Champion

What is a Champion?

A Champion is an internal advocate within a prospect or customer organization who actively promotes your solution, navigates internal politics on your behalf, and works to secure stakeholder buy-in and purchase approval. Champions believe your product or service will deliver value to their organization and personal success, motivating them to invest time and political capital advancing your deal through their company's decision-making process.

In complex B2B sales environments where purchasing decisions involve multiple stakeholders, lengthy evaluation cycles, and competing priorities, champions serve as your inside guides and advocates. They provide intelligence about organizational dynamics, identify key decision-makers you need to engage, surface potential objections before they become deal-killers, and influence internal discussions that happen without vendor presence. Research from Corporate Visions indicates that deals with engaged champions close at rates 3-5x higher than those relying solely on external seller efforts.

The champion relationship represents one of the most valuable assets in enterprise sales. Unlike passive contacts who merely provide information or economic buyers who evaluate options clinically, champions actively sell on your behalf within their organizations. They schedule meetings with other stakeholders, address concerns from colleagues, build internal business cases, and navigate approval processes with urgency driven by their personal stake in your solution's success. Identifying, developing, and supporting champions has become a core competency for high-performing B2B sales organizations.

Key Takeaways

• Internal advocate role: Champions proactively promote your solution within their organization, influencing stakeholders and navigating internal politics on your behalf

• Win rate multiplier: Deals with engaged champions close 3-5x more frequently than those without internal advocacy, making champion development a critical sales skill

• Mutual benefit motivation: Effective champions believe your solution will deliver both organizational value and personal career success, creating aligned incentives

• Intelligence and access: Champions provide insider knowledge about decision processes, stakeholder concerns, competitive positioning, and budget dynamics that external sellers cannot access

• Cultivation required: Champion relationships require deliberate development through enablement, support, and demonstrating commitment to their success beyond the initial sale

How It Works

Champion relationships develop and operate through a systematic identification, enablement, and support process:

Step 1: Champion Identification
Sales teams identify potential champions during early discovery conversations by assessing three factors: power (do they have organizational influence and access to decision-makers?), pain (do they personally feel the problem your solution addresses?), and vision (can they articulate how your solution improves their situation?). Ideal champions hold influential roles (director or VP level), directly benefit from your solution, and demonstrate proactive engagement—asking detailed questions, expressing urgency, and offering to facilitate internal meetings.

Step 2: Champion Qualification
Not all supportive contacts make effective champions. Sales teams qualify champions using the "mobilizer" framework from CEB research: effective champions challenge the status quo, are comfortable with risk, pursue innovative solutions, and have credibility across departments. Warning signs of weak champions include: inability to access economic buyers, reluctance to share internal information, avoidance of political navigation, or lack of urgency despite expressed interest.

Step 3: Value Alignment and Motivation
Strong champion relationships form when personal and organizational incentives align. Sales professionals invest time understanding what the potential champion cares about professionally—career advancement, departmental success, solving frustrating problems, gaining executive visibility. They explicitly connect their solution to these personal motivators while also building the business case for organizational value. This dual alignment creates champions motivated by both company benefit and personal success.

Step 4: Champion Enablement
Once identified, champions require enablement to advocate effectively. Sales teams provide champions with internal selling tools: ROI calculators, executive presentation decks, competitive comparison documents, customer references, and objection-handling talking points. They coach champions on navigating stakeholder concerns, practice presentations for internal meetings, and provide ammunition for justifying the investment. This enablement transforms general support into effective internal advocacy.

Step 5: Strategic Collaboration
Effective champion relationships involve ongoing strategic collaboration. Champions brief sellers on internal dynamics: who influences whom, what concerns each stakeholder prioritizes, when budget discussions occur, which executives must approve. Sellers provide champions with tailored resources for each stakeholder, arrange peer reference calls, and offer specialized demos addressing specific concerns. This back-and-forth coordination optimizes the path to approval.

