Champion
A champion (in B2B sales) is an internal advocate at a prospect organization who actively promotes the seller's solution within their company — coordinating stakeholders, providing internal intelligence, navigating procurement, and ultimately driving the deal to close from inside the buying organization.
Why This Matters
Champions are the difference between deals that close and deals that stall in enterprise B2B. A champion has personal motivation to see the deal succeed (career advancement, problem resolution, organizational influence) and the organizational position to advocate effectively. Champion identification and development is a core MEDDIC discipline. Strong champions volunteer information without asking, make introductions to other stakeholders, advocate during internal review, and surface blockers before they kill deals. Without a champion, even strong product-fit deals frequently die in committee evaluation or procurement processes.
Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I identify a potential champion?
Champions self-identify by behavior: they ask detailed questions, request additional information unprompted, make introductions, share internal context, and express personal investment in the outcome. Test for champion: ask 'Can you walk me through how this would get reviewed by your leadership?' True champions provide detailed, context-rich answers; non-champions deflect or provide vague responses.
What if I can't develop a champion in an account?
Without a champion in mid-to-large enterprise deals, close probability drops dramatically. Either invest more in stakeholder development to find/build a champion, qualify out the deal as low-probability, or accept it as longer-cycle nurture rather than active pipeline. Pursuing champion-less enterprise deals as active pipeline wastes sales effort.