Economic buyer and champion (EB, champ)
Two roles vendors look for inside a buying company: the economic buyer controls the budget and can say yes, and the champion sells the purchase internally.
In sales notes they are the EB and the champ. The economic buyer is often not the person on the calls: it can be a CFO, an owner or a board. The champion has influence, wants the problem solved and gets something from it personally; a friendly contact who cannot open doors is called a coach. Many enterprise deals stall because the champion never got the economic buyer to the table, or because the champion left the company.
Related terms
- BANT, CHAMP and MEDDPICC (sales qualification): Checklists vendors use to decide whether your deal is worth their time: budget, decision maker, pain, timeline and how the purchase gets approved.
- Mutual action plan (MAP, close plan): A shared, dated list of steps both buyer and vendor take from first call to signed contract and go-live, with an owner for each step.
- Payback period: How long it takes for savings or extra revenue from an investment to cover what it cost.
