Most B2B deals do not close because a decision-maker said yes. They close because someone inside the company believed in the solution, built the case for it internally, and brought the right people along. That person is the champion.
Finding the champion at a target account is one of the most important things we do before any outreach begins. The right first contact changes everything about how a deal develops.
What a champion actually is
A champion is not necessarily the person who signs the contract. They are the person who feels the problem most directly, understands the value of solving it, and has enough influence to move things forward internally.
They are typically one or two levels below the final decision-maker. Close enough to the problem to care about it deeply. Senior enough to have credibility when they recommend a solution. And motivated enough by the outcome to put their name behind it.
When you reach the right champion with the right message at the right time, you are not just booking a meeting. You are starting a relationship with someone who can open doors inside an account that you could never open from the outside.
How we identify the champion
The champion looks different at every company depending on the size, structure, and nature of the problem your offer solves. There is no universal job title. But there are consistent patterns we look for.
Proximity to the problem is the first filter. We look for the person whose day-to-day work is most directly affected by the problem you solve. If you help companies build outbound pipeline, that person is usually a Head of Sales, a VP of Revenue, or a founder who is still carrying a quota.
Seniority relative to the buyer is the second filter. The champion needs to be senior enough to have a credible internal voice but not so senior that they are the economic buyer themselves. Too junior and they cannot influence anything. Too senior and they are the person who needs to be convinced, not the person doing the convincing.
Tenure and motivation matter more than most people realise. Someone who has been in their role for six to eighteen months is often in the ideal window. They have been around long enough to understand the problem clearly but have not been there so long that they have accepted it as permanent. They are still motivated to fix things.
Visible engagement with the problem can appear through LinkedIn activity, content they have shared, talks they have given, or roles they have held previously. Someone who consistently engages with content about the specific challenge you solve is telling you something important about where their attention is.
How we reach the champion first
Our standard approach is to start with the champion before approaching the economic buyer or any other stakeholder. There are two reasons for this.
The first is that the champion is usually more reachable. They are not as inundated with vendor outreach as a C-level executive and they are often more willing to have an exploratory conversation when the message is relevant to their daily reality.
The second is that a warm introduction from a champion to an economic buyer is worth far more than a cold approach. When the person who will ultimately make the budget decision hears about your offer from someone they trust internally, the dynamic of the conversation changes completely.
We write the champion sequence differently from the rest of the buying committee. It is focused on the specific problem they live with every day, the outcome they personally care about, and what a win looks like for them, not just for the business.
How the champion connects to the buying committee
The champion is the starting point of the buying committee model. Once we have identified and engaged the champion at a target account, we build out the rest of the committee around them, identifying the economic buyer, the technical evaluator, and any other influencers who will be involved in the decision.
This is covered in more detail in the Buying Committee Mapping article.
FAQ
What if there is no obvious champion at a target account?
In some accounts, particularly smaller companies, the champion and the economic buyer are the same person. In those cases we approach the founder or senior leader directly with a message that combines the champion angle and the business outcome angle. We adjust the framing based on what the company structure suggests.
What if the champion we identified leaves the company?
We track job changes across your contact list as part of the weekly signal refresh. If a champion leaves, we flag it immediately, identify their replacement, and assess whether the new person is likely to share the same priorities. We also flag the departing contact as a potential warm lead at whatever company they move to next.
Can the champion become a long-term relationship even if the deal does not close?
Yes, and this is often underestimated. A champion who did not have the internal authority or budget to move forward at one company may be in a very different position at their next role. We track these relationships over time and flag them when a job change creates a new opportunity.