Step 6: Protection and Support
Champions take personal risks advocating for vendors—if implementations fail or promises aren't kept, their credibility suffers. Smart sellers protect champion relationships by under-promising and over-delivering, maintaining frequent communication, escalating their concerns quickly, and ensuring implementations succeed. They involve champions in success planning, celebrate wins publicly to boost the champion's internal standing, and maintain relationships post-sale to support renewal and expansion opportunities.

Step 7: Expansion Through Champions
In existing customer accounts, champions become pathways to expansion. They introduce sellers to adjacent departments, advocate for additional use cases, and facilitate conversations with executives about strategic partnerships. The best customer champions become references for new prospects, speak at vendor events, and participate in advisory councils—activities that further boost their profiles while generating demand.

Key Features

• Proactive internal advocacy: Champions voluntarily promote solutions within their organizations without constant seller involvement

• Political navigation: They understand internal dynamics and guide sellers through organizational complexity and decision-making processes

• Stakeholder access: Champions facilitate introductions to economic buyers, technical evaluators, and executive approvers that external sellers cannot easily reach

• Competitive intelligence: They provide insights about competing vendors, internal alternatives, and stakeholder preferences that shape competitive strategy

• Deal momentum maintenance: Champions create internal urgency, follow up on action items, and push deals forward when seller access is limited

Use Cases

Use Case 1: Enterprise Software Sales Deal Progression

A B2B SaaS account executive pursues a $400K enterprise opportunity at a Fortune 500 company. Early in discovery, they identify Sarah, a Director of Marketing Operations, as a potential champion. Sarah expresses frustration with current systems, demonstrates deep knowledge of her team's challenges, and proactively offers to introduce the AE to her VP. The AE invests in the champion relationship: conducting a detailed workflow analysis to show Sarah how the solution would specifically improve her team's efficiency, providing an executive presentation deck tailored for her VP, arranging a reference call with a customer in a similar role, and coaching her on addressing likely objections from IT about integration complexity. Armed with these resources and ongoing support, Sarah champions the solution internally. She schedules meetings with IT, Finance, and her VP, addresses concerns using the seller's talking points, builds a business case using the ROI calculator provided, and maintains deal momentum during the seller's limited access periods. When the deal reaches final approval, Sarah's internal advocacy proves decisive—she personally convinced the CFO of the ROI case and addressed the CIO's security concerns. The deal closes in 4 months rather than the typical 9-month enterprise cycle, directly attributable to Sarah's championship.

Use Case 2: Competitive Displacement Through Champion Development

A sales team encounters a competitive displacement opportunity where a prospect currently uses a competitor's solution but expresses dissatisfaction. They identify Marcus, VP of Sales Operations, as a potential champion who is frustrated with the incumbent vendor's poor support and limited flexibility. Rather than aggressive competitive selling, the team invests in champion development. They provide Marcus with detailed competitive comparison documents highlighting their advantages, arrange reference calls with customers who switched from the same competitor, create a migration plan showing minimal disruption, and give Marcus executive briefing materials for his C-suite. Marcus becomes a vocal internal advocate for switching vendors. He builds a compelling case documenting the incumbent's failures, presents the alternative solution with confidence, and navigates concerns from colleagues worried about switching costs. When the competitor attempts to save the account with discounts and promises, Marcus's championship neutralizes their efforts—he has credibility from personally experiencing the incumbent's limitations and has already sold leadership on the alternative. The displacement succeeds because an empowered internal champion led the charge.

Use Case 3: Customer Expansion Through Champion Leverage

A customer success manager supports an existing customer using their platform in the marketing department. Over time, CSM builds a strong relationship with Jennifer, the Director of Demand Generation who has achieved significant success with the product. When exploring expansion opportunities, the CSM leverages Jennifer as a champion for cross-departmental adoption. Jennifer agrees to present results to the VP of Sales, demonstrating how marketing's improved lead quality benefited sales outcomes. Impressed by Jennifer's success story and advocacy, the VP of Sales initiates evaluation for sales team adoption. Jennifer continues championing, addressing the sales team's specific concerns, sharing lessons learned from marketing's implementation, and personally vouching for the vendor's partnership quality. Her internal advocacy accelerates the expansion deal from concept to close in 6 weeks versus the typical 3-6 month new logo sales cycle. The vendor successfully expands from a $50K marketing department contract to a $200K company-wide deployment, powered entirely by Jennifer's championship.

