Deal Execution
Selling to Multiple Stakeholders
Most multi-stakeholder deals aren't lost to a competitor. They're handed to a champion who's asked to sell internally, on your behalf, with no help, to people who never described the problem in their own words.
By Shane McGrath · Published 24 August 2026
Two patterns show up in almost every stalled software deal we look at. Discovery stopped at the champion, so the economic buyer's version of the problem never surfaced. And the deal then relied on that champion selling it internally with no help from the seller.
They're the same problem, six weeks apart.
One problem, several versions of it
The champion's problem is operational: something is slow, manual, annoying. The finance stakeholder's problem is a number. The technical stakeholder's problem is risk and integration. The executive's problem is whatever they told the board they'd fix this year.
Those aren't the same problem described differently. They're different problems that happen to share a solution, and a business case written in only the champion's language will not survive the meeting you're not in.
Why sellers stop at the champion
Because the champion is nice to them. The conversations are easy, the enthusiasm feels like progress, and asking to speak to their boss feels like doubting them. So the seller doesn't ask. Comfort, not skill, is what limits most of these deals.
Getting the access without damaging the relationship
- Ask early, when it's a natural part of understanding the problem, not late, when it looks like escalation.
- Give the champion a reason that helps them: you want to hear how finance frames it so the case doesn't get picked apart.
- Ask what happens to this decision internally, step by step, and who has to be comfortable at each step.
- Find out who can say no. That's usually a different person from who says yes.
Stop expecting the champion to sell for you
They're not a seller. They have a day job, limited political capital, and one shot at the conversation. Sending them a deck and hoping is not enablement. Writing the two lines they'll actually use in that meeting, in their language, about their colleague's problem, is.
What this looks like as a behaviour
Multi-threading isn't a CRM field to fill in. It's a seller who's uncomfortable running a deal on one relationship and does something about it early, and who can name what each person stands to gain or lose. If your team can't do that on their top three deals, the deal review is the place it'll show up first.
FAQs
Common questions
- How many contacts should be involved in a B2B deal?
- Counting contacts misses the point. What matters is whether you've spoken to the person who owns the budget, the person who carries the risk, and anyone who can quietly kill it. That might be three people or seven.
- What if the champion refuses to introduce us to anyone else?
- That's useful information, not an obstacle. Either they don't have the influence they've implied, or they don't yet believe in it enough to spend capital on it. Both are worth knowing now rather than at the end of the quarter.
- Does this apply to smaller deals too?
- Less so. If one person can sign and owns the outcome, multi-threading is overhead. The habit becomes essential the moment a decision has to survive a meeting you're not in.
More on deal execution
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