So here is a lesson learned I thought is worth sharing.
At Spotlight.ai, we recently closed a new very large customer !! YEY. 💲
It was a long sales process that involved multiple stakeholders, conflicting interests, technical blockers and required navigating a large and complicated organization.
Of course, one of the first things was finding my Champion for this deal. I did, and of course started developing, nurturing, arming and testing him. It was all great. He had a personal win, access to the Economic Buyer and influence. He was super engaged. I even met his boss twice (who was not the Economic Buyer) for alignment and it was a clear Champion choice..... everything was fine until the deal started going in circles. After making progress for 3-4 months, I suddenly felt stuck. Not for lack of engagement. This was a clear case of a lot of positive engagement but no real progress ! ⛔
My co-founder Nadav Efraty and I constantly bounce ideas off of each other and give each other feedback on deals we run. I told Nadav, I feel like things are starting to slip for no apparent reason. Maybe it's just a messy environment and that by itself can kill the deal. As we were analyzing why we think that is, I had an aha! moment 💡 - My real champion was not the person who was leading the engagement with me. While he checked all the MEDDICC boxes, it was his manager who was the real champion. I met this manager twice vs. meeting him probably 15 times. His boss totally delegated the vendor choice however the manager also checked all three boxes just like him (Personal Win, Access to Economic Buyer, Influence in the account) but on the influence he was way more influential and experienced. My real champion was hiding in plain sight. He was just "Shy". 😳
I shifted gears, kept the engagement with my original pseudo champion but started copying the actual champion (the manager) on all emails and had a separate communication channel with him to help me unblock areas I got stuck on. He stayed behind the scenes but always delivered and got all blockers solved. The deal started moving again and we got it across the finish line. An amazing logo, sizable deal with huge potential. 🚀
Even when we believe we know who our Champion is, we need to constantly compare them to all other stakeholders we meet. Sometimes its not the most engaged person, but the one who will break down the walls for you.
Make sure you put the spotlight on the right Champion 🔦
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