Concepts
Buying committee
The buying committee is everyone whose yes (or non-objection) is required to issue a purchase order. The champion is one seat on it. The economic buyer — the person who owns the budget and writes the check — is another, and sometimes they are the same person. Users, procurement, and security round it out.
Why it matters
Section titled “Why it matters”Deals die in rooms the vendor is not in, and they also die when the one person you knew leaves.
From the room
Section titled “From the room”The champion is not the buying committee.
Score each stakeholder positive, negative, or neutral. Negative users often convert when they feel they are contributing to the pilot; give them one-on-one time. Procurement and security convert by a documented path you started in week one. The CIO session’s version of the same idea: the champion closes the deal in rooms you never enter, so you arm them — and you still sell sideways into the functions the CIO serves, because cold-pitching the top does not work.
A GTM session added the targeting version: the people who feel the pain (operators, ramp agents, users) are often not on the initial list, and they can advocate from the ground up faster than you can get a meeting with the CFO. Market to them. If the product is visual, show it. If a first pilot can sit under the approval threshold, you skip a sign-off and earn the larger deal from the inside.
Where founders get it wrong
Section titled “Where founders get it wrong”- Champion = deal.
- Security as an afterthought.
- Leaving fearful users out of the pilot.
- One contact.
Numbers from the room
Section titled “Numbers from the room”| Figure | Value |
|---|---|
| CIO/CISO cold-outreach response | Well under 0.5% |
| Credit-card threshold that skipped AP (one deal) | $20K, closed in four days |
| When to start security and procurement | In parallel with the pilot, not after it |
Go deeper
Section titled “Go deeper”- Pilots that convert and Selling to the enterprise.
- GTM as a system covers pain-feeler vs. buyer and the approval-threshold door-opener.
- Related concepts: Internal champion, Pilot vs. paid contract, Vitamin vs. painkiller.