A contact likes the product. They take meetings. They share context. They explain the org chart. They may even tell the seller what is happening behind the scenes.
That is useful.
But it may not be a champion.
It may be a coach.
The distinction matters because complex deals do not move forward just because someone is helpful. They move forward when someone inside the customer has enough influence, urgency, and self-interest to help create action when you are not in the room.
A coach helps you understand the account.
A champion helps you move the account.
That is the mental model.
Power, Priority, Action
When someone is described as a champion, I want to test three things:
Power: Can they influence the people who matter, or credibly get you to them?
Priority: Are they connected to a problem the business already cares about?
Action: Are they willing to do something internally when you are not in the room?
If one of those is missing, the relationship may still be valuable. But it is probably not a fully formed champion relationship.
They may be a coach. They may be a supporter. They may be a guide. They may even be a future champion.
But the current state matters.
A mislabeled champion creates false confidence. A properly diagnosed coach creates a path forward.
The POC That Could Not Create Priority
I saw this play out in a large media account.
We had a strong coach inside the legal team. He was new to the organization, but he knew our platform from a prior company. He understood that the current workflow was too complex. He had a thoughtful view on how AI could remove friction, improve efficiency, and help the team move faster.
The AE saw him as a champion.
I saw him as a valuable coach who had not yet proven he could create movement.
The coach wanted to run a POC with his team. His goal was to win over frontline users who were attached to the old way of working. On the surface, that sounded reasonable. The product could help. The use case made sense. The coach had good instincts.
But there was a problem.
The POC was being used to create the case for change instead of validating a case for change that senior leadership had already agreed to.
There were no validated business outcomes. No quantified success criteria. No alignment with the General Counsel on what measurable improvement would make the effort worth prioritizing.
Would success mean reduced cycle time?
Fewer manual handoffs?
Faster decisions?
Better team capacity?
Lower risk?
Less reliance on legacy processes?
We had not answered those questions with the person who would ultimately need to sponsor the change.
I pushed the AE to secure a short leadership alignment conversation before moving forward. Not a long meeting. Not a formal business case presentation. Just a direct conversation with the GC or senior legal leadership around a few questions:
What problem matters most?
Why does it matter now?
What outcomes would make this worth prioritizing?
What decision would a successful POC support?
And if the frontline team resisted, who would sponsor the change?
The AE made some attempts, but we never got that level of confirmation.
We did get a meeting with a senior procurement contact, who explained the technology evaluation and contracting process. That was useful. But procurement clarity is not the same as executive priority.
The POC moved forward.
The frontline team pushed back.
The deal slowly died.
The lesson was not that POCs are bad. POCs can be valuable when they validate a priority the business already cares about.
The lesson was that a POC cannot substitute for priority.
If the real obstacle is organizational change, product validation will not solve it by itself.
The Coach Was Not the Problem
It would be easy to say the AE misread the relationship.
That is true, but incomplete.
The coach was not the problem. The coach was doing what coaches often do. He identified pain. He gave us context. He helped create an evaluation path. He saw a better way to work.
That all had value.
The issue was that we needed him to play a role he had not yet proven he could play.
He had ideas, but not enough power.
He saw inefficiency, but it was not yet connected to a validated executive priority.
He took action, but the action moved us toward a POC, not toward leadership commitment.
That is the nuance sellers need to understand.
A coach can be active and still not be a champion.
Activity is not the test.
Movement is the test.
The Better Question
The question is not simply:
Do we have a champion?
The better question is:
What movement can this person create?
Can they move us up to power?
Can they move us over to a better buying center?
Can they move the organization toward a decision?
Can they help attach our solution to something the business already cares about?
Can they put their credibility behind the change?
That is a more useful diagnosis.
It forces the seller to separate relationship quality from deal quality.
A person may be helpful but not influential.
They may be influential but not invested.
They may be invested but not connected to a priority.
They may be connected to a priority but unwilling to act.
Each situation requires a different strategy.
Moving a Coach Toward Champion
The goal is not to dismiss coaches. The goal is to understand whether they are developable.
I think about that through three questions.
1. Can they help us get to power?
If the person is below the executive level, can they help reach the person who owns the business outcome?
Useful questions:
Who owns this problem at the leadership level?
What initiative is this tied to?
What would your executive care about most?
Would it make sense to bring them into the conversation?
How would you explain the importance of this internally?
If the person can help create access to power, they may be on the path from coach to champion.
If they cannot or will not, they may still be a helpful source of information. But you need another path.
2. Can they help us clarify priority?
A coach may understand the pain before leadership has prioritized it.
That is common.
The work is to convert the observed pain into a business outcome that matters.
Useful questions:
What cost, risk, delay, or capacity issue is this creating?
Why does solving this matter now?
What happens if nothing changes?
What measurable improvement would make this worth prioritizing?
Who would care most about that improvement?
This is where many deals get exposed.
There may be a real problem, but not every real problem is a priority.
3. Can they help us create action?
A potential champion has to do more than agree.
They have to act.
Useful questions:
What decision would a successful evaluation support?
Who needs to be involved before this can move forward?
What objections will come up internally?
Who will resist this change?
Would you be willing to help us pressure-test the business case with the right stakeholders?
What would you need from us to make that conversation easier?
This is the development work.
You are not just qualifying the person. You are equipping them.
You are helping them carry the argument when you are not in the room.
The Three Motions
Once you diagnose the relationship, you can choose the right movement path.
Sponsored Up
You are working with someone below power who sees the value.
The question is:
Can this person help us reach the executive who owns the outcome?
This is the right motion when the use case is real, but executive alignment is missing.
Sponsored Over
You are in one part of the organization, but the stronger pain or budget may live elsewhere.
The question is:
Can this person help us find the part of the business where the problem matters more?
This is the right motion when your current contact is helpful, but the buying center is weak.
Sponsored Down
You have executive interest, but the operating team is not yet mobilized.
The question is:
Can the executive translate interest into action below them?
This is the right motion when leadership sees the issue, but the team needs direction, ownership, and permission to prioritize the work.
These motions matter because not every coach-to-champion path looks the same.
Sometimes you need to move up.
Sometimes you need to move over.
Sometimes you need sponsorship down into the organization.
The point is to know which problem you are solving.
Before You Start the POC
The media account taught a simple lesson that applies well beyond POCs.
Before you invest heavily in evaluation activity, ask:
What business problem has been validated?
Who owns that problem?
Why does it matter now?
What measurable outcome would prove success?
What decision will be made if we prove it?
Who will sponsor change if the current way of working pushes back?
If those questions are unanswered, the POC may still create learning. But it may not create a deal.
And if the POC is being used to avoid the executive alignment conversation, that is usually a warning sign.
Final Thought
A champion is not a friendly contact with a positive opinion.
A champion is someone who helps change happen inside the customer.
The best sellers are honest about where they are. They do not need every helpful person to be a champion. They need to know what the person can do, what they cannot do, and what path exists from the current relationship to real internal movement.
That is the discipline of champion development:
Test for power.
Clarify priority.
Look for action.
Then decide whether the person can help you move up, over, or down.
If they can move you toward power, priority, and action, they may become a champion.
If they cannot, they may still be useful.
But they are not the reason to believe the deal is real.