Internal Champion or Friendly Contact? Four Asks to Test

To find an internal champion, stop measuring warmth and start asking for what a champion does: information you can't get elsewhere, an introduction, how decisions really get made, and a small risk taken in your name. Their answer tells you which one you have.

How to spot an internal champion

Your best contact is probably not an internal champion. Sorry.

They reply fast. They love what you do. They say things like "this is exactly what we need". Every email feels like a win.

And none of that costs them anything.

That's the whole problem. Warmth is free. A champion is expensive, because a champion puts their name behind you inside a building where you have no voice. The difference isn't how nice they are. The difference is what they do.

So the method isn't charm. It's a series of small, specific asks. You make them, you watch what comes back, and you learn which person you've got. Better to find out early than at the proposal.

Internal champion versus friendly contact

A friendly contact agrees with you. A champion takes a risk for you. Ask for the second and you'll find out which one you have. That is the internal champion test.

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Run the four asks

Each ask is small. Each is a test. You don't announce the test, you just make the request and notice the response.

Ask one: tell me how decisions like this get made here

A real champion explains. Who signs off, who has to be consulted, how long it normally takes, what happened last time something like this came up. A friendly contact says "oh, it depends" and changes the subject.

Ask two: who else will have a view on this?

Name the roles if you need to. Who controls the budget? Who has to approve? Who might have concerns? The champion gives you names. The contact gives you a shrug. A contact who won't answer has told you something too.

Ask three: would you introduce me?

Not "can I go over your head". Offer a reason that serves the other person. The economic buyer needs cost and return explained, and your contact can't do that for you. The evaluator has technical questions you can answer. Framed that way, a champion makes the introduction because it makes their own internal case easier. This is the same thinking as in selling to a buying committee.

Ask four: what do you gain if this works?

This one's quieter, and it's the one people skip. You need to know what your champion personally gets. Is it a problem off their desk? A win they can point to? Credit with someone senior? Without a personal reason, advocacy is a favour. Favours expire.

Read the answers honestly

Here's where most people cheat. They get a vague reply and file it under "positive".

Don't. Sort it.

• Full answer, with names and detail. You may have a champion.
• Partial answer plus a promise to follow up. Watch whether they follow up. Behaviour, not words.
• Warm deflection. A friendly contact. Useful, but not someone to build a deal on.
• Silence on the ask. Treat as a no for now. Don't keep hoping.

It stings the first time. A deal you thought was strong turns out to rest on someone who can't or won't do anything for you. But the sting costs one afternoon. The alternative costs the deal.

Make it easy to be a champion

Once someone starts acting like one, your job changes. You're no longer persuading them. You're equipping them.

They'll be in rooms without you. So give them something to carry into it. A short, factual note that explains the result in plain words. An answer to the objection they'll probably get. A clear sense of what the first scope is and why it's small.

Small matters. A first deal that is too large stalls in approval and delivers late. Choose a scope small enough to approve quickly and concrete enough that someone outside the project could describe the success in one sentence. That sentence is what your champion repeats when you're not there.

Don't let one champion be the whole account

Here's the trap on the other side. You find a real champion. Joy. You lean on them for everything.

Now you have a single point of failure with a pulse. People change jobs, go on leave, get reorganised, lose arguments. A deal held by one person is a deal held by luck, however good that person is.

So use the champion to open more doors. Ask who would take your call independently of them. That's the working standard to aim for, and it's the subject of how to multi thread a deal. And plan for the day they move on, because they will. What to do then is covered in what to do when your champion leaves.

What the asks sound like out loud

Rehearse the wording. Awkward asks sound like demands. Plain ones sound like interest.

• "Before I write anything up, how has a decision like this been made here before?"
• "Who else is going to have an opinion on this? I'd rather hear their concerns now than at the end."
• "Would it help if I walked your finance lead through the cost and return? I could save you doing it."
• "What would a good result look like for you, personally?"

Notice the pattern. Each ask offers something. None of them says "please help me close". You aren't extracting a favour. You're making their job easier and finding out whether they'll meet you halfway.

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Why this matters more when you work alone

A vendor with a team can afford a few weak accounts. Someone else covers for the deal that goes cold. You can't.

You have a fixed number of evenings. Every one spent on a deal that rests on a friendly contact is an evening you didn't spend on an account that can grow. That's the real cost of mistaking warmth for advocacy. Not the lost deal. The lost evenings.

So run the asks early, on every serious account, while the cost of finding out is low. Which accounts deserve this treatment in the first place is a separate decision, covered in how to choose which accounts to sell to.

Mistakes that keep a contact a contact

1. Taking enthusiasm as proof. Enthusiasm is free. Ask for something that costs.
2. Never asking. If you don't make the ask, you never get the answer, and the deal stays comfortable and fragile.
3. Asking too late. At the proposal stage the answer arrives too late to act on.
4. Going round them. Skip your contact and you may lose them. Give the new meeting a reason that serves them.
5. Forgetting what they gain. No personal stake, no sustained advocacy.

If you get a no, what next?

Sometimes the asks come back empty. The contact deflects every one. Don't panic and don't sulk.

You've learned something valuable and cheap. This account is held by a friendly person who can't or won't do anything for you. That isn't a verdict on the company. It's a verdict on this route in.

So you have three honest options. Reframe the ask so it clearly serves them, and try once more. Find another person in the account who has the problem and approach them with a reason of their own. Or lower the account on your list and spend the evenings elsewhere.

What you shouldn't do is carry on as if nothing happened. That's how a quiet deal becomes a dead one with no warning.

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Keep a record of each champion

Because you're alone, this has to be written down. For every person who matters in an account, keep a short list:

• Their role in this decision.
• What they personally care about.
• What they think of you so far.
• When you last had a real conversation.

That last one does the most work. It's how you notice a champion cooling before it matters. If the answer is "I don't remember", the relationship is already on its way out.

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Frequently asked questions

How can I tell an internal champion from a friendly contact?

By behaviour. A champion gives you information you could not get elsewhere, tells you who else matters, makes introductions, explains how decisions are made and puts their name behind you. A friendly contact is pleasant but does none of that.

What if my contact refuses to introduce me to anyone?

Treat it as a result. Try framing the meeting as something that serves the other person. If they still won't, you have a friendly contact, and you need to find a different way into the account.

Can I have more than one champion?

Yes, and you should aim to. No account is safe until at least two people inside it would take your call independently of each other.

Is asking these questions pushy?

No. They are ordinary questions about how a decision works. A person who wants you to succeed will usually be glad to answer them. Asking is how you find an internal champion.

The full method, with the checklists, is in The Account-Based Selling Playbook, a free 21-page playbook.