Implementation Example

Here's how sales organizations systematically identify, develop, and leverage champions:

Champion Identification Framework

Champion Assessment Scorecard
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Evaluation Criteria:

POWER (Organizational Influence)
├─ Access to Economic Buyers: ● High / ○ Medium / ○ Low
├─ Cross-functional Credibility: ● High / ○ Medium / ○ Low
├─ Organizational Tenure: ● 3+ years / ○ 1-3 years / ○ <1 year
└─ Title Level: ● Director+ / ○ Manager / ○ IC

PAIN (Personal Problem Intensity)
├─ Directly Impacts Role: ● Yes / ○ Indirect / ○ No
├─ Expressed Urgency: ● High / ○ Medium / ○ Low
├─ Current Solution Frustration: ● High / ○ Medium / ○ Low
└─ Career Impact of Solution: ● Significant / ○ Moderate / ○ Minimal

VISION (Solution Understanding)
├─ Articulates Solution Value: ● Clearly / ○ Somewhat / ○ Struggles
├─ Proactive Engagement: ● High / ○ Moderate / ○ Passive
├─ Asks Strategic Questions: ● Frequently / ○ Sometimes / ○ Rarely
└─ Change Agent Mindset: ● Strong / ○ Moderate / ○ Status Quo

CHAMPION SCORE: High (9-12 ●) / Medium (5-8 ●) / Low (0-4 ●)

Champion Qualification Questions

Champion Enablement Toolkit

Materials to Provide Champions:

Champion Relationship Management

Champion Engagement Cadence:

Champion Relationship Warning Signs

Related Terms

• Economic Buyer: The stakeholder with budget authority who makes final purchase decisions, often requiring champion advocacy

• Buying Committee: The group of stakeholders champions must influence to secure purchase approval

• Multi-Threading: The strategy of building relationships beyond a single champion to reduce deal risk

• Buying Group: The collection of stakeholders champions help sellers navigate and influence

• Account Mapping: The process of documenting relationships and influence including champion positioning

• Influencer: Stakeholders who shape opinions but may lack the proactive advocacy defining true champions

• Buying Committee Coverage: Measuring stakeholder engagement champions help sellers achieve

• Sales Qualified Lead (SQL): Qualified prospects where champion identification becomes critical to deal progression

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a Champion in B2B sales?

Quick Answer: A Champion is an internal advocate within a prospect organization who actively promotes your solution, navigates politics on your behalf, and works to secure stakeholder buy-in for purchase.

A Champion differs from a typical supportive contact by taking proactive action to advance your deal. While friendly contacts might provide information or attend meetings, champions actively sell your solution internally—scheduling stakeholder meetings, addressing objections, building business cases, and influencing decisions that happen without vendor presence. Champions are personally invested in your solution's success because they believe it will deliver both organizational value and advance their careers. This aligned motivation drives them to invest significant time and political capital championing your solution through complex decision processes.

How do you identify a sales champion?

Quick Answer: Identify champions by assessing three factors: Power (organizational influence and stakeholder access), Pain (personal problem intensity), and Vision (understanding of how your solution helps).

Effective champions exhibit specific behaviors: they proactively offer to introduce you to other stakeholders, ask strategic questions about implementation and outcomes rather than just features, express urgency about solving the problem, share insider information about organizational dynamics and decision processes, and demonstrate willingness to present your solution to leadership. Use qualifying questions like "Who else should we involve?" and "Would you be comfortable presenting this internally?" to test champion potential. Strong champions provide specific stakeholder names, anticipate concerns, articulate personal stakes in solving the problem, and express confidence in advocating for your solution.

