Sales Stakeholder and Champion Map

Start with everything the deal has produced: call transcripts, email threads and meeting notes. Write down every person named, including people mentioned once in passing and people copied on an email who never wrote a word. Next to each mention, note who said it, where, and the exact words.

Expect a bigger cast than your calls suggest. The research firm Forrester, in its State of Business Buying 2026 report, counts 13 internal stakeholders and nine external influencers in a typical buying decision¹. A consultant, reseller or board adviser who keeps coming up belongs on the map too.

Then mark every self-mention. A person describing their own role is not evidence that anyone else routes decisions through them. For each person, count how many different people named them.

A job title tells you where someone sits, not what they decide. The verb does. "Priya runs the finance team" is a fact about her. "We'd want Priya's view" asks for her input. "Anything over $250,000 has to go past Priya" makes her a gate, someone who can stop the deal.

Next, give each person a role. Bain & Company's RAPID framework for business decisions names five: recommend, agree, perform, input and decide. Bain describes the agree role as the one that makes sure a recommendation meets mandatory requirements, such as legal or regulatory ones². In a purchase, that often means security, legal or procurement.

MEDDICC, a sales training company, lists three traits of a champion: power and influence, selling for you internally, and a vested interest in your success³. A helpful contact missing one of the three is what MEDDICC calls a coach, useful for insight and introductions, but not a champion.

Talk is not proof of power, so judge your champion by what other people say about them, with their self-mentions taken out. Then ask for something that costs a little, such as an introduction to the person who signs. MEDDICC warns that a champion unwilling or unable to introduce you to the economic buyer⁴ may not be a true champion.

Score the rest of the deal on evidence too. The MEDDICC deal qualification scorecard records where each score came from, whose words it rests on and how old they are.

Some of what you need is on the public record, so look it up instead of guessing. A company that files a 10-K with the SEC must list all its executive officers and every position each one holds⁵, under Item 401 of Regulation S-K. Look in the 10-K, often in a section called "Information about our Executive Officers," or in the proxy statement.

Compare the titles you hear with the filing. If people keep saying "our COO," check that the person they mean is the officer who holds that title. Before a first meeting, an account research brief lists the people a company names in its own filings, job postings and announcements.

Officer changes are public too. The SEC's guide to the 8-K says a company must disclose when its CEO, CFO, COO or another high-level officer leaves, and when a new one is appointed⁶. Most 8-K disclosures are due within four business days. A new CFO in the middle of a deal is a reason to redraw the map.

For US federal deals, the rules are written down. Under the Federal Acquisition Regulation, contracting officers enter into contracts for the government. They may bind the government only to the extent of the authority delegated to them⁷, and the official who appoints them puts those limits in writing. Before you plan the signature, ask whether a deal your size is within the contracting officer's limits.

Now look for who is missing. Write down the teams that took part in your last few won deals of a similar size, then check which ones nobody in this deal has named. Finance, security, legal and procurement are worth checking first. A team with no mentions is a question to ask, not proof it isn't involved.

• Nobody has named procurement. Ask Dev: "Once the COO signs, who sends the purchase order?"
• Security came up without a name. Ask Marta: "Who reviews new vendors for security, and how long does that usually take?"
• Priya is the top gate and you've never met her. Ask Dev: "Could Priya join ten minutes of our next call to cover payment terms?"

Aim each question at one named person, and make it answerable in a sentence. "Who else is involved?" gets a shrug. Track the answers, owners and dates in a mutual action plan, where every step has one named person against it.

Update the map after every call or thread that adds a name or changes what someone decides, and date each change. Redraw it when the buyer reorganizes, a new executive arrives or your champion changes jobs.

The tool at the top of this page does the first pass for you. Paste your transcripts and emails, and River lists everyone named, the quote behind each role and the questions to ask next.