The Importance of Executive-Level Sponsorship

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The power of a phone call…can make all the difference in the world.

Every CEO loses deals. The ones that haunt you are not the ones you fairly lost; they are the ones you never got the chance to touch.

The contract that slipped away because no one asked your CEO to make the call they could have made in five minutes. The partnership that stalled because they never flagged it up to leadership.

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A CEO’s time is scarce, and presence is leverage. Used well, a single conversation can compress months of politics into a week, unblock a strategic account, or signal that an opportunity is not just another deal, it is company-level important.

Used poorly, the chances that the door opens back up for senior leadership to support you become more limited.

This week’s newsletter is about drawing that line with intent. When should an opportunity really reach your desk? What a CEO worthy ask should look like. And what, exactly, you should do in those moments so you never again hear, “We might have won that, but we did not loop you in until it was too late”.

Let’s dance.

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A Fear No One Talks About

A CEO’s calendar is already overwhelmed. Their day is carved into small blocks of time, their attention is constantly pulled in competing directions, and every leader in the business believes that their deal is strategic and urgent.

Over time, the default response to most requests becomes “no.”
No, I cannot join that call.
No, I cannot send that email.
No, I cannot block out an hour for that meeting.

Most of the time, this is the correct call. The CEO’s time is the most expensive and most limited resource in the company, and it must be protected. The CEO cannot afford to treat every opportunity as if it deserves top-level attention.

But underneath this necessary discipline sits a quiet fear that rarely gets discussed openly.

The organization has no shared definition of what makes an opportunity worthy of CEO attention. There is no clear standard for when a deal should be escalated. There is no consistent format for how a request for CEO involvement should be framed.

As a result, leaders hesitate. They worry about bothering the CEO. They are not sure if their deal “qualifies.” They decide to wait one more week, one more meeting, one more conversation.

That hesitation is expensive.

Eventually, the worst-case scenario arrives. The company loses a must‑win opportunity. Afterward, someone asks a painful question: “If we had brought this to you earlier and asked you to make a call, do you think it would have changed the outcome?”

The CEO cannot honestly say no.

Be sure to check out some of my recent articles here:

Structure Is Your Superpower 

Pivot or Perish: Seizing Your Advantage in the Wake of Policy Changes 

How Strategic Referrals Cement Your Position as a Power Player 

Decide What Deserves Attention

You cannot depend on informal judgment to decide which deals should reach the CEO’s desk.

You need a clear definition of what “CEO‑worthy” means.

A practical way to do this is to create a short checklist that everyone understands and can apply. The goal is not complexity; it is clarity. You want your leaders and your business development team to be able to look at an opportunity and say, “This qualifies,” or “This does not.”

A deal deserves CEO involvement if it meets at least two of the following criteria:

• It drives a top strategic priority. The deal directly supports one of the company’s top strategic goals, such as entering a new market, landing an anchor logo in a critical segment, winning a critical government contract, or securing a platform position that creates leverage across multiple lines of business.

• It is materially significant at your level. This could mean the deal is among the top ten to twenty opportunities in the global pipeline, is above a clearly defined revenue or margin threshold, or is a multi‑year, multi‑asset agreement that materially affects long‑term performance.

• You bring unique leverage. In this scenario, the CEO has something that the rest of the team does not. This might include a peer‑to‑peer relationship, a reputation that changes how the company is perceived, or influence at a board, regulatory, or policy level that can shift the environment around the deal.

• Progress is blocked above the sales leader’s pay grade. The opportunity is stuck with a senior stakeholder, a policy decision, an internal governance process, or a political issue that cannot be resolved by the account team alone. The barrier sits at a level where only executive‑to‑executive engagement can move things forward.

• Losing locks you out. For how long? Well…it could be for years. Some opportunities are gateways. Framework contracts, long‑term concessions, strategic infrastructure projects, and platform selections often come with long time horizons. If the company loses now, there may not be another meaningful opening for three, five, or even ten years.

You do not need a long explanation. You need a simple sentence that the entire organization can remember and use:

If a deal is strategic, materially significant, and blocked where only the CEO can move it, it should be on the CEO’s radar.

With this definition in place, you remove a major source of hesitation. Leaders know when they should escalate. They also know when they should not.

Making the Ask Impossible to Misunderstand

Simplicity is key. If details are needed, then definitely provide. Many CEOs do not dislike being involved in deals. They dislike the way requests for their involvement are presented.

The typical escalation sounds vague.
“Can you help?”
“We really need you on this.”
“It would be huge if you could join this call.”

These are not clear requests. They are emotional signals.

To fix this, you need to make the expectations painfully simple. When someone asks for a CEO’s support on a deal, the request must fit on one screen and answer five specific questions. Nothing more, nothing less.

Here is the format:

1. What is the opportunity?
   The request explains who the customer is, the size and term of the opportunity, and which strategic priority it supports. This gives the CEO immediate context.

2. Where are we in the cycle?
   The request states the current stage in simple language and notes the next key dates, such as upcoming meetings, deadlines, or decision points.

