Who do we need as our champion that has the top executive’s ear?

Who do we need as our champion that has the top executive’s ear?

The top executive for your business is the leader with real decision power over what you sell, and the person they listen to may be a chief of staff, a long-tenured VP, or a director they trust on one issue. Finding that person is the first step on the path to the top.

Five questions to see if your team can do this job today:

1. Can your KAM name the 2 to 3 people the economic buyer listens to most?
2. Do they know who approves spend, and who shapes the decision before it gets there?
3. Do they have a coach inside the account who explains how decisions really get made?
4. Do they know what each likely champion is trying to achieve, and how they’re measured?
5. Have they given that person something of value before asking for anything?

Two or more no’s, and your team may be building relationships with people who can’t open the door to a bigger partnership.

I once spent a year with someone at a key account target who wanted to be my champion because they needed my full attention on their business. They hoarded our services and weren’t willing to sell for us anywhere else or up the chain. They gave good reasons from their point of view but none of them had anything to do with us. They had influence and a little power, but not in the group that mattered.

I did learn a lot from them about the political landscape. When I finally pressed them, they gave up the name of the person who could open the opportunities we needed to become a vital partner to the entire organization. In a company that size, the real org chart isn’t on the internet. You dig it out of the people in and around the business you want. The wrong champion cost me a year. Not recognizing it could have cost me my biggest account ever.

Our system, the Vitality Index, shows your key account teams where they stand today, the work it takes to level up, and how to do it, until they reach a vital partnership that lasts.

Is the champion at your largest account selling for you beyond their own department?

We built a free, 4-minute Key Account Risk Assessment. It gives you a risk score for your key accounts across team alignment, account planning, account transitions, and visibility. Link in the comments.