A champion is the person who moves your deal when you are out of the room. The strongest signal is effort that costs them something inside the account: access, reputation, or time spent helping others make the purchase. A friendly contact can explain the problem and still leave you stranded. Look for someone who brings you into important conversations, gives you context you could not get alone, sets the next move, and carries the business impact internally. Test those behaviors before giving the contact champion status. That keeps your attention on observable support instead of rapport.
Start with the job of a champion
A champion advocates for you in the room when you are not there.1 The person is usually the stakeholder who must agree that the organization has a problem worth solving.2 Use those two conditions together. A contact can like the idea and still lack the reason or access to advance it.
Find candidates in the account
Watch what people do in live conversations, especially when the group decides what happens next. Ask directly, then compare the answer with what the contact does.
Ask, "Who is the champion?".3 Pay attention to who gets listened to and what types of questions they ask.4 Then ask, "Are they the person setting the next steps with you?".5 Follow with, "Are they the one driving it?".6 Use the question, "Where do they sit in the org?".7
Position alone does not tell you enough. A useful champion has the political capital to introduce you to people with power.8 Move forward when the contact combines influence with visible action, such as setting the next step, bringing in another person, or getting information for the deal.
Test the relationship
Give the candidate a task that shows whether they will spend effort inside the account. The task should help the purchase move, and the response should be easy to observe.
Use this test: "Will they go get us some data? Will they go to their leadership and ask about how a stack ranks in organizational priorities?".9 A contact who does this gives you access to context that the call itself cannot provide. A champion is also willing to involve multiple stakeholders in the deal.10
Listen for proactive suggestions about actions or next steps. If the contact keeps waiting for you to tell them what to do, keep them in the contact category and continue looking for stronger support.
Confirm personal stake
Find out why the purchase matters to the person who may carry it internally. Their own outcome determines how much effort they can sustain when other people hesitate.
Ask, "What do they have to gain or lose?".11 Understand the champion's own motives before asking for introductions or internal selling.12 A business champion can be responsible for the outcome the account is pursuing.13
Use the answer to shape the work you do together. If the person gains a better result, a clearer process, or stronger standing inside the account, show how your solution supports that outcome. The relationship should improve their position too, so treat their interest as part of that outcome rather than as a favor to you.
Secure buy-in before expanding the group
Before you ask the contact to recruit a wider group, make sure they are ready to stand behind the purchase.
Get their buy-in before involving the broader group because they are speaking on your behalf and putting their reputation behind the process.14 Check that the initial buyer understands and supports the purchase before using that person to reach other stakeholders. If the contact cannot explain why the account should act, give them more work to do before expanding the conversation.
Equip the internal sale
Once the contact is committed, prepare them for the conversations you will not attend. The preparation should reveal what the account needs to approve the purchase and give the champion language they can use internally.
Ask, "What do you need to ultimately make a purchasing decision?".15 Then ask, "What else do you think would be helpful to see in that deck that would help you sell this?".16 How the champion plans to sell internally reveals what internal buyers and the ultimate decision maker care about.17
Help the champion define the buying criteria. Doing that can make the person look good inside the organization and encourage them to advocate for you.18 Have the champion communicate the purchase in terms of business impact.19 That gives the contact something usable in conversations with people who were absent from your calls.
Validate the champion throughout the deal
Champion status must be earned again at each point where the deal can stall. Keep testing access, information, and movement instead of relying on an early expression of interest.
Ask the champion what it takes to win over the power holder.20 A real champion should strategize with you about gaining access to important stakeholders.21 Ask for the internal context that will change your plan, including confidential information from behind the scenes.22
Look for internal stakeholders pushing for the purchase when you are absent.23 In expansion work, internal champions can end up selling on your behalf.24 Use the champion to improve the next parts of the sales cycle, then check whether the promised introductions, decisions, and actions actually happen.
What not to do
These mistakes make a contact look stronger on paper than they are in the account.
- Do not let an evaluation continue without identifying the champions who can carry it internally.25
- Do not leave the buyer's required purchasing steps vague after the champion is engaged. Ask the champion to help determine those steps.26
- Do not call a coach a champion when they will not involve their boss. Willingness to involve the boss can distinguish the two roles.27
At your next account review, name the contact, write down the action that proves their support, and record what they stand to gain from the purchase. If you cannot point to movement inside the account, keep developing the relationship while you search for someone who will carry the deal when you are absent.