Intro: What is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is a powerhouse sales methodology and framework for driving successful sales strategies.
MEDDIC, an acronym, stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. Let's break it down:
- Metrics: Start by understanding the key metrics and objectives of your potential customer. What are their business goals? How can your solution align with and improve these metrics?
- Economic Buyer: Identify the decision-maker with the purchasing power, the economic buyer. Engage them early on to understand their needs and goals.
- Decision Criteria: Comprehend the specific criteria that the customer uses to make buying decisions. This includes both business and personal factors that influence their choices.
- Decision Process: Understand the steps and stakeholders involved in the customer's decision-making process. Know who influences the decision, who approves it, and who executes it.
- Identify Pain: Pinpoint the pain points and challenges the customer is facing. Tailor your solution to alleviate these pain points effectively.
- Champion: Identify and nurture a champion within the customer's organization. This is someone who believes in your solution and can advocate for it internally.
By integrating these elements into your sales approach, you're setting yourself up for success. Understanding the customer's metrics and goals, engaging the economic buyer, aligning with decision criteria and processes, addressing their pain points, and having a champion in their corner significantly increase your chances of closing the deal.
Remember, effective sales is about building strong relationships and delivering value that aligns with the customer's needs. MEDDIC helps you do just that.
1. Sales Process Overview
Our Sales Process is comprised of 3 elements:
1. Sales Formula (example: MEDDIC)
2. Sales Methodology (example: Corporate Visions)
3. Sales Stages (Guides 1-5)
Each one of these helps YOU guide the buyer through the evaluation of our solution. Let's dive deeper into how they fit together.
2. Sales Formula | MEDDIC Framework
MEDDIC is our philosophy or formula of WHAT the key elements are that make up a ‘real deal’.
Reps & their managers use these CORE elements to identify risk & drive urgency within each stage of a deal.
- Metrics: Measure the potential gain leading to the economic benefit of your solution to the status quo
- Economic Buyer: Identify and meet the person who has the ultimate word to release funds to purchase
- Decision Criteria: Know and Influence the criteria defined by the client to make the purchase
- Decision Process: Know and influence the process defined by the client to make purchase decision
- Identify Pain: Identify and Analyze the pains which require your solution
- Champion: Identify, Qualify, Develop and Test your Champion or your internal seller
🤷🏿 Why do we use a process like MEDDIC:
- Better qualify prospects: By asking smarter questions, it stops us from wasting time on bad deals
- Simplify the sales process: It makes sales about gathering information rather than using tired tricks
- Forecast better: By understanding the customer’s buying process, we can better predict when deals will close
- Coach to deal gaps: Managers can identify missing information and potential roadblocks to a deal
- Create a common language: By using a common framework, we reduce the subjectiveness of what makes a "good prospect or deal"
- Increase close rates: By working hand-in-hand with the buyer, we can control the deal to finish line.
3. Sales Methodology | Corporate Visions
Corporate Visions is a B2B sales methodology designed to tell our reps HOW we engage the right buyers interested in us.
🤷🏿 Why do we use a process like Corporate Visions?
The sour truth is that the majority of buyers prefer to do nothing instead of change.
Staying the same is safe and comfortable, while change is associated with threat and risk. To break through buyer inertia and get prospects to leave their current situation, we need to tell a story that makes a compelling case for why they should change, and why they should change now. With Corporate Visions, our sellers will go beyond the typical 'value proposition'. Reps will understand how to bring our disruption-minded story to life with skills rooted in Decision Science.
Additionally, the approach for new business acquisition (why change, why now) is different from the approach for expansion with current customers (Why stay, why Evolve). Corporate visions recognize this and bring those elements together for a full GTM motion.
Why Change: Why should I change from my current situation?
Why You: Why should I choose you instead of someone else?
Why Stay: Why should I renew with you?
Why Evolve: Why should I expand my relationship with you?
Additional Resources:
🧭 Create Value curriculum outline
🧭 Elevate Value curriculum outline
📞 Corporate Visions call playlist!
4. Sales Stages Outline and Expectations
OUR SALES STAGES AND PROCESS
Our Sales Stages is the linear path that visually represents the timeline for WHEN to close the deal.
In this section, you will see a preview of what you can expect with each of the sales stages and descriptive approach to preparing, delivering and aligning to the right #MEDDICC exit criteria for each stage!
5. MEDDIC - Metrics
MEDDIC: M stands for Metrics
WORDS are not METRICS
Metrics measure the potential gain leading to the economic benefit of your solution vs. the status quo. This is where you really dive deep to understand how they will create a business case and quantify the value of investing in a solution.
Good Example: Make sure that the Metric is quantifiable. It should have a [Number] and [Timeframe] attached to it. See below differences:
- Reduce Ramp time from 6 months to 4 months
- Reduce Churn that's at 15-20%
- Increase our close rate by 15%
- Reduction in average handling time per support case by 20%
- Get to 100% activation and adoption of Salesforce by November
🗣️ Sample Discovery Questions
- If you purchase a solution like "our product", how will you justify this purchase in 6 months?
