Adoption Lives in the Trenches, Not the Boardroom
Systems don’t adopt themselves. It takes people. And the best ones rarely have “decision-maker” in their job description.
You don’t win long-term customers with executive buy-in alone.
The real test comes after the contract is signed—when the tool is dropped into a live environment and expected to be adopted without fuss or drama.
A product’s adoption lives or dies in the hands of its users. That’s where champions come in.
We're not just talking about power users here. We're talking about those who bridge the gap between strategy and reality. The ones who make things actually work.
The ones who flip the proverbial desk at the threat of their favourite tool getting taken away.
The Two Audiences You Can’t Ignore
Decision Makers open the door. Champions keep it open.
Executives think in outcomes: efficiency, risk, scalability. They care about vision. About leverage. But their altitude means they’re often removed from the friction of daily use.
Their job is to ask:
Does this support our growth?
What does success look like at scale?
How does this simplify, not complicate?
Champions are different. These are your operations leads, your technical coordinators, your “I just pressed F12 and hacked a better way” resources. They’re not sold on dreams. They’re convinced by utility.
They ask:
Will this solve the fire I’m putting out right now?
Can I make this bend to our internal business logic?
Will it make things better for my team, today?
The Truth Is You Need Both
And not just vaguely. You need to bridge them.
Too many solution providers talk at executives and around champions. Adoption thrives when you become the translator.
A tool that pleases leadership but frustrates the floor won’t get used. Valuable tools are at risk of getting cut if they’re invisible to leadership. The value chain only holds if both ends are connected
When trying to be that translator, positioning needs to reflect the needs and values of the other group, in language that can be understood within their world view.
With Executives:
Consider how to show the downstream effects of smoother processes enabled by your solution.
Quantify what champions already know: time saved, errors reduced, process clarity.
With Champions:
Solve a pain point immediately. No gatekeeping information over a months-long ramp-up, or promises of a better future.
Give them flexibility, autonomy, and resources to build with your product, not just use it.
And for both?
Be the internal champion and mediator for each group and help to make the value chain visible. Show how a small functional process tweak your product enables, and how that translates directly into better business metrics (and where).
Connect the micro with the macro.
Why Champions Are Your Secret Weapon
They’re not just users. They’re the internal glue—connecting systems, people, and outcomes.
These are passionate product advocates with a keen eye on the jobs they need to get done, and how their tool stack integrates to help them do it. Many started in or developed into roles that required them to notice what breaks and quietly fix it.
What makes them powerful:
They are problem spotters who see the edge cases your onboarding guide missed.
They are the context builders who know how tools interact, not just how they function alone.
They are trusted voices among peers and within their organization. When they say something works, people listen.
But they won’t blindly champion something that creates more chaos than it cures.
Where Adoption Goes to Die
Inertia will always beat innovation if the right context isn't given at the right time to the right people.
Ultimately, most adoption efforts fail because:
Silos Create Breakage
Executive priorities and frontline processes get treated like separate animals. But systems don’t work in silos. Champions can flag breaking changes—if they’re involved early.
Lack of Context for Techs
Software handed down without rationale or training feels like a punishment, not an upgrade. If champions don’t understand why it matters, they won’t make it matter.
Resistance Isn’t About Change
People don’t hate change. They hate when change brings confusion, double work, or brittle handoffs. Ease of transition matters just as much as long-term promise.
(I’ll dig deeper into what I'll refer to as "The Whole Elephant Problem" in a later post.)
A Better Engagement Strategy
Stay tuned for a future breakdown in #TheThread where I’ll share how we adapted the 5 Rings of Buyer Insight at Auvik to integrate technical champions into ongoing buying and success strategies.
Here’s a sneak peek:
Interview Executives: Don’t just ask what they want—understand what they fear. Ask them to tell you the stories they tell in boardrooms and sales calls.
Interview Champions: What slows them down? What did they duct-tape together last week? What are they quietly proud of fixing?
Then, design your product—and how you support those using it—at that intersection.
When you align the executive’s definition of success with the champion’s daily reality, you’re helping to translate the business requirements into application functionality.
And that’s when adoption becomes inevitable
This is so well written, and well read. It’s clear that you’ve lived it, on all sides before…
Distilling down this critical truth is something the industry should take note of, and leverage as the North Star for adjusting how vendors approach MSPs when delivering solutions.
This is a far cry from a tone deaf deployment, with a “check-in” before renewal.
This is the way.