#6 strikes me as particularly important:
> 6. Make sure you’re talking to the ultimate decision maker. > It’s often not the person you’ll be directed to. It’s frequently the PM.
I'd also add that 'it's not necessarily the person with the fancy title.' You'll lose a lot of time by focussing on the wrong person(s), even if their title suggest that they're very important. We lost a deal in which we spent several weeks conferencing flirtatiously with BD and Corp Dev (both EVPs) only to have the proposal rejected by a 'regular' PM, who ultimately owned the product and wasn't very pleased to be brought into the process at a later stage. Instead, we should have asked early on who is going to be involved in the decision process 'given we find a great strategic fit'. Getting a soft Yes, that'd be him/her/me on this also helps the general sales process.