What is a champion?
A champion is a person inside the buying company who wants your solution and works to make the purchase happen. The term is the C in MEDDIC, the qualification method that came out of PTC's sales organization in the 1990s. A champion has power, influence and credibility inside the buyer, plus a personal reason to see the change succeed. A friendly contact who shares information is something less.
Why it matters to a revenue leader
Most B2B purchases are decided by a group, and the seller is absent when the group meets. The champion carries the case into those rooms. Writing in Harvard Business Review, Brent Adamson, Matthew Dixon and Nick Toman found that star sellers prefer skeptical change agents to friendly informants. For a revenue leader, the quality of the champion is one of the best tests of a large deal: a deal whose only contact is helpful but powerless is weaker than its stage suggests.
Example
A testing and inspection company is bidding a multi-plant inspection program. The plant engineer is helpful and responsive but cannot move budget. The regional operations director, who is measured on unplanned downtime, has asked the seller to present the proposal at her quarterly review and has briefed the CFO herself. She is the champion.
"What will our champion gain if this purchase goes through, and have they spent political capital on it yet?"
Sources
- MEDDIC Academy Sales Training & MEDDPICC Certification checked 9 Oct 2026
- MEDDIC / MEDDPICC Sales Methodology and Process checked 9 Oct 2026
- The End of Solution Sales checked 9 Oct 2026