Rushing to engage procurement shifts the conversation prematurely to price. Instead, focus on building an overwhelmingly strong value case with your internal coach and the economic buyer. This empowers your supporters to champion the solution's value, neutralizing procurement's ability to commoditize your offering and focus solely on cost reduction.

When working with an ambitious 'Transformer' champion who moves too quickly, the seller's job is to fill their gaps by adopting the 'Protector' persona. This means you must focus on the process, challenge assumptions about consensus, and proactively identify risks to ensure the deal doesn't implode due to your champion's enthusiasm.

Before a group meeting, explicitly ask your champion about other organizational projects competing for budget, time, and attention. Your biggest competitor isn't another vendor; it's an internal initiative. Surfacing these hidden priorities allows you to understand the real landscape and avoid being blindsided.

Beyond the champion and economic buyer, every enterprise deal has a "challenger"—someone who stands to lose power, budget, or relevance if you succeed. This person, often building a competing internal solution, can kill a deal at the final hour. You must identify and neutralize them early.

Getting a partnership deal done requires more than a good pitch; it requires an internal advocate. Leaders should leverage their network to identify and cultivate a champion inside the target company. This person is critical for navigating internal bureaucracy and pushing the deal over the goal line, as "there's a million ways for deals to die."

The difficulty of enterprise procurement is a feature, not a bug. A champion will only expend the immense internal effort to push a deal through if your solution directly unblocks a critical, unavoidable project on their to-do list. Your vision alone is not enough to motivate them.

An enthusiastic champion often rushes to pitch a solution internally, only to be shut down. Slow them down using 'commercial coaching'—sharing stories of how similar deals failed. This helps them understand the importance of first aligning the buying group on the problem.

In complex enterprise sales, don't rely solely on your champion. Proactively connect with every member of the buying committee using personal touches like video messages. This builds a network of allies who can provide crucial information and help salvage a deal if it stalls.

When you identify a deal blocker, don't confront them alone. First, approach your champion and ask for their perspective on the dissenter's hesitation and advice on the best way to engage them. This provides crucial internal political context and helps you formulate a more effective strategy before you ever speak to the blocker.