Stakeholder Conflict Scenarios
Stakeholder Conflict: Your Champion Just Took a New Job
Mid-deal, your Champion announces they're leaving. The single biggest single-thread risk in enterprise sales.
The situation
$1.2M ARR deal at week 9 of a 12-week cycle. MAP is on track. Then your Champion (VP Customer Success) sends a LinkedIn message: 'Big personal news — I'm joining a different company in two weeks. It's been great working together.' She has a successor named, but the successor was an internal rival.
Key stakeholders
- Outgoing Champion (Priya)championVP CS — leaving in 2 weeks
- Successor (Marcus)neutralIncoming VP CS — internal rivalDid not work on this deal. May want to put his own stamp on tooling.
- CRO (Aisha)economic buyerEconomic Buyer
Step 1
Decision pointYou learned this on a Friday. The deal was in . What you do in the next 48 hours probably decides the outcome.
What is your first move?