How To Ask For A Champion
About This Video
If you are selling into organizations without a champion on the inside, you are selling blind. A champion is the person within the prospect's company who believes in your solution, has a vested interest in seeing it adopted, and will advocate for you in rooms you cannot access. In this video, John Barrows tackles one of the most critical and often overlooked skills in complex B2B sales: how to actively ask for and develop a champion. Most salespeople hope a champion will emerge naturally; Barrows argues you need to be deliberate about identifying the right person and explicitly recruiting them to your cause. He covers what makes a true champion (they are not just a friendly contact --- they need influence and motivation), how to test whether someone is willing to actually advocate for you versus just being polite, and the specific language to use when making the ask. Critically, Barrows also explains what your champion needs from you --- the internal business case, the ROI data, the competitive comparison, the deployment roadmap --- everything they need to sell internally on your behalf when you are not in the room. Without a champion, you are an outsider selling in; with a champion, you have an insider selling alongside you. This video teaches you how to make that happen deliberately rather than hoping for luck.
What You'll Learn
- •The defining characteristics of a true champion --- influence, motivation, and willingness to act
- •How to differentiate between a champion and a coach (and why you need both)
- •The exact language and framing to use when explicitly asking someone to be your champion
- •What your champion needs from you to sell internally: business cases, ROI data, competitive positioning
- •How to test whether your supposed champion is actually advocating or just being agreeable
- •Warning signs that your champion lacks influence or has lost internal credibility
- •How to maintain champion engagement throughout long, multi-stakeholder sales cycles
