Do you really have a champion?

Before we define what a champion is, it is worth being clear about what they are not. Because most of the confusion in enterprise sales comes from conflating a champion with something weaker.

A coach. A coach gives you information — they tell you who the decision makers are, what the internal politics look like, what the budget situation is. Coaches are valuable. But a coach will not fight for you. When the conversation in the boardroom gets difficult, a coach stays quiet.

A fan. Plenty of prospects genuinely love your product. They find your demos compelling, they ask great questions, they send enthusiastic follow-up emails. But enthusiasm without power is just noise. A fan who cannot influence the decision is not a champion — they are a feel-good distraction.

A friendly contact. Someone who always takes your call, who is easy to reach, who never pushes back — that person might just be managing you. A champion is not necessarily easy. They are just genuinely on your side.

If you are honest with yourself, how many of the people you have labelled as champions in your current pipeline are actually coaches, fans, or friendly contacts?

John McMahon, in The Qualified Sales Leader, defines the champion with a clarity I have not found anywhere else. A true champion has three characteristics — and all three must be present.

1. They have access to power. Not just a relationship with someone senior — actual influence over the decision. They can get you in a room with the economic buyer. They can shape how the initiative is framed at the top. Without access to power, your champion cannot move the deal forward no matter how much they want to.

2. They have a personal stake in the outcome. This is the one most people miss. A champion does not just want your product to succeed — they need it to succeed. Their reputation, their initiative, their performance review, their credibility is tied to this project. That personal stake is what turns a supporter into an advocate. Without it, when things get difficult, they have no reason to fight.

3. They sell on your behalf internally, when you are not in the room. This is the defining test. Everything else is context. The champion is the person who, in the meeting you are not invited to, makes the case for your solution. They translate your value into the language of their organisation. They handle objections before you even know they exist. If your contact goes quiet when you are not present, you do not have a champion.

Identifying a potential champion is step one. Testing them is step two — and it is the step most salespeople skip.

Here are three tests that actually work:

1. Ask them to get you a meeting with the economic buyer. This is the cleanest test. If they can do it — and do it without a lot of friction — they have access to power and they are willing to use it on your behalf. If they hesitate, make excuses, or suggest you do not need to meet the economic buyer yet, take note.

2. Give them something to present internally and see if they do it. Ask them to share your business case or a summary of your value proposition with a colleague or senior stakeholder. Watch what happens. A champion does this willingly. A coach finds reasons not to.

3. Ask them directly what they will say when someone pushes back internally. Not hypothetically — specifically. "When the CFO asks why this is the right time to invest in this, what will you say?" Their answer tells you two things: whether they understand your value well enough to defend it, and whether they are prepared to defend it at all.

If you have just run your current pipeline through these questions and realised your champions are actually coaches — do not panic, but do not ignore it either.

1. Identify who has the most to gain. Find the person in the prospect organisation who has the most to gain from solving the problem you are addressing. That person exists in almost every deal. The question is whether you have found them and whether you have invested enough in that relationship.

2. Earn their trust before asking for their advocacy. You cannot manufacture a champion by asking someone to champion you. You build one by helping them understand the problem better than they did before they met you, by making them look good internally, by giving them tools and language and arguments they can use. Advocacy is a byproduct of genuine value.

3. Be honest about whether the deal can progress without one. In enterprise sales, it usually cannot. A deal without a champion is a deal waiting to stall. The earlier you acknowledge that, the less time you waste.

Go back to those three questions.

Do you have a champion? Do you really have a champion? Are you sure you have a champion?

Run every deal in your pipeline through them right now. Not as a checkbox — as a genuine interrogation of what you actually know versus what you are assuming.

Most deals do not die at the negotiation stage. They die much earlier, when someone who was never really a champion stopped being able to protect the deal from the inside.

If you are not sure whether you have a real champion, our free champion assessment will walk you through the full qualification in five questions.

Has mistaking a coach for a champion ever cost you a deal? Hit reply and tell me — I read every email.