CHAMP — Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritisation

What is CHAMP?

CHAMP (Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritisation) is a qualification framework built as a corrective to BANT. The reordering is the whole point: BANT starts with budget, which asks a stranger about money before you have earned the right, while CHAMP starts with challenges, which is the only thing the buyer actually wants to discuss. Authority replaces BANT's implicit assumption that you are speaking to a decision maker with an explicit mapping of who approves what. Money comes third, once a problem worth solving exists to price against. Prioritisation replaces timeline, which is a sharper question: not when they might buy, but where this sits against everything else competing for the same budget and attention. CHAMP suits mid-market deals with two to five stakeholders; for enterprise deals with formal procurement, MEDDIC or MEDDPICC cover more ground.

When to use CHAMP

• Mid-market deals with a handful of stakeholders
• Inbound qualification calls where BANT feels abrupt
• SDR-to-AE handoff criteria

Real examples

• Challenges: 'What's the thing that made you take this call?'
• Authority: 'Who else would need to be comfortable with this before it went ahead?'
• Money: 'Is there budget allocated, or would this need to be found?'
• Prioritisation: 'Where does this sit against the other things competing for Q3?'

Common mistakes

• Running it as a checklist so the buyer feels processed rather than understood.
• Accepting a vague challenge without quantifying its cost.
• Treating prioritisation as a timeline question — 'when' is weaker than 'against what'.
• Using CHAMP on an enterprise deal where paper process and competition go unexamined.

Want to practice CHAMP live? Run a roleplay with an AI buyer.