[mhb_eng]

Great guide! Overall, agree with the thoughts on leverage and running an efficient process. However, speaking from experience and having spent time as a principal and associate, I would disagree with the advice that only pitching partners is worthwhile. Depending on the space(my experience is solely in hard tech), associates and principals generally make up the technical core of the team, so getting them excited is a key step in making overall progress. A good rule of thumb is to check LinkedIn. If the person has been there more than a year, assume even lower level folks have an ability to make go/no-go decisions.

[akharris]

That's an interesting point. You're right that, for hard tech deals, the non-partners are often the relied upon experts.

To refine this point a bit - I don't think it's a bad idea to spend time with non-partners, but they're not the ones that you want to pitch in the standard sense. If you're trying to win a technical subject matter expert, your approach and dialogue are tailored for that specific conversation.