Champion (Sales)
A sales champion is an internal advocate at the prospect's company who believes in your product and actively sells it to other stakeholders on your behalf.
Key takeaways
- A champion risks their own credibility, while an enthusiastic contact risks nothing.
- Champion strength depends on standing with approvers, not on personal enthusiasm.
- Test a champion with a small request before relying on them in a forecast.
- A completed scorecard gives the champion a shareable object containing their own answers.
- Champions often go quiet after losing an internal argument they never mention.
In depth
A champion is defined by what they risk, not by how friendly they are. They attach their own name to a recommendation, spend political capital arguing for it, and absorb the consequences if the rollout goes badly. That is why a champion behaves differently from an enthusiastic contact: they ask about implementation effort, they want to know what could go wrong, and they push back on claims they will have to repeat internally to colleagues who intend to test them.
Champions are made by a problem they own personally, and their strength depends on the credibility they hold with the people who approve. A well-liked person with a track record can carry a purchase through, while a newcomer with identical enthusiasm cannot. Motivation weakens when the problem stops being urgent, when a reorganisation hands it to someone else, or when they are asked to spend capital on something that mainly benefits a neighbouring team. Strength is therefore situational, and it can fall away without any signal reaching you.
The work is to identify, test and equip. You identify by asking what the person is trying to achieve and what happens if nothing changes. You test by requesting something small: an introduction, a data point, a meeting with a colleague. You equip by producing material in their voice rather than yours. A scorecard funnel supports this directly, because a completed assessment with a shareable result gives the champion an object that contains their own answers.
A champion cannot substitute for fit or budget. Enthusiasm from someone whose company cannot afford the product, or whose problem your tool only partly solves, produces a long, friendly and unclosable deal. Champions also fail silently: they stop replying not because interest faded but because they lost an internal argument they never mentioned to you. In organisations that buy by committee vote, no individual holds the standing the whole concept assumes. Testing for real risk-taking is what separates a champion from a pleasant working relationship.
Example in practice
How to measure it
The observable signals are actions rather than sentiment. Count introductions made, internal meetings scheduled, documents forwarded and questions relayed from colleagues you have never spoken to. Each of those costs the champion something, so they measure commitment in a way that reply speed never does. A champion who has done none of them for several weeks is a contact, and the deal deserves to be forecast that way.
Over a longer horizon, compare closed deals against the number of champion actions recorded, and check where deals with none of them ended up. Watch the champion's own behaviour on your assets too, since repeated visits to a result page or a pricing page usually precede an internal conversation. A sudden stop in that activity is worth a direct question rather than another nurture email.
Common mistakes
The most common error is confusing responsiveness with advocacy. A contact who replies quickly, enjoys the demos and asks good questions may simply be curious, or gathering information for a decision already taken elsewhere. Ask for an action rather than an opinion: an introduction to a colleague, a date for an internal discussion, a number you need. Willingness to spend their own effort is the only reliable test.
The second is loading the champion with material written for you rather than for them. A twenty-slide deck full of your positioning is not something anyone forwards to their director. Give them one page in their language, framed around the problem they described, using the numbers they supplied. Ask what objection they expect and prepare the answer together, so they are not caught out in a room you cannot attend.
Frequently asked questions
How can a quiz funnel help me find a champion?
Engagement signals like repeat quiz completions, downloaded results, and shared reports reveal who is genuinely invested. Combine these with seniority and urgency answers to score champion potential. Then hand sales a prioritized list with context.
What should I give a champion to help them sell internally?
Equip them with a personalized result page, a concise business case, ROI numbers, and answers to objections they'll face. Make everything easy to forward to decision-makers. The goal is to let them advocate without you in the room.
How do I know whether someone is a real champion?
Ask them to do something small that costs a little internal capital, such as introducing a colleague or putting a date in the calendar for an internal review. A real champion either accepts or explains precisely why the timing is wrong. A friendly contact agrees in principle and nothing happens, which is the same information delivered more slowly.
What is the difference between a champion and a coach?
A coach gives you information about the organisation, the process and the competition, while a champion argues for you inside it. A coach may be unable or unwilling to advocate, often for good reasons, and pushing them into that role can cost you the information they were providing. Many deals need both, and they are rarely the same person.
How do we develop a champion instead of hoping to find one?
Give someone a win they can claim. Help them produce a finding, a benchmark or an internal document that makes them look informed in front of their peers, and their interest becomes tied to yours. This is why an assessment with a shareable result works well: the champion presents the analysis and your product is the recommendation attached to it.
What do we do when our champion leaves the company?
Treat it as a reset rather than a delay, and re-qualify from the beginning. Contact whoever inherited the responsibility, reference the work already done in neutral terms, and expect the criteria to change with the new owner. Deals that survive a champion's departure are usually the ones where a second relationship already existed.
Can a champion be too junior to matter?
Yes, and the test is whether their recommendation carries weight with the person who approves. A junior person with unusual expertise on the specific problem may be listened to closely, while one without that standing gets politely overruled. When seniority is the limitation, help them recruit a more senior sponsor rather than replacing them.
How often should we contact our champion?
Often enough to be useful, and never on a fixed schedule with nothing to say. Each contact should carry something they can use internally: an answer to a question they were asked, a document for a specific colleague, a date. Routine check-in emails train a champion to deprioritise you, especially during the quiet stretches when a deal is being discussed internally.