How many times have you thought you had a true champion to help drive your deal to fruition? Sometimes (or many times), this doesn’t happen. One way to get to the bottom of this is to test your champion.
You have a 10% chance of closing a deal when you do not have a Champion. A Champion will answer two crucial questions, “Why do anything?” and “Why buy now?” and will sell for you when you’re not there.
It’s important to understand what a champion is:
- Technical and/or Political Power of influence
- Actively Selling on your behalf
- Access to Economic Buyer
- Vested interest in YOUR success
- A Coach isn’t a Champion
- Without a champion, deal will probably not get done
- without a champion, we are unable to “fix” anything
By testing your champion, you will determine if that person is a true champion.
Here are 5 ways to test your champion:
- Can you text that person or get them on a call at a moment’s notice? If you answered yes, then they are a true champion. If not and if you find yourself making excuses about how busy they are, then they may not be. We’re all busy and time can always be made to accommodate the right person.
- Ask them for light insight on something associated with your deal and see how they react.
- Are they willing to sponsor you for introductions to key stakeholders? Do these meetings actually take place?
- Does your champion respond to your emails in a timely manner? If they don’t respond for a week or so, maybe you aren’t that important to them.
- Can you bounce strategies and positioning off them? This is very important to help anticipate how to best navigate through a complex deal/organization.
Look in the mirror and accept the real truth. “Does this suit make me look fat?” “No, Tommy, your face does.” -Tommy Boy
Don’t panic, maybe you need to further develop the relationship or you need to accept it for what it is and move on. You can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.
This is why you don’t want to be single threaded.
Anthony Lobosco
