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An internal champion is often treated as a warm contact who can forward the deck. In difficult buying decisions they are doing something harder. They are reconstructing the case for people who did not hear the founder, do not share the same enthusiasm and may inherit different parts of the consequence.
The nine items below are the contents of one document, written for the champion to carry into rooms the supplier never enters. Each item has a test the supplier can run before the document is sent.
1. One sentence that names the decision
The champion should be able to say what the organisation is deciding now. “Explore a partnership” is too broad. A paid pilot, qualification programme, first volume, budget request or conditional reservation gives colleagues a concrete object to evaluate.
2. A stable centre to the proposition
The product, application and value should survive retelling. If the company becomes a different thing in every room, the champion has to decide which version is true before they can advocate for it. The test is to set the first description of the company in this document beside the descriptions in the last three things the buyer received. They should name the same product for the same application.
3. The strongest proof beside the claim it supports
The champion should not have to remember that the evidence for a headline sits twelve pages later. Put the relevant result, customer evidence or operating record close to the claim that will be challenged.
4. The boundary around what remains uncertain
Expert colleagues will test where the evidence stops. Give the champion accurate language for what is proven, what is inferred, what is still being tested and which uncertainty the buyer still carries. The test is that every claim the champion is likely to repeat carries one of those four labels, and an unlabelled claim counts as a fail.
5. The economic comparison the budget owner will use
A price without the buyer’s current alternative creates unnecessary work. The champion needs the relevant incumbent cost, workflow, avoided burden or value driver, with the boundary around any modelled assumptions. The test is that the price and the named incumbent cost appear side by side in the same unit, with modelled figures marked as modelled.
6. A credible implementation path
Operations will care about installation, integration, training, service, qualification and ownership. The case should show what happens after signature and which part belongs to the supplier, the buyer and any third party. The test is a task list in which every task after signature has one owner, and a task with no owner counts as a fail.
7. A map of authority and ownership
The champion needs to know who can approve, who can block, whose budget is affected and who inherits implementation. This shows when enthusiasm is circulating only among people who cannot cause the decision to move. The map also has to survive a change of people. Helmer Schukken of Rubio Impact Ventures, talking about circular-economy companies that stay in a niche, warned in his interview with Brighter Future in November 2024 about “the CEO or procurement manager who is substituted in after four years”, adding “but then you lose your business.” He was describing the risk of a market that rests on a few sympathetic buyers, and the same risk sits inside one buyer. A case held by one person ends when that person moves, so the map should name more than one owner for the decision.
8. A bounded first commitment
The eventual relationship may be large. The immediate decision should be clear enough that finance, procurement and operations know what is being accepted now and what remains conditional. The test is that the commitment states its scope, cost, duration and the conditions that stay open, in words finance can read without a call to the supplier.
9. A source layer for the questions that go deeper
Not every detail belongs in the first document. The champion should know where the technical evidence, data-room material, regulatory record and contractual detail live so they can answer deeper questions without inventing a new version of the story. Champions are not always specialists. Yvonne Jamal of JARO, describing the people who end up running sustainable procurement in her interview with Brighter Future in April 2023, said “Often, these people need help.” She was describing the people her institute works with, and the line fits many champions given a technical case to carry. The test is that each claim likely to be challenged points to a document the champion can send without asking the supplier first.
A champion who holds this one document can be questioned by finance, procurement and operations in the same week and give each of them the same company, and that consistency is what the people who were not in the room end up judging.
Sources and further reading
Tell us what needs to move.
Bring the brief if it is clear. If it is unclear, tell us where the work is stuck.
Bring us the problem