MEDDPICC · C · position 7 of eight
Champion
A champion is someone who sells for you when you are not in the room, and that is a test rather than a temperament. Being liked is not being championed. A champion has a personal win in the outcome, the standing to move other people, and a history of having actually done it for you at least once.
How it actually gets missed
The friendliest contact gets recorded as the champion. Friendliness is the weakest available signal — it costs them nothing and predicts nothing. The rep finds out the difference in the last two weeks, when they need someone to carry a document into a room they cannot enter.
A tested champion sells for you when you're not in the room.
How deep, not how many
Champion has four rungs, and where a deal sits on them is the difference between a dimension you have answered and one you have qualified. These are the rungs SalesWolf actually scores — the same ladder the product reads, not a scale invented for this page.
- candidate
- Someone who could become a champion: engaged, accessible, on the right side of the problem. Most deals are forecast on a candidate.
- motivated
- They have a personal win here — something they get from this that they are measured on. Motivation is what survives an inconvenient week.
- influential
- You have watched them move somebody else. Not their title; an occasion.
- tested
- They carried something for you and delivered — a meeting they arranged, a document they defended. Only this rung predicts what happens when you are not there.
Done when · You can name a champion with a personal win in the deal, evidence they move others, and a test they've passed.
What to ask
“If you were putting this in front of your leadership without me, what is the version that lands — and what is the bit they push back on?”
Tests whether they have rehearsed the internal case, which is the first evidence of a real champion.
“What does a win here look like for you personally?”
Finds the motivation, or finds that there isn’t one — both are worth knowing in month two.
“Who else needs to be comfortable with this, and would you be willing to bring them in?”
A small, safe test of whether they will actually spend standing on this deal.