Champion
Definition
An internal advocate at the prospect organisation — typically a hands-on user or director-level stakeholder — who actively wants the vendor's solution and pushes the deal forward inside the buyer's company. Without a champion, a B2B deal stalls in procurement; with two champions, slippage drops dramatically. Identifying and developing a champion is a core MEDDIC element.
The definition that is actually useful
A champion is not someone who likes the product. It is someone who has spent internal capital arguing for it and who will look wrong if it fails. Liking is free; exposure is not, and only exposure predicts behaviour when the deal gets difficult.
Three tests
- Will they put their name on something? A mutual action plan with their tasks, their names and their dates. A champion agrees; an enthusiast admires the document.
- Do they tell you bad news? Someone protecting a project warns you about the competitor briefing you were not invited to. Someone who is merely friendly does not.
- Can they describe what they are risking? If the honest answer is nothing, they are a supporter, and you still need a champion.
The technical champion is a distinct person
In technology deals the person who has to defend the architecture internally is frequently not the person who has budget. Both matter, they carry different risks, and treating them as one person is how deals stall in a review nobody warned you about.
What a champion needs from you
Material they can use without you in the room. That is the whole job: the internal case gets made in meetings you will never attend, by someone whose credibility is now attached to yours. A champion who cannot explain the technical differentiation in their own words has not been equipped, however enthusiastic they are.
Related terms
Further reading
See how this works on a real deal
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