A few quarters ago, I coached a rep who was stuck.
Strong pipeline. But his close rate was tanking.
He was getting mid-level champions excited. Running solid demos. Getting verbal
yes’s.
Then deals would stall. Ghost. Die in procurement.
I asked him, "Who are you coaching internally? "He said, "What do you mean? My
champion loves us."
Here's the mindset shift:
Champions don't close deals. Executives do.
Your champion might love the product. But unless their C-level sees the
business case, the deal won’t move.
So we rebuilt his entire outbound and late-stage approach to coach top-down.
Outbound example: Instead of cold emailing Heads of Ops with
"here's what we do," we targeted their C-suite with a pointed angle:
"Saw you hired a new COO – teams in your space are slashing onboarding time by
32% with X. Worth a convo?"
When a C-level replied, we brought in the mid-level for details. Now the
champion wasn’t just a fan, they were executing a vision their boss cared
about.
Meetings doubled. Deals accelerated.
Mid-to-late stage example:
We had a deal where the champion (Director of RevOps) was all in. But we knew
procurement would be tough.
So we coached her on how to present to the CFO:
- Framed ROI in terms of cost avoidance
- Built a one-slide "Why now" deck
- Roleplayed her pitch: "If we wait till Q4, we lose $84K in wasted
headcount."
She nailed the meeting. CFO greenlit budget same week.
If you want to win bigger (or any) deals faster:
-
Coach above the line – Don’t just sell to users. Sell
through them.
-
Equip your champions – Give them stories, metrics, and
slides that resonate up.
-
Start high when outbounding – Let execs set the mandate.
Champions push. Execs approve.
Don’t stop at love. Coach for power.
Want me to train you or your team to close high-impact tickets and navigate
complex deals?
I only take 2 new clients per month and July’s full already.
If you take this seriously, message me now and let's see if we lock in August.
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