Champion building is the process of identifying, developing, and sustaining the internal advocate who will sell your solution inside the prospect organisation when you are not in the room. In enterprise B2B sales, the buying decision is rarely made in your meetings -- it is made in internal budget conversations, stakeholder alignment sessions, and procurement reviews that you have no visibility into. The quality of the person representing your interests in those conversations determines whether you win or lose. Most B2B deals that die at the proposal stage or "go quiet" do not die because the decision was made against you -- they die because nobody inside the organisation was advocating for you.
What makes a strong champion
A strong champion has three attributes: internal credibility (the organisation trusts their judgment; their recommendations carry weight with the economic buyer and their peers), personal pain (they personally feel the problem your product solves -- this is what drives the internal advocacy that goes beyond professional due diligence), and willingness to act (they are willing to make introductions, arrange executive meetings, push back on procurement timelines, and actively shepherd the deal through the internal process). Missing any one of these makes the champion insufficient: a credible person without personal pain will not advocate hard enough; a motivated person without credibility will be ignored; an enthusiastic person without willingness to act exists only in your CRM, not in the deal.
How to identify a potential champion
Champion candidates are identified by: (1) Who initiated contact? The person who took the first meeting often has the highest initial pain and motivation; (2) Who asks the most specific questions? Deep, specific questions about your product signal genuine evaluation rather than casual interest; (3) Who shares internal context? A contact who proactively tells you about budget timing, internal stakeholders, and decision processes is already advocating for you; (4) Who responds quickly? Fast response times signal personal investment; (5) Who wants more time? Requesting additional meetings, including colleagues, or asking for deep product access signals that this person is building an internal case.
Developing champion conviction
A champion cannot advocate effectively for something they do not deeply believe in. Champion development requires: building their personal understanding of the ROI (show them the specific, quantified value your product delivers for their specific situation, not a generic ROI model); connecting the solution to their personal career goals (champions who see your product as a way to hit their own KPIs and advance their career will advocate far harder than those who see it as a company decision); giving them ammunition to sell internally (executive summaries they can share, ROI calculators they can populate, reference customers they can speak to, case studies from companies their colleagues respect); and helping them manage objections before they encounter them (brief them on the likely objections from the CFO, IT, or procurement, and give them the answers before those conversations happen).
Protecting your champion
Champions can be neutralised by: organisational changes (champion leaves or is sidelined); political risk (they advocate too visibly and create internal resistance); budget changes (the budget they were planning to use is reallocated); or competitive dynamics (a competitor builds a stronger relationship with someone above them). Protect your champion by: not asking them to go out on a limb alone -- get executive-level support for the deal early so they are not the only voice; diversifying your relationships so a single champion departure does not kill the deal (multi-threading); and monitoring organisational signals (job postings, LinkedIn activity, internal announcements) that might signal a change in the champion's role or influence.
Frequently asked questions
- What is a champion in B2B sales?
- A champion in B2B sales is a contact inside the prospect organisation who personally believes in your solution and actively advocates for it in internal conversations you are not part of: budget discussions, vendor selection meetings, stakeholder alignment sessions, and procurement reviews. A strong champion has three attributes: internal credibility (their colleagues and the economic buyer trust their judgment), personal pain (they personally feel the problem your product solves, which drives genuine advocacy), and willingness to act (they are willing to make introductions, arrange executive meetings, and push the deal forward internally). The champion is the single most important factor in enterprise deal outcomes: a strong champion can win deals with unfavourable economics; the absence of a champion causes deals to stall indefinitely.
- How do you build a champion in a B2B sale?
- To build a champion in B2B sales: (1) Identify the right person -- look for someone with internal credibility, personal pain, and willingness to act, not just the first person who takes your meeting; (2) Build their personal conviction -- quantify the ROI for their specific situation, connect the solution to their personal KPIs and career goals, not just company-level benefits; (3) Give them ammunition -- executive summaries, ROI models, reference customers, and answers to likely objections so they can sell internally without you present; (4) Brief them on objections before they encounter them -- a champion who walks into a CFO budget conversation unprepared for the "what does this cost?" question will be less effective than one you've prepared in advance; (5) Multi-thread to protect them -- build relationships with other stakeholders so a single champion departure does not end the deal.
- What is the difference between a champion and an economic buyer in B2B sales?
- In B2B sales (particularly in MEDDIC framework), the champion and the economic buyer are distinct roles. The champion is the person who advocates for your solution internally: they believe in it, they shepherd the deal through the organisation, and they do the internal selling that you cannot do yourself. The economic buyer is the person who controls the budget and makes the final financial decision: they may sign the contract, approve the purchase order, or give the final go-ahead. The champion and the economic buyer are sometimes the same person in smaller organisations, but in mid-market and enterprise deals they are often different. A common failure mode: building a strong relationship with the champion but never engaging the economic buyer directly -- this means your entire deal rests on the champion's ability to convince someone you have never met to approve a budget allocation for a product they have only heard about secondhand.
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