3. What is blocking us?
   The request describes the primary obstacle in one sentence and names the role or title of the person or group where progress is stuck.

4. Why you?
   The request explains why the CEO, specifically, is the right person to intervene. It highlights the unique leverage the CEO has, such as a relationship, positional authority, or influence in a particular arena.

5. What exactly are you being asked to do in the next seven days?
   The request makes a concrete, time‑bound ask. For example, it might request a phone call, a short email, an introduction, participation in a key meeting, or a note of internal air cover.

That is all.

There is no need for a twenty‑slide deck, a long narrative, or a complex appendix. The CEO gets one screen, five questions, and enough clarity to make a fast decision.

This allows the CEO to respond in a binary way: yes, no, or “not CEO‑level, handle this at the next level down.” The conversation becomes crisp. The emotional noise disappears.

Pick Your Next Play

Decide what you will actually do when the CEO says yes to supporting you.

Most CEOs run into friction here because they treat every situation as unique. Every deal escalation becomes a custom project. Custom projects take time. Time kills momentum. Eventually, the opportunity moves on without the CEO, or the intervention comes too late to matter.

You can avoid this by defining a short, repeatable playbook. When a deal meets the criteria, and the request arrives in the right format, you commit to respond within seventy‑two hours with one of a small set of actions.

For example, your playbook might include the following moves:

• The Credibility Call. In this move, you make a brief peer‑to‑peer call with the key decision‑maker. In five to ten minutes, you explain why the relationship matters to the company, why you are personally invested in the success of the partnership, and how your organization intends to support the customer’s goals.

• The Doors‑Open Introduction. In this move, you send a concise, high‑impact email, text, or message that opens a door your team cannot open on its own. The message signals that your team is not just another vendor and that the conversation is worth the recipient’s time.

• The Air‑Cover Note. In this move, you send a message internally that designates the opportunity as strategic. You instruct internal teams to treat it as a company‑level priority, remove unnecessary friction, and provide timely support. The note gives the account team permission to ask for what they need.

• The Policy or Partnership Nudge. In this move, you reach out to a partner, a board member, an industry association, or a policymaker who can influence the context around the deal. Your goal is to accelerate a decision, unblock a regulatory barrier, or align interests at the top.

You do not need a long list. You need two or three moves that you are willing to use consistently.

Your value as CEO is not in personally running the opportunity. Your value is in reframing its importance, using your unique leverage, and unlocking what your team cannot unlock alone.

This is not the only thing on the CEO’s plate; it might be the most important thing on yours, but they have a lot of theirs. So you need to respect their day and time as much as you can.

Why This Matters

Some leaders will escalate every opportunity and receive frequent support. Others will hesitate and never ask. Some deals will benefit from executive attention. Others, equally important, will not. Over time, this creates frustration inside the organization and leaves value on the table.

To avoid this, you must turn a CEO’s involvement into a system rather than a one-off favor.

The move is straightforward.

Define what “CEO‑worthy” means using your version of the simple checklist and framework. Second, describe the one‑slide, five‑question request format. Third, commit to a response time and to the specific actions you are willing to take. This can be for policy, advocacy, marketing, business development, operations, etc.

Once you put rules like this in writing, you remove ambiguity. You make it easier for your leaders to ask for help when they should, and harder for them to remain silent when they should not.

What the Internet Taught Me This Week

From new tools, recent trends, and market updates, here is what has been on my mind.

1. Pentagon threatens Anthropic punishment. Check it out here

2. France dumps Zoom and Teams as Europe seeks digital autonomy from the US. Check it out here

3. Momentum is building to meet electricity demand in Texas with small nuclear reactors. Check it out here

You cannot fix what you do not see. They cannot escalate what you have not defined.

There is a difference between a clean loss and a preventable one. A clean loss is when you showed up with your best team, your best offer, and your best effort, and the answer was still no. A preventable loss is when the team quietly fought for a strategic deal, hit a wall, and never pulled the one lever only you can pull.

Show them what a real CEO level request looks like. Hold them accountable for using you when the stakes justify it, and give them cover when they do.

A five minute call, an intro, or a simple signal from you would have changed the outcome. And over a long enough horizon, that difference, knowing exactly when and how to put your name on the field, is one of the quietest, sharpest advantages a team and working with a CEO can build.

See you next week.

Whenever You’re Ready, Here are 4 Ways I Can Help You:

1. Unlocking Hidden Potential – Reconnecting with Past Clients for Explosive Growth – Check out my free eBook on how you can find hidden gems in your past clients and help you crush your sales goals.

2. AI for Business Development – Download our free eBook on how you can effectively leverage AI prompts to your advantage. From properly setting up your preferred AI tool, to how to shape your prompts, save time, and get the outputs you are looking for.

3. Sales Resources at Your Fingertips – From tools, tips, demos, and how-tos, check out our Pages and content that can provide you with additional support, whether it be social selling, account management, or something else.

4. Cribworks Advisor Program – Want more than just resources? Reach out to me and see if our Advisor Program can help you scale your business.