Champion or Coach? How to Test Your Inside Person
Plenty of reps think they have a champion when what they really have is a coach. A coach likes you, likes your product, and tells you what's going on inside the account. A champion has access to power and will push for your deal when you're not in the room, even after someone says no.
Both are useful, and you need the champion to get the deal signed.
Find the personal win
The way you find a champion is by asking how the problem feels. "How is that for you day to day?" The answer you're hoping for sounds like "it sucks, I'm working longer hours, I don't get overtime, I've got people breathing down my neck, and I'm not sleeping well."
Then ask the question that turns them into a champion: "If I can show you a solution that takes care of that, will you be my person inside the company and talk to management, even when I'm not there?"
You're getting them to say out loud things they already know and have never said. And when the economic buyer joins, hopefully your champion has already told you what the win is for that person too. Sell to the personal pain for both of them, along with the dollars and cents. When they go talk to management, they'll have a whole new way of talking about the problem, and they'll be arguing for you.
Ask how it gets paid for
"What's your budget?" is a weak question early on. I'd rather know the mechanism. How does something like this get funded at your company? Who signs off? When I was selling into big banks, I told my reps it's best if your champion has gotten paper through the machine before. If they haven't, they at least need to know who to talk to.
Test them with parallel lanes
One test I use when a champion says they're confident about getting funding approved. "Great. When you get it, we need to make sure the contract isn't the next thing that blocks us. Let's run both at the same time, funding on your side and contract review in parallel."
A real champion says yes and introduces you to legal or procurement. A coach hesitates, because they don't have the access. Either answer tells you something you need to know.
The same goes for legal delays. You'll never get an update on legal yourself. Only your champion can push for it. If you've got an onsite or a kickoff coming up, tie it to a strong preference for having the redlines back first, and ask your champion to escalate.
One contact is a risk
If your deal or your renewal depends on a single person, you're single-threaded. They go quiet, change jobs, or get busy, and your deal goes with them. I worry most about renewals where the main contact is unresponsive and nobody's used the product in months. That isn't a renewal yet. Find out who else is there and what they're trying to get done.
Happy selling!