stakeholder mapping tool

The map a rep draws from memory is always missing someone.

Security reviewers cc'd twice. Finance stakeholders who joined one call. Economic buyers nobody has actually spoken to. A stakeholder mapping tool built on real activity catches all of it automatically.

Trusted by sales leaders at OpenAI, Red Hat, HPE, Zscaler, and Rubrik, and 100,000+ sellers daily.

AMD
For a company our size, multiply those time savings across every rep and manager globally - Backstory basically pays for itself before you even count the deals caught earlier.
Reagan Lucas
Reagan Lucas
Sales Process Coach
OpenAI
Red Hat
Visibility into activity, pipeline, and execution fuels better decisions, faster corrections, and more predictable outcomes - without requiring reps to change their workflow.
Andrew Brown
Andrew Brown
Senior Vice President and Chief Revenue Officer
Databricks
Zscaler
Elastic
Cyberark
Cohesity
Five9
With Backstory, we removed the guesswork from our sales process. The data is clean, insights are actionable, and our team finally has a shared view of every deal in pipeline.
Esther Friend
Esther Friend
Former VP of Sales Efficiency and Transformation
Seismic
If reps aren't in a multi-threaded deal, Backstory flags it. That lets us act fast - asking who we need to get in front of before the gap becomes the reason we lost the deal.
Toby Carrington
Toby Carrington
Chief Business Officer
Pluralsight
With Backstory, you see if reps are single-threaded and the quality of their interactions. It's one thing to diagnose a pipeline problem. Backstory helps you actually fix it.
Mitch Beck
Mitch Beck
Head of Digital Sales at Pluralsight
TTEC
We started thinking about automation and deal tracking. We quickly learned Backstory supports the entire revenue cycle. That shift - and that partnership - changed how we sell.
Jonathan Gray
Jonathan Gray
Senior VP at TTEC
Hexagon
With Backstory, we can see what's actually happening in the field - and we know exactly what to work on, whether that's coverage gaps or finding the right people for key roles.
Eric Chapman
Eric Chapman
Vice President Sales Operations and Enablement
Ping Identity
What matters is adoption, enforceability, and CRM compliance. Backstory integrated in a few clicks and guarantees high usage of our chosen sales methodology. Simple as that.
Spencer Hodson
Spencer Hodson
Vice President of Global Sales Operations and Development
BlueYonder
GAINSytems
Lily.ai
When you step into a new leadership role, you wonder if you can trust the existing data. Because of Backstory, I know I can - and I run my entire sales org confidently off it.
Julian Dimery
Julian Dimery
Sr. Director of Sales
F5 Networks
DominoDataLabs
Motiv
Dataiku
Drata
Palo Alto Networks

A stakeholder map built from memory has gaps by default.

Ask a rep to name everyone involved in a deal, and you'll get the people they talk to most. What you won't get is the person who joined one call and never came back, or the finance reviewer three threads deep in an email chain the rep barely notices.

Titles get guessed,
not confirmed

A rep assumes someone is the economic buyer because of their title, not because of anything they've actually said or done in the deal.

The map gets built once and never touched again

A stakeholder chart from week one of discovery still gets used in week twelve, even though the buying committee has changed twice since then.

Missing roles hide in plain sight

No economic buyer identified yet doesn't show up as a gap unless something is actively flagging it. Otherwise it just looks like an incomplete section nobody got to.

How a map built from activity is different

Every contact touched, not just the ones logged, pulled from email and calendar activity. Roles inferred from behavior instead of a guessed title, showing who's driving, who's blocking, and who's gone quiet. Missing roles called out directly instead of silently absent.

The map updates automatically as the deal moves, not the org chart from week one.

  • Pulls contacts from real activity, not manual entry
  • Infers role and influence from behavior, not job titles
  • Flags missing roles explicitly, like an unengaged economic buyer
  • Updates automatically as the buying committee shifts
Why it matters
A map that updates itself stays useful past the first week of discovery, which is exactly when most manual maps stop being touched.

Manual mapping versus a map built from activity

A CRM contact list captures who someone added. Every person on every thread and invite is a different, larger picture. Titles guessed at versus roles inferred from real participation changes who a rep actually prioritizes.

A chart built once during discovery versus one that updates on its own is the difference between a snapshot and a live view.

  • CRM contact entries versus everyone on every thread and invite
  • Guessed titles versus roles inferred from participation
  • A one-time chart versus a self-updating map
  • Assumed coverage versus coverage checked against engagement recency
Why it matters
The gap between a contact list and a real stakeholder map is usually the difference between a deal that closes and one that stalls on a signature nobody saw coming.

Signals of a mapping tool worth using

Pulls contacts from real activity, not manual entry. Shows engagement level per person, not just a name and title. Flags missing roles explicitly, like an unengaged economic buyer.

Updates on its own as the buying committee shifts.

  • Built from real activity, not a rep's contact list
  • Shows per-person engagement level, not just names
  • Explicitly flags roles that haven't been identified yet
  • Updates without someone rebuilding the chart manually
Why it matters
A mapping tool that requires manual upkeep just becomes one more thing that goes stale.

What changes when your team has the answers.

Every customer-facing activity happening in our sales org is captured in Salesforce, the contact is created, and it gets associated with the right opportunity - with no extra effort from our sales team.

Clark Green
Clark Green
VP, Global Revenue Operations

FAQ

Common questions.

How does the tool identify someone's role without a title?

It infers role and influence from behavior, who's driving conversations, who's approving next steps, who's gone quiet, rather than relying on a self-reported title.

Does this require integration with our calendar, not just email?

Yes. Meeting attendance is one of the strongest signals for mapping who's actually involved.

Can it tell us who's missing from the buying committee?

Yes. It explicitly flags roles that haven't shown up yet, like an economic buyer with no recorded engagement.

How current is the map at any given time?

It updates automatically as new activity comes in, so it reflects the buying committee as it exists now, not at deal creation.

Does this work for renewal and expansion accounts too?

Yes. Stakeholder mapping applies to any account relationship, not just net-new deals.

What happens when a key stakeholder leaves the company?

Turnover shows up as an engagement gap, since the pattern of activity from that contact stops, which is one of the clearer signals the tool surfaces.

Map the buying committee automatically.

Backstory builds the stakeholder map from real activity, every contact, every role, every gap, so nothing depends on what a rep remembered to write down.

Which deals are real?

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