Most salespeople are trained in the product-driven system to sound the same.
Product slides. Feature lists. A smile and a script.
It’s why most of them sell like… well, most of them.
Champions - they are 1% of your sales team. Naturals make up only about 6% of the team, and they are different.
In fact, as one VP of Enablement revealed in a recent post, at a 400-rep SaaS company, only three reps consistently hit 150%+ of quota. Their behaviours broke every “best practice” they’d been trained in.
They don’t get lucky.
They get ready.
If you weren’t born one, here’s the blueprint.
Ten competencies you can actually learn if you’re willing to do the work.
No winging it. Champions know the company, the industry, the competitors, the people, and most importantly, the problems buyers are trying to solve, what is causing them, and how those problems are impacting them personally. This isn’t background research. It’s the foundation for relevance, empathy, and sharp discovery.
Not small talk. Not “how’s your day?” A prologue sets intent, shows you’ve done the work, and gives the buyer space to say what they want from meeting you. It's trust acceleration in under three minutes.
Skip the product pitch. Start with something happening in their world: market shifts, competitor moves, or industry trends. This opens the door to conversational discovery, not a one-sided lecture.
There is more than one way to skin a cat or solve the buyer’s problem. Champions know the whole landscape, not just their own patch. It makes you a guide, not a brochure.
Frame your positioning as the leader’s choice. Paint a picture so the buyer can describe their “perfect world” in their own words. You’re not selling features, you’re selling a vision they want to own.
Champions don’t try to overcome objections, they defuse them. They draw from Josh Braun’s practical playbook on objection handling and Chris Voss’s Never Split the Difference to use tactical empathy with precision. The goal isn’t to win the objection, but to understand, reframe, and move forward.
Facts tell, stories sell, but not just any story. Structured, buyer-relevant customer hero stories put them in the shoes of someone who made the leap and won. That’s emotional engagement with purpose.
Ten minutes from the end, ask if they’ve got their questions answered. If yes, build a Mutual Action Plan (MAP) that shows the steps to their next decision. If no, try to answer their unanswered question or better still ask “what would you need to see, hear, or for us to do to resolve that question?” Set another meeting if needed. If they still won’t commit, disqualify and move on.
Champions make it easier for buyers to buy.
They map the process steps, identify the key stakeholders, and clarify who is responsible for each action.
They also equip their internal champion with a story that is clear, compelling, and financially grounded, one they can take down the hall to the CFO and CEO and convincingly sell when you’re not there.
Visual confections, one-pagers, short videos. Champions give buyers tools that spread their vision without diluting it.
Reading this list is easy. Doing it under pressure is the hard part. That’s where the Consultative Selling Clinic & Whiteboard Storytelling Immersion comes in.
In the clinic, you map the buyer’s world visually, practise prologues until they sound natural, handle “yellow lights” live, not from a playbook, and build and present your big idea without slides.
We ran a session like this with the Mindit.io team. In a single day, they mastered confident, buyer-led conversations and techniques for resolving pricing objections. Whiteboard storytelling is the fastest way to take these ten competencies from theory to practice.
Champions aren’t born. They’re built.
All it takes is practice, purpose, and the will to act like one before you get the badge.
That’s why only about 1% of reps become champions and 6% are naturals. They master what others skim, and they practise what others avoid. The rest stay in the product-driven system.
The choice is yours.