CTAs in use on key pages

**If none of this is available:** ask for whatever exists — a content calendar export, a list of blog URLs, or even just "what have you published in the last quarter?" Partial visibility is enough to start finding the gaps.

## The six-stage arc (three phases)

| Phase | Stage | The buyer is silently asking | Your job at this stage |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Recognize** | 1. Problem Surfacing | "Is this actually a problem worth solving?" | Make the cost of the status quo visible and specific |
| | 2. Priority Commitment | "Is this worth fixing *now*, above our other priorities?" | Justify urgency against their competing priorities |
| **Explore** | 3. Approach Exploration | "What kinds of solutions even exist for this?" | Educate on solution categories — not your product yet |
| | 4. Approach Commitment | "Which *kind* of solution fits how we work?" | Shape the selection criteria in your favour |
| **Decide** | 5. Business-Case Lock | "Can I defend this choice internally?" | Arm your internal champion — ROI, proof, references |
| | 6. Vendor Decision | "Which vendor, and on what terms?" | Differentiate and de-risk the final choice |

For each persona, map three layers against these six stages:
- **Interaction** — human-led (sales, events) vs. non-human (web, content, product-led) at this stage
- **Content** — the asset type and channel that actually fits this stage
- **Engagement** — is this persona even present at this stage, and with how much authority (decision-maker down to no influence)?

## The core rule

**Every content asset and every CTA gets assigned to exactly one stage.** If you can't say which of the six stages a piece of content serves, it's decorative — it exists, but it isn't doing a job. Cut it or assign it.

The same discipline applies to sales discovery: the first job in a discovery call is locating which of the six stages the buyer is *actually* in — not the stage your sales process assumes they're in. A rep pitching Stage 5 proof points to a Stage 1 buyer (who hasn't even committed the problem is worth fixing) is solving the wrong problem.

## How to apply it

1. **Inventory what exists** — every content asset, CTA, and discovery question in scope.
2. **Assign each to one of the six stages.** Anything that can't be assigned is flagged as decorative.
3. **Find the gaps** — which stages have no content at all? (Stage 1–2 gaps are the most common and the most expensive to leave open — you can't sell to a buyer who never committed the problem was worth fixing.)
4. **For discovery:** build questions that diagnose *which stage* the buyer is in before qualifying on anything else.

## Output format

- **Stage-by-stage inventory** — what exists, what's missing, per stage
- **Decorative-content flag list** — assets with no assignable stage
- **Gap priority** — which missing stage to fill first (usually the earliest gap in the arc, since later-stage content can't compensate for an unaddressed earlier stage)

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*Skill 3 of 6 diagnostic skills in the [GTM Skills collection](../../README.md) by [Christopher Swarup](https://github.com/christopherswarup) — GTM Ops leader, 15+ years in RevOps/MOPS across Finastra, Equinix, Nutanix, Pleo, Contentsquare and DevRev.*