A champion is your internal advocate inside a prospect account — the person who wants your product to win and actively sells it internally when you're not in the room. Finding and developing a champion is the single most important thing in enterprise sales. A champion without budget can still get you budget. No champion means you're selling to a committee that has no internal momentum.
For example, if the VP of Marketing at your prospect account starts forwarding your emails to the CFO and setting up internal calls to discuss your proposal, they're your champion — protect and develop that relationship above all others.
We train clients to identify champion signals early in the discovery process — it's the best predictor of deal close rate.
Related Terms
Relevant Cactus Services
We implement Champion strategies for B2B tech startups every day. Book a free 30-minute call to get a concrete plan for your situation.
Book a free strategy call →Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
Your ICP is the precise description of the company most likely to buy, stay, and expand.
Sales Development Representative (SDR)
An SDR is the outbound hunter on your sales team — their job is to generate qualified meetings, not close deals.
Business Development Representative (BDR)
A BDR is similar to an SDR but often focuses on larger, more strategic accounts or outbound into new markets rather than a defined territory.
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
TAM is the total revenue opportunity if you captured 100% of your target market.
Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM)
SAM is the portion of TAM you can actually reach with your current GTM motion.
Serviceable Obtainable Market (SOM)
SOM is the slice of SAM you can realistically capture in the next 12–24 months given your resources, competition, and execution capacity.