Champion - your wingman to the deal

In this chapter you will learn one of the most important keys to winning the big deals, that is finding your What i. You will learn why you must have at least one person with the customer who sells for you when you are not there. You will be able to identify who can be your champion, how to develop the relationship and use your champion to get in touch with the economic decision maker, economic buyer. Without a strong champion, it is difficult to get the deal done, an insight that will help you choose the right deals to bet on. After reading the chapter, you will have increased your chances of increasing your hit rate and reaching the finish faster.

What is a Championin MEDDICC?

Champion is a person in the potential customer's organization who actively supports your solution, advocates for your product or service, and helps navigate the internal decision-making process. Your champion needs your solution and is willing to fight to get his way. You can find your champion outside the customer's organization, it can be an external consultant, partners to your customer, yes even an authority or trade union. Someone whose success depends on you. A Champion is usually someone with influence and credibility within the organization who believes in the value your solution provides. Your champion sees how the organization can solve a pain or realize an initiative with the help of your solution. That's why he gets involved. The Champion's personal interest drives the person to collaborate with peers, consultants and vendors to sell your solution and get a decision through as soon as possible, speeding up the buying process. A Champion sells for you when you're not there. You can have several people who are your Champions in a deal. This means that you are protected if someone quits or changes jobs. The best way to enable your Champion to be credible is to arm them with the I and M of MEDDICC? - pain and metrics. You help them make the right argument, especially to the financial decision maker. A sign that you have found a champion is that they always return when you have called or emailed. They answer questions, they brainstorm ideas and they are creative with their suggestions. I usually try to call before or after the work day, if they answer you know you can talk at those times. Then you have established an informal relationship. They act without prestige in conversation with you.

An example of this was when I was in final negotiations with a large listed company. I had the most contact with a Finnish manager, Pekka. My problem was that the management group Pekka was a part of was set in Finland. I had no problem going there and meeting them, the problem was that they were a tight group who preferred to speak Finnish, they liked not to let suppliers into their meetings. The reason was simple, most of the management meetings took place in a smoke sauna! I brought up the need to get the management team's acceptance with Pekka. No problem, he said, I'll solve it over a couple of beers at the next management meeting. I was doubtful if it would work. But a few days later, Pekka came back with a happy message, "Joo" which means yes in Finnish. Pekka was my champion.

A Champion's job

Your Champion needs to be able to do a lot of things:

- Understand how your solution can help solve the pain and achieve the goals

- Be able to explain to others in the organization why this is important and the right way to go

- Be able to influence the economic buyer to bet money, to invest

- Find out informal and formal processes to sign contracts with you

- Defend yourself and your solution when other options are presented

- Take responsibility for getting the right information and support so that the solution you sold really worked

Don't be afraid to give your champion training in how other customers do business with you, make sure they get extra resources. Make sure they have the materials they need to succeed. I have many examples of salespeople who treat their champions like VIP customers, inviting them to release parties, showing them news, and letting them build relationships with the company's most qualified resources.

How do you find a champion candidate?

Look for people who have both a personal motive and a business need to drive change. It also needs to be a person with whom you work, someone with whom you can create a confidential relationship. When the person changes jobs, they will want to introduce you to their new organization and you will have a great opportunity to win new business! Look on Linkedin for people in the customer's organization who have liked, commented or posted about the problems you can solve. When you meet with your customers, you can ask to know which people are involved in issues related to problems that you can help solve. When you find new names, you can send a contact request via Linkedin and start a dialogue. Tell them how you got their name, what problems you solve - ask for a meeting and see what happens. At best, you have created a Champion, in the worst case scenario, you've got a new contact. Regardless of the outcome, you have won something.

The Champion is the key to win the deal

An example of this was when a participant, let's call him Steve, at one of my Solution Selling? trainings asked for a chat during a break. He thought I absolutely should meet with his manager and talk about another team that needed sales training. We booked the meeting and got a new assignment, thanks to the great reference. But suddenly something happened: Steve called early one morning. He had changed jobs, become sales manager and wanted to start building a business case to sell Solution Selling@ to his new CEO. We worked together on a sales pitch for a few weeks, booked a meeting with the CEO and thanks to Steve's references I got a new assignment. The same thing was repeated several times. Thanks to my Champion, Steve, I have been awarded multi-million assignments.

Another example is Johan. Johan was responsible for sales training at a large listed company. He had already selected the supplier who would get the contract. But in order to present a well-founded proposal to the management team, they were the ones who had the budget and the final decision – economic buyer – Johan needed three quotes. So he contacted us and another company. My presentation must have impressed him, I had set up all the slides from the course manual in a conference room and showed him step by step what the sales people should do to increase their sales. We met several times, but despite my efforts, they chose another supplier, a company they used before. After some time, I contacted Johan again, I was curious about how it had gone. It turned out that the negotiations with the supplier they had chosen had stalled. Johan was angry and upset, time was running out, the salespeople needed to be trained. We met for lunch the next day, on a Friday. Over the weekend we worked out a proposal for a layout. On Monday, Johan asked me to wait in their reception, he was going to present our joint proposal to the management team. He wanted me to be available if there were questions. When the meeting was over, Johan came happily and with rosy cheeks: "Now I've bet my job on you. Now you have to promise to deliver!” Johan had convinced his management team to choose us instead of the old supplier. He had to fight to get his wish through. Johan became my Champion. He later told me that I seemed to be a person who never gave up. It was exactly the tenacity he wanted the salespeople to have. 20 years later we are still friends.

