The Champion Development Reboot — 60-Min Training

Direct Answer

SECTION 1 — Open & The Hard Truth (5 min)

Open cold. No icebreaker. Project the deal board.

Manager script (verbatim): *"Every yellow deal has a named 'champion.' Today we find out how many you actually have. My guess is half. Tim Caito's rule: if they can't pass four tests, they're a coach, not a champion. Coaches lose deals quietly."*

State the distinction so nobody confuses this with multi-threading:

• Multi-threading is breadth — five contacts wide so one departure doesn't sink you.
• Champion development is depth — making one contact powerful enough to sell internally when you are not in the room.

You need both. Today is only depth.

SECTION 2 — The 4-Test Definition & Live Scoring (15 min)

Write Tim Caito's four tests on the whiteboard. This is the MEDDPICC "Champion" letter operationalized — not a feeling, a checklist.

1. Access — Will they take your call within 24 hours? Have they introduced you to power?
2. Pain — Do they personally feel the pain your product solves, in their own words, not yours?
3. Power to sell internally — Have they sold something inside before? Do they have political capital to spend?
4. Personal win — What do *they* get if this closes? Promotion, headcount, visibility, a story to tell at their next job?

Drill (12 min): Each AE picks their largest open deal and scores their named champion 0-2 on each test (max 8). Anything under 6 gets downgraded to "coach" in the CRM today. Force Management's *Command of the Message* calls this the "Required Capability + Positive Business Outcome" linkage — if your contact cannot articulate both in their own words, you do not have a champion.

Manager challenge: *"Anyone score 8/8? Stand up. Tell us their personal win in one sentence. If you stumble, sit down."*

SECTION 3 — The Tee-Up Exercise (10 min)

The most diagnostic move in the playbook. Andy Paul has hammered on it for years on *Sales Enablement Podcast*: the champion presents your case back to you while you stay silent.

How to run it on a live deal this week:

• Book a 25-minute call. Subject line: "Dry run before your CFO meeting — I'll be on mute."
• Send a one-page business case 48 hours ahead. Pain, capability, outcome, price, timeline.
• On the call, ask one question: *"Walk me through how you'll pitch this to [economic buyer] on Thursday. I'll hold questions to the end."*
• Sit silent for 8-10 minutes. Take notes. Do not coach, interrupt, or nod aggressively.
• At the end: *"Where did that feel shaky? What objection worries you most?"*

What you're diagnosing:

• Do they own the pain language? If they read your deck verbatim, they don't.
• Can they connect capability to outcome without prompting?
• Do they pre-handle obvious objections (price, timing, "we already have a tool")?
• Whose name comes up when they say "my CFO will ask…"? That's your real economic buyer.

Anthony Iannarino's *Eat Their Lunch* frames this as "Level 4 value creation" — you are no longer selling the product, you are coaching the buyer on how to buy. Better to find out Tuesday than after the Thursday QBR.

SECTION 4 — Gift-Giving Cadence Beyond The Obvious (10 min)

Stop sending Yeti tumblers. They go in a drawer next to the four from your competitors. The cadence that builds true champions trades branded swag for personal utility and political ammunition. Five gifts across a 90-day deal:

• Week 1 — The Curated Article. Not a vendor whitepaper. A *Harvard Business Review* piece that makes *them* look smart when forwarded. One line: *"Made me think of the headcount conversation."*
• Week 3 — The Internal Reference. Introduce them to a peer at another company who already solved their problem. No agenda. You created a relationship that outlasts your deal.
• Week 5 — The Pre-Built Slide. One branded-as-*theirs* slide quantifying the business case in their CFO's language. They paste it into their deck. You are in the boardroom.
• Week 7 — The Career Asset. A *Gartner* or *Forrester* excerpt they can cite in their performance review. Personal-win fuel.
• Week 9 — The Book. A hand-written-note copy of Iannarino's *Eat Their Lunch* or Lencioni's *The Advantage*. Books survive desk cleanouts. Mugs don't.

Rule of thumb (Andy Paul): *"If the gift has your logo on it, it's marketing. If it has their name on it, it's a relationship."*

SECTION 5 — Champion-Leaves-Company Playbook (15 min)

The Monday morning email: *"Friday is my last day."* If you have no plan, you lose 30-40% of the deal value in pipeline. Run the 72-hour protocol.

Hour 0-4 — Acknowledge and ask for two things. Reply within four hours. Verbatim script:

*"Congrats on the new role. Two asks before Friday: (1) a 15-minute warm intro to whoever picks up the project — even interim — and (2) your honest take on who internally most wants this to succeed and who's quietly against it. I'll buy you the going-away lunch."*

Hour 4-24 — Audit the deal with your manager. Score every other contact against the 4 tests. Find the next-strongest. Most AEs already have a "coach plus" they've been ignoring.

Hour 24-48 — Run the warm intro and a second discovery. Treat the new contact as a fresh deal. Re-qualify pain. Force Management's research: roughly 60% of deals stall when the champion leaves; the ones that close had a second champion already at 6/8 or higher.

Hour 48-72 — Follow your old champion to the new company. Connect on LinkedIn within a week. Six months later they're hiring at a new logo and you have a warm door. Champions who leave become pipeline if you stay human — no pitch week one, no ask month one.

Tag-team rule: Pair every AE with a manager-shadow on the first transition call after a champion exits.

SECTION 6 — Close, Commitments & Homework (5 min)

End on commitments, not motivation.

• Every AE names one deal for the Tee-Up Exercise by Friday.
• Every AE re-scores every named champion in their top 5 deals by EOD today.
• Manager reviews downgrades tomorrow. No judgment for downgrades — judgment for hiding them.
• Next week: Economic Buyer Access — past the champion into the room where the check is signed.

Closing line: *"A coach tells you what's happening. A champion changes what's happening. Build one true champion this week. The pipeline takes care of itself."*

FAQ

Q: What if my prospect refuses the tee-up exercise? A: That refusal *is* the diagnostic. A true champion wants the dry run — their reputation is on the line. If they wave you off, go back to pain discovery.

Q: How is this different from MEDDPICC's "Champion" letter? A: MEDDPICC defines the criteria; this operationalizes them with a live test and a 90-day cadence. MEDDPICC says *what* a champion is. This says *how to build one.*

Q: Can a procurement contact be a champion? A: Almost never. Procurement's personal win is cost reduction, which conflicts with your deal size. Coach at best.

Q: What if the champion has personal win but no political capital? A: That's a "coach plus." Keep them, multi-thread urgently. Use them to map power, not close.

Q: How many true champions per deal? A: One wins. Two is insurance. Three usually means you're calling coaches champions.

Q: Are physical gifts compliant in regulated industries? A: Check first. Curated articles, peer intros, and pre-built slides are universally compliant.

Sources

1. Caito, T. — *Force Management Command of the Message: Champion Development Methodology* (force-management.com)
2. Whitlow, D. & Sokoloff, J. — *MEDDPICC: The Ultimate Guide* — Champion criteria definition (meddpicc.com)
3. Paul, A. — *Sales Enablement Podcast* — episodes on champion-led sales motions (andypaul.com)
4. Iannarino, A. — *Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition* (Portfolio, 2018) — Level 4 value creation framework
5. Lencioni, P. — *The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else in Business* (Jossey-Bass, 2012)
6. Force Management Research — *Champion Transition Impact on Deal Velocity* (force-management.com/research)
7. Holmes, J. — *The Qualified Sales Leader* (2022) — MEDDPICC champion qualification chapters