Overcoming mistakes and missed opportunities when champion building (Ford Williams, Regional Director Majors-West & Central @ ThoughtSpot)

Description

Listen

Quoted on this wiki

Every place a page here uses this source, in the order the words come in it.

1. 7:43

   This is why we think it's going to be valuable. Maybe here's a screenshot or two, what have you. Here's the use case. Now that executive is primed, they jump on the call with you. How are you making use of those 30 minutes? Well, we should have a tight agenda and the agenda hopefully has been shared with the EB beforehand. Right? “Hopefully it's not just in the invite.” You send that them in their EA, maybe champion, it's probably a big threat at this point, five or six people, the proposed agenda. Please let us know if you'd like to cover anything else. And then when you do show up, I believe slides are a good thing. It's nice to have something tangible. Ten slides is too many for an EB meeting.

   In Pre-meeting value setting

2. 8:07

   five or six people, the proposed agenda. Please let us know if you'd like to cover anything else. And then when you do show up, I believe slides are a good thing. It's nice to have something tangible. Ten slides is too many for an EB meeting. You should have two, three, four max and they should be tight. “I personally like to start with value.” I decide I've chosen to really show value through three whys. Why anything? Why ThoughtSpot in my case? Why now? Right? So why anything? Why your company? Why now? I think one slide, the more metrics that can be on it and the more quotes that can be on it, the more impactful.

   In Discovery meeting structure

3. 18:31

   that they even know what the inside scoop is and they don't lead you in the wrong direction. So I know you've talked about these four steps of champion building a couple times. And so I actually want to drill a little bit deeper into this. So the first step that you talk about in champion building is identifying a champion. And I think you do some really, really interesting things, “like looking at who listens when they speak in the room” to figure out if this person has any political clout. So upon first sight of someone who you think might be a champion, how do you go about sussing out if you think they're a worthwhile champion to guide you through a sale? So how do you identify that champion?

   In Champion identification

4. 19:05

   So how do you identify that champion? They join a meeting, you may not even set it with them, they join, and when they walk in the room, do people take notice? When they speak, Zoom, does everyone listen? When you're discussing the next steps at the end of the call, “are they the person setting the next steps with you?” Are they the one driving it? Another one, are they asking tough questions? I think a junior sales, oh, they're asking tough questions, I want to stay away. But if they're tough but relevant questions, that means they've actually, they probably have brought other projects in. Like they have scars from delivering on other projects.

   In Champion identification

5. 19:24

   are they the person setting the next steps with you? Are they the one driving it? Another one, are they asking tough questions? I think a junior sales, oh, they're asking tough questions, I want to stay away. But if they're tough but relevant questions, that means they've actually, they probably have brought other projects in. Like they have scars from delivering on other projects. “That's another one. Of course, where do they sit in the org?” Who do they report to? Good one is, did they follow the economic buyer here from a previous company? Have they worked together before? Is this the right hand man or woman of the economic buyer? So there's a few, there's many, and I can keep going, but you absolutely need to identify, because if you don't identify correctly,

   In Champion identification

6. 27:38

   I want to start with, as you go into procurement, you should be checking with other vendors and partners that have gone through this process and knowing what God asks of them, what they had to do to get the deal done. Right. If you can just get three or four to talk to you, you're going to be in such a better shape. “The first and foremost question is what's important to you and what's important to the EB?” Right. Get that. What's important to procurement? And that shifts, by the way. Let's be very clear. That changes all the time. What's important to procurement today is very different than it was 12 months ago with how the economy has changed. Right.

   In Discovery question design

7. 32:15

   that meeting can be focused on solving business problems, not technical problems. Number three, one way to figure out if you even have the right champion is figure out who takes the next steps. “Look at who gets listened to when they speak and also listen to the types of questions they're asking.” Make sure they're the ones asking the tough questions. And lastly, number four, when you're in a negotiation, play the table with all of the asks. And one trade-off you can make is if someone has a monetary ask, decline the monetary ask and exchange it for a non-monetary ask.

   In Champion identification

Quotes are verbatim and belong to their publishers. Where a quote has been translated, the original wording is kept below it.