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Andy Whyte
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Framework

The Champion Test

A short set of asks that proves whether your Champion is real before you forecast on them.

Use it when: Use it whenever a deal rests on one person inside the customer, and again before that deal enters commit.

The steps

  1. Check the three criteria: power and influence, a vested interest in your success, and evidence they are actively selling for you.
  2. Make an ask that costs them something, such as a meeting with the Economic Buyer or the internal scoring sheet.
  3. Watch the action, not the answer, and give it a date.
  4. When they deliver, write down what they did, and when they stall, treat them as a Coach and go and build a real Champion.
  5. Re-run the test before commit and after any change in the customer's organisation.

The Champion Test is a model for one of the most expensive mistakes in enterprise sales: forecasting a deal on a person who was never going to sell it for you. A Champion has power and influence, a vested interest in your success, and actively sells on your behalf when you are not there. A Coach likes you, helps you and gives you information. Both are valuable. Only one closes deals. The test exists because, from the outside, they look identical. Both take your calls. Both say encouraging things. The difference only shows up under load.

Why it matters is simple arithmetic. A deal with a real Champion is one you can forecast, because someone inside the building is working it between your meetings. A deal with a Coach is one you are working alone, in a building you cannot enter. Most of the “surprise” losses I have inspected over twenty years were not surprises. The seller had a Coach, called them a Champion, and the deal died in a meeting the Coach could not get into.

How to run it

First, the three criteria, answered with evidence rather than feeling. Power and influence: when this person speaks in a meeting, do decisions change? Vested interest: what do they personally get if we win, and what do they lose if we do not? Actively selling: what have they done for us, without being asked, in the last two weeks?

Second, the ask. Request something with a cost attached. Thirty minutes with the Economic Buyer. The evaluation team’s scoring sheet. A straight account of what the Economic Buyer said about you after the last meeting. A slot on the steering committee agenda. Make it specific and give it a date.

Third, watch the behaviour. A Champion finds a way, or tells you plainly why not and what they will do instead. A Coach goes quiet, or explains the politics at length and does nothing. The action is the answer.

Fourth, write it down. “Champion: got us the EB meeting on the 14th” is evidence. “Champion: very supportive” is not.

Where it breaks

It breaks when the ask is too easy, because anyone will forward a document. It breaks when the seller asks “are you our Champion?” and accepts the yes, since nobody has ever said no to that. It breaks when it is run once and never again. People change roles, lose internal battles, and get handed bigger projects. The Champion who passed in month one can be a Coach by month four, and the only way to know is to ask them for something again.

Keep the bar high. A true Champion does not just prefer your product. A true Champion sells it internally when you are not in the room, and the proof is always something they did.