I must take a third example. This is a wonderful story that is about so much more than just winning a contract. A small start-up company had developed software that could retrieve call logs from cell phones, even if they were broken and locked. The idea was based on statistics from the United States: if the police could get a picture of how a crime was planned and carried out within a few hours of an arrest, the number of explanations increased by several hundred percent. The company had no salespeople, no nice sales presentation or any selling website. The CEO went around to various Swedish police authorities with a computer, a phone and the software. He showed off his product but was met with skepticism and resistance. Things looked bleak for the company. They hadn't managed to get a single order and the money was running out. Then it turned around: A Harald, a participant in one of the product demonstrations, saw how the product could revolutionize the police's investigative work. Harald was an ordinary police officer on foreign duty, he drove around in a police car and arrested criminals. He asked to test the product at his job and used his personal computer. He noticed how much faster he could investigate the crimes, that the CEO's promises that more crimes could be solved faster were true. Harald spent a lot of time influencing the managers to give the product a chance: that this was a solution they really needed to achieve their goals. After a few months, the company received its first large order from Harald's police authority. When they were able to show incredible results, more police agencies opened their eyes to the product. Soon the company had grown several hundred percent and is now one of the world's largest in the field. Their CEO said: “Thanks to our Champion we were able to get the contract. The senior managers didn't trust us, we weren't police officers. But they trusted one of their own, Harald. In this example, Champion was driven by an inner belief that the solution could help him do his job better and society safer.

Your most important goal, find and build the relationship with your Champion

Your goal should be to identify potential Champion candidates and win them over to your side. Even if they are not managers, they can influence because they are well regarded by their peers, are very influential and usually have a good track record of successful projects that make them credible to higher managers. Once you identify what your potential Champion wants nand why, you will be able to develop the relationship by showing how you can help: i.e. connect Champion with the experts in your company, invite him/her to the right seminars or arrange meetings with your references so that Champion can learn from their experience of handling similar projects. The examples above show that a Champion must have a vested interest in your success, because your success means their success.

Once you have built a true Champion, he will recognize your support and understand that you will be able to help resolve the pain, that you will be there. You will work together to get the deal done. Make sure the Champion is at your meetings with senior managers, that the Champion starts the meetings, sells what and why and is a guarantor that the solution will work. Ask your champion for help with summaries, solution proposals and quotes. Your Champion will sell on your behalf when you are not around, give them what they need to do it effectively, even if it may cost some money. Your Champion will also help you manage all internal processes that can slow down the deal at a later stage. These can be processes such as: taking references, technical validation processes, security processes, legal processes and the procurement process.

Questions to ask yourself to know you have a real Champion:

? Why is this person a Champion?

? How can the Champion's success be valuable to other departments in the company/organization?

? How well does the Champion understand what the whole organization's priority goals are and how he/she can contribute to their achievement?

? Does this person have influence and credibility?

? How long will Champion stay in his job?

? Does Champion have a well-developed network with decision-makers in the organization?

? What is his/her personal interest?

? Will he/she stand up for you and sell for you when you are not there?

? Can give you answers to questions like: "In the conversations you've had about my solution internally, has anyone raised any concerns or negative opinions?"

? What does your Champion have to gain and what does he have to lose from being on a team with you?

Avoid betting on the wrong champion

To avoid betting on mistakes, choosing someone who is not a real Champion. It is easy to confuse a positive *Mr Tell me more' with a Champion. "Mr Tell me more" has no pain and no influence. But it can easily become a dead end. When trying to find new decision makers to talk to, you may, out of convenience, be referred back to "Mr Tell me more". Be sure to choose your Champion carefully, if the business does not take off, it will be challenging to find a new person to support you.

Here are some signs that you haven't managed to find the right Champion yet

- They are not open and honest about what they need

- They do not respond quickly when I contact them

- They don't get involved in getting to know you and how what you sell works

- Do not do similar business in your current company

- They don't dare to try something new

- They don't book meetings for you with higher managers

- They don't tell you anything you don't already know

- You have the feeling that they don't want to take responsibility

- They talk a lot but nothing happens

- Meetings are often postponed

If you notice that your champion candidate is not succeeding, don't pressure them. Instead, make it easy for them to let go of their efforts, give them a reason to back out. Find ways to use their network and influence to create a network yourself. Maybe it's too early for your champion to push the issue, maybe there's too much resistance in the organization.

An example of this was when a salesperson found a champion. They had done some minor business. Now the seller wanted to scale up and sign a large contract with the customer. The salesperson asked his champion to arrange a meeting with the top managers. At first the meeting seemed like a good strategy, but the meeting was canceled at short notice on several occasions, one of the managers prioritizing something else each time. The seller noticed his champion losing enthusiasm and decided to try a different strategy. Instead of Champion arranging a meeting with the management team, he asked for names and contact information so he could interview them one at a time. He wanted to get in direct contact with the managers, interview them about their needs and desires. Once the interviews were completed, the salesperson would come back to their champion with a summary and a plan. The seller also intended to sell himself and his solution to the various managers. Champion thought it was a really good idea, he had found it difficult to find time to organize the meeting and push the issue. In a few weeks, the seller managed to book and carry out the interviews. He presented his conclusions to his champion. Shortly thereafter, the contract was in place, everyone in the management team appreciated that the seller listened to their needs and made an effort to find a good solution. One lesson learned was thatchampion can help you in various ways during the sales process, depending entirely on time, opportunities and willingness. Therefore, ask your champion how he wants to work with you!

Summary

A strong Champion is the key to your business, especially in larger organizations where the political climate can make it difficult to find the one who is the economic buyer. By helping your Champion succeed, you will succeed yourself. Remember, you can be the key to your Champion's success. Help your Champion sell to other decision makers in the organization by showing how they can solve their pains (pain) and reach their goals (metric).

Jens Edgren, Master MEDDICC instructor, CEO

[email protected] www.meddicc.se