- What success outputs are you trying to achieve by purchasing a solution?
- How is your team measured today and how would a solution like this improve or enhance those?
- How will you track or measure the success of this priority or project 6 months down the line?
- What key metric are you trying to improve or are tasked with improving?
- What are some of the key metrics that you discuss internally that you think we should be aware of?
- What's getting in the way of (you, the team, or the company) in hitting these metrics?
- What metrics do you think are most important to (insert boss name)?
- What happens if you don't hit these metrics?
MEDDIC METRICS
- Better onboarding: Time to first deal closed within 60 days to post onboarding
- Increase tool adoption: 90% user activation within first 30 days of the rollout
- Better employee ramp times: Reduce ramp time to 3 months within the next 12 months
- Reduce repetitive tickets from Zendesk: Decrease live support "on-call" hours by 35%
- Tracking revenue recognition and employee productivity: Increase sales close rate by 20% by 2023
- Reduce customer churn: 90% user activation within the first 45 days in the platform
6. MEDDIC - Economic Buyer
MEDDIC: E stands for Economic Buyer.
Find out who has the POWER to spend the appropriate budget. Who makes the financial decisions as they pertain to the solution you are selling?
This person may not be the point of contact you have established at the company, but they are important nonetheless are the ultimate decision maker or have VERY heavy influence over if your deal closes.
🤷🏿 WHY do I need to get in touch with the economic buyer? They are the ultimate influence or buyer in the Decision ProcessGaining access to the economic buyer will increase your deal close rate by 80% Creates a mutual understanding of what a successful outcome will look like from their perspective. Allows you to map out the route to success, transforming your role from vendor to trusted partner🔑
HOW do I get in touch with the Economic Buyer?Ask your Champion for a meeting together as part of your Mutual Action Plan for Executive alignmentUse our executives or board to make contactPrepare a 'Business Case - one pager to share
If you can not speak directly to them, work with your Champion to understand their mindset, expectations, priorities, decision-making process so that you can appeal your pitch to their motivations. If the Champion, can not articulate WHO this will be or refuses to give you access/share information is a 🚩 red flag.
🗣️Question to ask about Executive Buyer: What is the biggest problem you are trying to solve? What happens if the problem is not solved, what is the impact on the business? If we can align on solving that, can we continue in the process?
🗣️Questions to ask your Champion (about the Executive Buyer): Who has approved deals of this size in the past? Who owns the pain? Who in business would benefit from solving the pain? Is there a higher priority that this project is attached to?
7. MEDDIC - Decision Criteria (Solution)
MEDDICC: D stands for Decision Criteria.
🤷🏿 Why do I need to know the Decision Criteria?
These are the non-negotiables or the features/values that our company needs to provide or prove that it is the right solution to move the deal forward. Sometimes the Decision Criteria exist in a physical form where the customer has taken time to construct the specification of their requirements on paper. However, more frequently the Decision Criteria will be in an informal understanding across stakeholders.
An exception to this is, of course, if the customer has created criteria set out in an RFI or RFP process where the Decision Criteria play a large part in the specification to which the seller will be asked to respond to. ⛔️ We do not respond to RFI, RFP, or RFQs unless we have been involved in the building process.
What could be included in a prospect's Decision Criteria?
There are 2 categories in the decision criteria: ⚙️ Technical and 👔 Business
⚙️ Technical
- Feature Requirements
- Compliance
- Security
- Support
- Compatibility
👔 Business
- Cost Savings
- Return on Investment
- Time to Market
- Ease of Use
- Quality
How do I uncover a prospect's Decision Criteria? Ask!
- Do you have a formal document outlining the criteria for selecting a solution?
- What are the most important criteria for you when making this decision?
- What/Which problems are being addressed by these required capabilities?
- Is the criteria being used to justify this purchase?
- Why are these criteria important to you and your organization?
- Who cares about these criteria within the organization?
8. MEDDIC - Decision Process
MEDDICC: D stands for Decision Process.
🤷🏿 Why do I need to know the Decision Process?
This is where you really dive deep to understand the STEPS in the process on HOW to move forward with the deal. It is the sellers' job to uncover the Decision Process as soon as they possibly can and then to consistently work with trying to advance their deal against each stage of it.
What all is involved in a Decision Process?
Things could include any of the below, but any good sales rep will ASK this directly to the Champion they are working with or others that emerge in the deal cycle.
- MSA, NDA, or other internal paperwork
- People & Approvals
- Reviews (security, legal, board)
- Vendor paperwork
HOW: Questions to uncover their Decision Process:
- How do you see these types of evaluations run internally?
- How have you made these types of decisions in the past?
- What hiccups have you seen happen in the process?
- This is how I work with companies evaluating YOUR PRODUCT ---- how does that sound to you? Anything to add?
- What do you foresee as the biggest concerns being raised when you bring up the conversation internally? Cost? Implementation time?
- Who from your IT team would need to be involved?
