3 Signs Your Champion Is Not That Into You (And How to Prevent Heartbreak)
Victoria Myers
September 16, 2025
1.avif)
Picture this: You've been nurturing what you thought was a rock solid champion relationship for months. They seemed engaged, asked the right questions, and even introduced you to a few power players. Then suddenly, radio silence. Your deal stalls, and you're left wondering what went wrong.
Sound familiar? Champion relationships are the lifeblood of complex B2B sales, yet they're also notoriously fragile and fickle. When they go sideways, the impact is devastating, but the warning signs are often subtle enough that by the time you notice, it's already too late.
Is there a way to prevent heartbreak?
We interviewed our own sellers about their most painful champion breakups and discovered three red flags that consistently appear before deals derail, and how to course-correct before you’re left with a broken heart and empty pockets.
Here's the thing about champion relationships: when they're good, they're really good. We all know from experience, having a strong champion relationship is like having a committed partner who actually wants to introduce you to their friends (aka other stakeholders). Without them, you're just another vendor sliding into the company's DMs, hoping someone will notice.
But here's where the metaphor gets painfully real: just like in dating, volume doesn't equal quality. Research shows that the average pipeline is three times larger than actual closed-won revenue (Clari, 2025). That gap isn't due exclusively to excessive AE optimism; it also often includes deals with champion relationships that seemed promising but were secretly falling apart.
The emotional (and financial) toll of losing a champion extends far beyond individual deals. With 70% of sales rep time spent on non-selling activities (Salesforce, 2024), and average B2B sales cycles stretching 84 days for SaaS companies (HubSpot, 2024), investing months in a relationship that quietly goes cold is like being in a bad relationship for three months before realizing your "partner" has been emotionally checked out since week two.
Through interviews with Account Executives we work with, three patterns emerged consistently across failed champion relationships. These weren't sudden deal deaths; they were gradual relationship erosions that could have been prevented with earlier intervention. But in the moment, they left the reps feeling blindsided.
The Sign: Your champion used to pepper you with thoughtful questions about implementation, integration, and impact. Now your calls feel more like monologues, with them responding with polite "uh-huhs" instead of diving deeper.
Why It Matters: Champion curiosity is your early indicator of genuine engagement and internal advocacy. When someone stops asking questions, they've likely stopped thinking about how your solution fits into their world. This often signals they've either found concerns they're not sharing, or they're no longer actively championing your solution internally.
The Hidden Damage: A disengaged champion isn't just neutral; they're actively harmful. They're still taking up your "champion slot" in the organization while providing zero advocacy. Meanwhile, you're missing opportunities to identify and cultivate alternative champions who might actually drive the deal forward.
What Usually Happens Next: These relationships limp along for weeks or months, creating false confidence in deal viability. By the time you realize they've mentally checked out, your competition has already built stronger relationships with more engaged stakeholders.
The Sign: Your previously helpful champion suddenly becomes evasive about connecting you with the economic buyer, sharing competitor details, or providing complete stakeholder information. They give you partial answers or defer meetings they used to facilitate easily.
Why It Matters: Gatekeeping behavior often indicates your champion is losing internal credibility or confidence in your solution. They may have faced pushback from stakeholders about your product, or they're protecting themselves politically by limiting your access to decision-makers.
The Hidden Damage: Limited access creates information asymmetry. You're flying blind on objections, competitive threats, and decision criteria while your champion loses influence by appearing to restrict rather than facilitate the evaluation process.
What Usually Happens Next: Without direct economic buyer access, you can't address real concerns or differentiate against competitors. The evaluation stalls or moves forward without your input, often resulting in a loss to a competitor who managed to secure better stakeholder access.
The Sign: Response times stretch from hours to days, then to weeks. When they do respond, it's brief and lacks the enthusiasm or detail they used to provide. Meeting reschedules become frequent, and follow-up commitments get missed.
Why It Matters: Communication velocity is a useful relationship health barometer. Slower responses often indicate shifting priorities, internal pressure, or diminished enthusiasm for your solution. In B2B sales, timing is everything, and delayed champion responses kill deal momentum.
The Hidden Damage: Research shows that 25% of sales conversions happen between two and seven days after initial contact (Zendesk, 2022). When champion response velocity drops, you miss critical decision windows and lose competitive positioning.
What Usually Happens Next: Extended response times create deal drift. Your proposal ages, competitive comparisons become stale, and stakeholder urgency dissipates. Eventually, the evaluation either dies or moves forward with vendors who maintain better communication cadence.
When champion relationships deteriorate unnoticed, the damage compounds quickly. Consider the math: if average B2B sales cycles run 84 days, and 43% of organizations miss revenue opportunities due to process inefficiencies (Conga, 2024), then champion relationship failures represent both time and revenue loss.
But the impact goes beyond individual deals. Lost champion relationships create several downstream effects:
This is where having an AI teammate like our AI Sales Agent, Ava, becomes invaluable, not as a replacement for champion building, but as your early warning system and strategic advisor.
Unlike traditional CRM alerts or sales analytics tools, Ava has your back through the entire sales cycle. She understands the nuanced patterns of champion relationship health. She doesn't just track activities; she analyzes the relationship evolution over time and identifies concerning trends before they become deal-killers. With the brain of an expert B2B seller, Ava can read between the lines of call transcripts and email threads, taking a proactive and protective approach to deal strategy.
Ava continuously monitors stakeholder engagement patterns. She can identify concerning shifts weeks before they become obvious, giving you time to intervene. She can also help you brainstorm the next best steps to either preserve or end the relationship without further delay.
Beyond identifying problems, Ava provides tactical guidance based her expertise in B2B sales and her knowledge of your product(s) and sales process. She might recommend specific stakeholder workshops, suggest competitive positioning strategies, or identify alternative champions within the organization.
Ava tracks competitive dynamics alongside stakeholder behavior, connecting dots that human reps might miss in the chaos of a full book of business. If champion engagement drops after competitor mentions, she can provide specific defensive strategies based on competitive knowledge and deal dynamics.
When champion relationships show warning signs, Ava can help identify and cultivate alternative advocates within the organization. She automatically maps stakeholder influence networks and can suggest relationship-building approaches for each persona.
Champion relationships will always be complex, nuanced, and occasionally heartbreaking. Having an AI teammate like Ava won’t change that. But it does mean you don't have to navigate these relationships blindfolded.
Think of Ava as your deal relationship intelligence analyst; someone who's always paying attention, never gets emotionally attached to deals, and has pattern recognition from thousands of similar situations. She doesn't replace your relationship skills; she amplifies them by providing the insights and early warnings you need to be proactive & personalized rather than reactive and blindsided.
Other AI Sales Agents help you find what happened after the fact. Ava helps you decide what to do next as you work a deal together. When it comes to champion relationships, that difference can mean the difference between closed lost and quota.
Because the best relationships, like the best deals, are the ones where you see problems coming and fix them before they become unfixable. With Ava as your teammate, you'll never be caught off guard by champion relationship red flags again.
Ready to transform how you manage deals? Discover how Ava can help you spot relationship red flags early and win more deals at vivun.com/ai-sales-agent.