What is the difference between a champion and an economic buyer?

Quick Answer: A Champion is an internal advocate who promotes your solution, while an Economic Buyer is the executive with budget authority who makes the final purchase decision.

Champions and economic buyers play different roles in purchase decisions. Champions influence the process—they build internal support, navigate politics, address concerns, and advocate for your solution across stakeholders. Economic buyers control the outcome—they have budget authority and final approval power. Often champions work for economic buyers or influence them through credibility and recommendations. Ideal scenarios involve both: a champion who navigates internal complexity and builds consensus, plus an engaged economic buyer who provides final approval. Many deals fail when sellers have champions without economic buyer access, or economic buyers without champions to drive internal momentum.

How do you develop a champion relationship?

Develop champion relationships through deliberate enablement and mutual value creation. Start by understanding what the potential champion cares about professionally—career advancement, solving frustrating problems, gaining executive visibility, departmental success. Connect your solution explicitly to these personal motivators while also building organizational business cases. Provide enablement resources that make champions effective internal advocates: ROI calculators, executive presentations, competitive comparisons, customer references, and objection-handling talking points. Coach them on navigating stakeholder concerns and practice internal presentations. Demonstrate commitment to their success by responding quickly to concerns, protecting their credibility through reliable delivery, and maintaining relationships beyond the initial sale. Most importantly, make them heroes by ensuring implementations succeed, celebrating wins publicly, and supporting their career advancement through references, speaking opportunities, and advisory council participation.

What if your champion leaves the company during a deal?

Champion departure mid-deal represents a significant risk requiring immediate action. First, assess the impact: did your champion brief their successor? Do you have relationships with other stakeholders? Is there an alternative champion candidate? Take rapid action: request introduction to the champion's replacement before their departure, leverage your departing champion to brief the new person on the project's value and status, quickly establish relationships with the successor and other buying committee members, and document all deal progress and internal agreements. Consider this a wake-up call about over-reliance on single-threading—effective enterprise sales requires relationships with multiple stakeholders across the buying committee to survive individual departures. Use the transition as an opportunity to multi-thread properly, establishing relationships with economic buyers, technical evaluators, and other influencers to reduce single-point-of-failure risk.

Conclusion

Champions represent the single most valuable asset in complex B2B sales, often determining the difference between won and lost deals in enterprise environments where purchasing decisions involve multiple stakeholders, lengthy evaluation cycles, and intricate internal politics. While sellers can influence what happens in direct interactions—meetings, demos, presentations—champions determine outcomes in the far larger space where vendors have no access: internal discussions, stakeholder debates, political negotiations, and decision-making processes that happen behind closed doors. Research consistently shows that deals with engaged champions close at 3-5x higher rates than those relying solely on external seller efforts.

For sales professionals and organizations, champion development has evolved from opportunistic relationship-building to systematic competency requiring deliberate identification, enablement, and support processes. High-performing sales teams now implement champion scorecards assessing power, pain, and vision; develop enablement toolkits providing champions with resources for internal advocacy; establish coaching practices helping champions navigate stakeholder concerns; and maintain champion relationships throughout customer lifecycles to support retention and expansion. Organizations that master champion development accelerate sales cycles, improve win rates, and build sustainable competitive advantages through internal advocacy networks that competitors cannot easily replicate.

As B2B buying complexity continues to increase with expanding Buying Committees and more demanding Buying Committee Coverage requirements, champion relationships become even more critical. Modern revenue intelligence platforms now help identify potential champions by analyzing engagement patterns and stakeholder influence. Sales methodologies like MEDDIC explicitly include champion qualification as essential pipeline criteria. For B2B sales professionals, the ability to identify high-potential champions early, enable them effectively, protect their credibility, and leverage their advocacy throughout deal cycles has evolved from advanced technique to fundamental requirement for consistent quota attainment and career success.

Last Updated: January 18, 2026