Nothing is worse than working on a deal for nine or ten months before you realize that your champion doesn’t actually have that much influence on the buying decision.

Nearly a year of work can get flushed down the drain when the deal falls apart, all because you didn’t ask yourself the right questions in month one or two.

Let’s stop fooling ourselves. Not every champion can push a deal through, and not every deal will close just because one of the decision makers is ‘very interested’.

As enterprise sellers, we often get caught up in being too optimistic and convincing ourselves that our champion will pull the deal ahead, while ignoring multiple red flags that suggest the deal actually won’t happen.

Here are questions I ask myself to find out if I’m really on track to close. I suggest you start asking yourself these questions from day one of a deal, and not nine months into the sales cycle.

“Do I really have a champion?”

Sure, your champion might love your product. But do they really have the influence and desire to push the deal ahead? Are they really the decision maker or at least in sync with the real decision maker?

How much influence do they really have?

If I’m unsure if I really have a champion, I start asking them for more. For example:

• Ask them for more of a commitment on a timeline. “What do you think a timeline for implementing this might look like?”
  
• Ask for more concrete details on implementation: Who will be involved, who plays what role, and what the next steps are.

Sometimes your supposed champion may have a lot of enthusiasm about your solution in the abstract, but do they really have the ability and willingness to push your deal forward in a concrete way?

Here are some other practical tactics for testing your champion:

• Ask for their inside perspective - “Who within the account is for/against your solution? How can we ease their concerns?”
  
• Ask them to help you build out your org chart - Put what you have in front of them and see what they change or add. If they’re engaged in this process, it shows they’re actually engaged in the specifics of how your product will be implemented. 
• Ask them to prep in advance of the next session - Ask if they’ll help go through your slides and make suggestions before your next group session. If they’re willing to do this and seem engaged while doing so, it means they want it to go well. This is a great indicator of champion behavior.

Performing tests is the name of the game here. In large deals, I’m always performing tests to assess my position. I test my champion to see if they can push the deal a bit closer to the finish line. That leads me to my next question I ask myself:

Developing your champion

Champions don’t just fall on your lap. They are always developed over time; they don’t just appear on the day of your first call with a prospect.

I think of developing champions as a mini sales process within the larger sales process. The champion leads, and the rest of their team follows. So I must develop the champion first in order to then move the rest of the decision makers along towards the close.

Here’s a graphic that explains the the steps of developing a champion:

How do you assess your progress in developing a champion? By performing tests, like I mentioned above. You measure the results of those tests by analyzing the signals that your champion sends when responding to your tests.

“Am I getting more positive or negative signals?”

As I perform my tests, I’m taking mental score. Too many negative signals in a row, and my deal may be in danger. I may not have a true champion.

What is a negative signal? It’s not what you may think.

If your champion is giving you constructive feedback and correcting you, that may actually be a good sign. It shows they’re mentally involved in the process and actively working to move things forward.

The worst outcome of these tests is the champion acting disengaged. If you ask them to review your slides ahead of a group session and they simply say “looks good - no comments,” I’d actually take that as a worse sign than if they made a bunch of edits and tore my draft apart.

Large enterprise deals can take a year or two to close. If you’re not performing tests during the entire sales process, you’re going to end up spinning your wheels on a bunch of dead deals for years.

Too many negative signals tells me I need to wrap up my sales process and move on to a better opportunity.

Here’s an example of a test I did recently to help determine how solid a deal really is:

We’re bidding on a project in a competitive proposal process. The buyer set out strict limits that each vendor was only supposed to get a set amount of time to pitch their solution.

After our last session, I told our champion, “Hey, I think there was a bit of confusion on one aspect of our solution. I’d love to get more time to explain it.”

If they agree with the sentiment and give you more time, that’s a great sign that you have an engaged, interested champion.

But if they get back to you and say, “sorry, we’re going to stick to the strict time limit”, then your champion may not be as engaged as you’d hope.
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Do I have two conversations going on?

With large deals, there are typically two distinct conversations going on: One is with the project team, and the other is at the senior level.

In other words, the people who sign the contract and the people who actually implement the solution require two distinct ongoing conversations to get a deal done. 

Here’s a negative outcome for you: Your senior-level champion absolutely loves your product and thinks it’s the best thing since sliced bread. You keep the conversation going for several months. Finally, the champion says, “I just have to make sure the project team is good with this.”

If the project team wasn’t involved early on, then the deal will almost certainly die. Even if the solution is great, no project managers want some new initiative sprung on them at the last moment by a senior manager who isn’t involved in the day-to-day operations.

Am I looking 2 or 3 steps ahead?

I believe that enterprise sales is like a game of chess.

You need to be looking two or three moves ahead. 

“If my buyer does x, what’s the next move? What about if they do the opposite?”

An ineffective enterprise seller is simply along for the ride in a deal. They mindlessly get on calls with the prospect every few weeks for nine to twelve months, hoping that eventually the prospect will ask for a contract to sign (but having no idea when that will actually happen).

Meanwhile, an effective enterprise seller will actively move the process along, using tests to suss out the buyer’s interest level, urgency, and objections. 

Don’t let your deal pass you by, and don’t waste your time clinging to the hopes of a champion who isn’t actually your champion.

If you can’t move a deal forward, at least perform some tests to verify that you’re actually in the position you think you’re in!

Thanks for reading. Keep an eye out for future editions of the Enterprise Sellers newsletter.

Jamal

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