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GM to the Top 1% ☕
I was sitting in my car in the parking garage, staring at the email on my phone.
We lost. $3.1M deal. Nine months of work.
My champion had fought for us. She had walked the halls, presented the business case, scheduled the final review. She wanted us to win. She genuinely did.
But there were 12 other people in that buying committee. I knew one of them. She knew all 12. And three of the people I had never spoken to had decided the risk was too high.
That parking garage is the reason I rebuilt how I sell enterprise.
💡 THE CHAMPION TRAP
Enterprise sales has a dirty little secret nobody wants to admit.
We celebrate champions. We build everything around getting a strong internal advocate and riding them to the close. And that works. Until it doesn't.
Sellers with five or more stakeholder relationships close at 30%. Sellers with one stakeholder close at 5%. The gap between those numbers is not a tactic difference. It is a process difference.
Your champion is not a distribution channel. They are one vote in a committee that is larger than you think, moving faster than you can see, and often making decisions in meetings you were never invited to.
Map early. Expand wide. Let your champion be the guide, not the gatekeeper.
🔧 THE 12-STAKEHOLDER MAPPING FRAMEWORK
Use this at the start of every enterprise cycle, not at the end.
1. Draw the Org Before the First Discovery Call: "Who else will be involved in the evaluation?" is a question you should ask in the first meeting, not the fifth.
2. Assign a Relationship Score to Each Name: Score each stakeholder 1 to 5. Anyone below a 3 is a blind spot. Anyone below a 2 is a risk you need to mitigate this quarter.
3. Create a Value Narrative Per Persona: Finance wants ROI math. Legal wants risk mitigation. IT wants integration simplicity. Write one page per persona. Have your champion distribute it.
4. Establish Direct Contact with Three Non-Champions: Request brief introductions to at least three other stakeholders. Each one reduces a blind spot.
🎯 THIS WEEK'S HOMEWORK
Take your top three open opportunities. Draw the buying committee for each one. Score each relationship 1 to 5. Any stakeholder you have scored below a 3 is your work for the week.
❓ QUESTION OF THE DAY
How many stakeholders are you currently mapped to in your biggest open deal?
Hit reply with a number. If it is under five, we need to talk.
See you tomorrow.
Edward
Founder, Morning Sales
P.S. I built a full course on AI-native enterprise selling. The multi-stakeholder framework above is one module. It is $599 at Maven: https://maven.com/edward-gorbis/the-ai-native-sales-leader