- Is there a vendor or security process that needs to be followed?
- Who from the business would have high influence on the decision? What would they need to see to be convinced?
- Do you have a legal or procurement team that needs to be involved?
- What is your $ threshold to buy a solution like OUR PRODUCT?
⭐ ProTips:
📝 Use their process to guide a Mutual Action Plan
🚩 If the Champion can't answer or doesn't know the above, you need to find someone who does or help them navigate internally.
When do I validate the Decision Process?
It rarely stays the same as it started and different stakeholders will reveal different perspectives and requirements within the Decision Process. Therefore, the most elite sellers will constantly be on their toes checking for progress and updates against the Decision Process with every stakeholder they encounter.
Early: How does the customer make a decision?
Mid: I fully understand how the decision in my deal is going to be made and I am tracking my progress against each step
Late: Everything is on track against the Decision Process and I am managing the final steps
9. MEDDIC - Identifying Pains
MEDDIC: I stand for Identifying Pains
🤷🏿 Why do I need to Identify Pain?
Uncovering & discussing TRUE business pain drives deals forward. Elite sellers know that finding pain is only the beginning of the process and that to gain the full benefit of any pains your customer may be feeling to progress your deal will require you to dig in deep to fully implicate the pain.
What is a 'Customer Pain'?
Pain is the driver, the ultimate reason why customers will act and buy your solution in the end. There are 3 types of Pain:
- Financial
- Efficiency
- People
It may not be obvious in the beginning, but there is always a trigger that gets decision makers to buy. It could be something that they need to solve, grow, improve, or reduce.
Questions to ask to uncover 'Pains':
- What's your biggest strategic priority for this year and what challenges might you run into along the way?
- Can you help me understand your biggest challenge as a [persona, title, or role]?
- What's causing you to prioritize as an initiative over other things on your list?
- Can you tell me about [PAIN] and why you think it's happening? Have you attempted to solve it?
- Who is involved in solving this pain and why do they care?
- What do you want to achieve by implementing this kind of solution?
- What would be the impact to your organization if this problem solved?
So you have uncovered pain, but is it deep enough? 🧅 Peel back the 'onion layers' to find pain. Which of the following three scenarios best describes the pain identified in this field:
Level 1: Sales reps aren't forecasting their business accurately.
Level 2: Without accurate forecasts I don't have visibility into revenue.
Level 3: If I don't have visibility & can't predict revenue, the company is unable to plan ahead for investments into the business..... slowing our path to IPO.
Unless you are at Level 3 you should feel like you have some work to do.
MEDDIC PAINS
Level 1
- Poor onboarding
- Lack of tool adoptionI
- Low employee participation
- Too many repetitive tickets from Zendesk
- Processes aren't being followed accurately
- Increased customer churn
Level 3
- Our onboarding lag is causing the business to fall behind on our predicted revenue targets Q0Q
- I can't justify the cost if we aren't maximizing the ROl of the tool in our upcoming renewal
- If reps aren't hitting their quotas, they will be unhappy and leave the business
- The support team is unable to proactively work on the highest priority projects
- Without accurate data we can't make proper decision in the business to drive revenue
- Without happy customers, expansions and GRR will fall below our target numbers
⭐ Pro Tips:
- Curiosity wins: Always follow-up their response with Tell me more, or WHY?
- Talking about product features is a losing strategy, don't dive into "we can solve that with X" instead focus on VALUE -BASED topics to uncover their pain points and challenges
10. MEDDIC - Champion
MEDDIC: C stands for Champion.
🤷🏿 WHY do I need to develop a Champion
Your 'Champion' is the person with influence in the buying organization. They have...
- They have a passion for change
- They believe in what our company believes
- Have both personal and professional investments in your solution being selected
- Helping you sell internally to other Influencers within the organization
- Will be the one who can help you get executive alignment with the Executive Buyer
How to IDENTIFY and 🧱build a 🏆CHAMPION
Identifying & understanding your champion's motivations can help you both sell together. They are your seller when you are not in the room, so the better you can partner with them - the quicker and potentially LARGER deal you will have!
Innovation: Some champions are visionary types with deep domain focus. They want to explore, experiment, and break new ground. We call these champions “the dreamers” because they are motivated by progress and exploration.
Advantage: Other champions hope to use the deal to improve their company’s competitive position within an industry. These champions are “the lions,” because they are motivated by a desire to advance their company’s competitive position and aggressively dominate an emerging trend or market.
Advancement: These champions strive to improve their own career prospects. As “the climbers,” they are motivated by opportunities to solidify their position within an organization or gain a lead over a rival individual or business unit.
Respect: Many champions are seasoned professionals who feel underutilized by their organization. I call these individuals “the loyalists” because they are the heart of every company—valued for their know-how but universally under-celebrated. These champions are motivated by status: they want someone to pay attention to them and value their experience and input.
Order: Many, many other champions simply want the numbers to work. Deeply rigorous, “the Vulcans” are motivated by logic, evidence, and proof of concept.
Additional Resources:
