Who Is a Sales Champion? Benefits, Characteristics, and How to Identify One in B2B Enterprise Sales in 2024

B2B Enterprise Sales’ complexity is an open secret. It involves long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and high stakes. Companies resort to data-driven tools and methods to simplify it. However, none hold a key differentiator as every company follows the same methods.  

Here are some key stats about enterprise sales:

• Enterprise sales’ average sales cycle is at least six months.

• The typical buying committee in enterprise sales involves six-10 decision makers.  

Once again, it brings us back to the timelessness of human connections in selling. Data-driven tools streamline the process. However, they don't diminish the importance of human connections. For instance, warm introductions are gaining more prominence than ever.

One such crucial human factor is that of a sales champion in B2B enterprise sales. The chances of you closing a deal successfully increase with a sales champion by your side.  Let’s find out more about sales champions.

Who Is a Sales Champion?

A Sales champion is your product’s ambassador within the customer’s/prospect’s organization. S/he go beyond being product users due to the belief in your product’s value. S/he holds the power to influence buying decisions in their company. A Sales champion pushes hard for your win because s/he stands to gain personally due to your victory.  

Let’s look at an example to understand it better:

Imagine you sell enterprise-level CRMs to a company. During prospecting, you meet Julia. Julia is the Head of Sales operations in the company. During a demo, she expresses enthusiasm as she understands that the product potentially solves her team’s pain points like ineffective data management and inaccurate sales forecasts.

You built a stronger relationship with Julia over a few meetings. She confirms her conviction in the product when she informs you that she will advocate for its purchase to the other stakeholders in her company.

Later, we will see how Julia embodies a sales champion’s characteristics.  

Benefits of a Sales Champion

1. Insight into the prospects: Sales champion offers intel on how your prospects purchase. S/he educates you about how your product’s value proposition aligns with what the company seeks. You get information on the stakeholders involved in an organization.
   
   Being well-informed about the internal structure and your prospects’ needs helps provide you with clarity. As a result, you prepare your pitch to the relevant stakeholders in the prospect’s company.  

2. Shortens the sales cycles: Enterprise B2B sales are infamous for their long sales cycles. The insights by the sales champion give you a head start in the deal. In addition, you get a foot in the door by promoting your product within the champion’s organization. Hence, your sales cycles are bound to be reduced.  

3. Quicker product adoption: The time to value your product is inversely proportional to your churn rates. A Sales champion’s adeptness in your product reduces the time to value your product significantly. Therefore, the chances of your product renewal increase manifold.  

Characteristics of A Sales Champion

1. Influence: A key decision maker – A Sales champion possesses the power to influence the key stakeholders involved in a deal. Their influence extends to the economic buyer as well. In rare cases, your sales champion is also the economic buyers. However, that power combination is akin to sighting a blue moon.
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   A sales champion is also adept at navigating their companies’ internal politics - thanks to their influence.  
   
   Let’s take Julia’s example here. As the Head of Sales Operations, she enjoys access to the executive team. Her influence helps her convince them of your product’s value. This gives you an advantage while dealing with her company.

2. Personal gains: Stakeholder – A Sales champion gains personally if your deals succeed as mentioned above. In addition, the champion’s reputation is at stake because s/he promotes your product within their organization. Hence, you can be assured that the sales champion will leave no stone unturned to get you over the finish line.
   
   In this case, Julia knows that the CRM will earn her plaudits apart from solving the sales team’s woes. This will result in an increase in her goodwill in the company. It might even go on to win her a promotion or get her monetary incentives. As a result, Julia gives her best shot to help you win the deal.

3. Passionate: Product evangelist – A Sales champion promotes your product not just for personal gain but because s/he genuinely believes in its value. A sales champion lobbies for your product only after getting convinced of its strengths.
   
   Their success story itself acts as your product’s evangelist even if s/he moves on from it after closing the deal.

For instance, Julia endorses your product to the company’s other departments after you win the deal. Her success story with your CRM travels to the company’s other departments. As a result, the marketing team books a demo with your company to check whether it solves their pain points.  

How to Identify a Sales Champion

1. Map the stakeholders: Know and map the stakeholders of your target account. Ensure you know the economic buyer, influencer, potential champion, decision maker, and other stakeholders in the buying committee.  
   

2. Identify patterns: Draw insights from your CRM and product analytics to identify key stakeholders using your products. Check the users’ usage patterns to identify different user types and segment them accordingly.
   
   Focus particularly on power users. The chances of finding a sales champions from your CRM directly are dim. However, deep diving into your CRM and product analytics helps you uncover patterns to identify the sales champion.

3. Industry events: Attend the industry events of the companies you target. Network with decision makers, key stakeholders, and economic buyers of their respective companies to increase your chances of finding the right sales champion.

4. LinkedIn and online research: Go through the prospective companies’ LinkedIn profiles. Researching on LinkedIn helps you map stakeholders and validate your stakeholder maps. Dig further online to enhance your chances of finding your sales champion.
   
   Use the patterns uncovered from your CRM and product analytics to identify the right sales champion for your product.  

5. Employee network: Keep a tab on your and your customer’s ex-employees' movements. It takes a shorter duration to convert them into sales champions as you already share an equation. In addition, familiarity with your product sets them on their path to becoming a sales champion.

Conclusion

A sales champion is a game changer who helps you with shortening sales cycles, insights about a prospect, and boosting product adoption. Identify stakeholders using data, social media, industry events, and internal networks. Look for influential stakeholders whose personal gains are tied to your success.

Book a demo with Vieu to identify the right stakeholders and build a solid relationship with them.

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