Most advice on multi-threading says go wide, go high, and go early. On the “high and early” part, Gong’s research on selling to executives points the other way: win rates drop by roughly 6% when an evaluation starts with an executive, and rise 5% when executives join around the third touchpoint.
So here’s our take. Multi-threading is a question of order, not headcount. You need a real champion first, and every introduction after that goes through them. The executive comes in once there’s something worth their time.
What is multi-threading in sales?
Multi-threading is building relationships with more than one person at the company you’re selling to: the people who’ll use what you sell, the people who’ll evaluate it, and the person who signs. A single-threaded deal has one contact. When that person goes quiet, changes jobs, or can’t get budget, the deal stops with them.
Plenty of people have a say. Forrester’s 2026 look at business buying found that, on average, 13 internal stakeholders and nine external participants influence a purchase. And in Gong’s analysis of 1.8 million deals closed in 2024, won deals had twice as many buyer contacts as lost ones.
Why should you go through your champion?
Because your champion is how every other introduction happens. A contact talks to you. A champion tells you what’s going on inside, sets up the meeting you ask for, and makes your case when you’re not in the room.
The top answer in an r/sales thread on multi-threading approaches, pasted from 30MPC’s Nick Cegelski, puts it plainly: “Don’t stop prospecting an account until you’ve found a CHAMPION. Most folks settle for a contact.” Gong’s executive research gives the same order: find “a strong champion early,” then widen.
If you’re not sure whether you have a champion or just a contact, ask for an introduction and see what happens. Our MEDDPICC guide covers how to test a champion in more detail.
Going through your champion also protects the relationship you already have. Reach around them to their boss and you’ve told them you don’t trust them to carry it. You might get the meeting, and lose the person who’d have gotten you the next five. Ask them to bring their boss in, and they get to be the person who found you.
What do you do when your champion won’t introduce you?
Find out why first. A champion who holds back usually has a reason, and what you ask for next depends on which one it is. Sellers describe these five in threads on the subject:
| Why they hold back | What it sounds like | What to say |
|---|---|---|
| They’re a contact, not a champion | “Let me get back to you on that.” | Keep looking. Ask who feels the problem most, and offer that person something useful before you ask for their time. |
| They doubt it will get buy-in | “I don’t want to waste their time until we’re sure.” | “Fair. What would they need to see to think it’s worth 20 minutes? Let’s put that together first.” |
| They’ve been told to own it alone | “I’m running point on this one.” | “Good, you should stay the lead. Would it help if I joined you for 15 minutes with them, so you’ve got answers ready for their questions?” |
| They want to keep another team out | “Finance doesn’t need to be involved yet.” | Offer a call between peers, with your champion on it: “Our finance lead usually handles those questions. Could we set up a short call with yours, with you on it?” |
| A senior buyer handed you to someone without budget | “Talk to Jill, she handles this.” | Before you leave the senior buyer, ask to come back: “Would it be OK if I circle back after Jill and I look at this, to share what we found about the problem you mentioned?” |
Rows two and three are champions worried about how it’ll look. A seller in an r/sales thread on champions who resist described row two well: “sometimes the champion knows the solution is unlikely to get buy in and therefore feels as if they are wasting their time.” Another wondered whether the person “has been told they need to own the effort and run with it solo.” The fix for both is the same. Make the next meeting their win, not your agenda.
The last row is the easiest to miss in the moment. In an older r/sales thread, a seller explained that senior buyers “pass me off to their specialists underneath them,” who “are often not free to make their own budgetary decisions.” The circle-back keeps the door open to the senior buyer, who can actually decide on budget, and it only works while they still remember why they took the meeting.
Whatever the reason, make the introduction easy. Write it for your champion, short enough to forward as is: who you are, why their colleague should care, and one ask.
Who should you bring in, and when?
After your champion, bring in the people who’ll use it every day and whoever will check it technically, while you’re still showing what it does. Their questions shape the evaluation, and they’re the ones who’ll later tell their boss it works. Bring in procurement, legal, or security once you know a deal is coming, and ask your champion early how long their reviews usually take.
The executive is where timing matters most, and you can miss in both directions. Too early, and you’re in the group where Gong sees win rates drop. Too late is the mistake Highspot lists among the biggest: “waiting to connect with senior decision-makers until getting closer to agreement.” Bring the person who owns the budget in around the third touch, when your champion can tell them what the team has already seen, and well before the quote, so the price isn’t the first thing they hear from you.
How many people you need depends on the deal. Gong’s research says a won $50K to $250K deal “typically involves at least 10 stakeholders.” You won’t have a real relationship with all 10. You need the few who decide, and a champion who can bring the rest along.
How do you keep every thread going?
Threads die between calls, not on them. Four habits keep them alive:
- Turn group calls into 1:1s. The same r/sales thread suggests it: “After a big group meeting, use LinkedIn to start 1:1 conversations with each person you’ve met.” Six people on one call is still one thread.
- Look up every new name before the next call. When the buyer mentions someone (“I’ll loop in our ops lead”), write it down and find out who they are before you meet them. That’s part of call prep, not an extra.
- Keep the executive in the loop, briefly. “If you’ve met with an exec, give them regular updates (keep ’em short) on how conversations with their team are going,” says the same thread. Two sentences after a milestone is plenty.
- Keep who’s who in the CRM. Each person’s role, what they care about, and when you last spoke belong on the deal record, so a rep covering the deal next week doesn’t start from one contact.
All four slip on a busy week. Arrows does the prep and the paperwork behind them, and your rep does the talking. We build your team’s playbook with you on one kickoff call: how your best reps handle the moments that come up on most deals, in plain English. If the playbook says reps check in with the champion before every exec meeting, Arrows makes that happen. Each deal gets a gameplan: the path to close, built from the playbook and kept current as the deal changes. Our agents read each deal’s calls, emails, and CRM record. When a new person shows up on a thread, they research that person and draft the intro ask for your rep, and they write approved updates back to your CRM. Nothing sends until your rep approves it, and the relationship stays your rep’s. The agents start on your open deals the same day as the kickoff. Here’s what an agent does on an open deal, start to finish.
What is the downside of multi-threading?
Two things go wrong. The first is going around your champion, and it’s the expensive one: ask them first, every time. The second is noise. ZoomInfo’s own guide to multi-threading is blunt about it: “Can you multi-thread too much? Yes. Spamming an account with uncoordinated outreach damages credibility.” Every person you contact should hear from you for a reason that’s about them, and your champion should never be surprised to hear you did.