Lend a hand to your Champion

The champion you need inside each of your key accounts is not necessarily the buyer you get along with the best. (Your BFF Buyers and Champions on an account are often not the same person.)

To avoid wasting time with buyers who won’t champion your cause, you must continually qualify who is willing to go to bat for you.

The only way to determine the sincerity and power of a so-called Champion is to ask them for favors and measure their response. Start with small favors and build from there.

Before you ask for favors, you need to deliver favors. Today, think of something above and beyond you can do for one of your potential Champions.

How about…

Make an intro for them that will help them professionally.

Introduce them to a candidate who may fit on their team.

And/or: make note of something they said and later, deliver a token or gesture for them on that issue.

Always remember you have to give to get.

Champion development includes business favors, but yours hopefully won’t be like the favor-swapping prominently seen in The Godfather movies.

Take a break from developing champions and watch this under-the-radar five-minute clip from this iconic movie.

Cool fact: Godfather II received eleven Oscar nominations and is among the first sequels in the Academy Awards history to win the Oscar for Best Picture.