What Is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is a sales qualification framework used by sales teams to qualify their prospects. MEDDIC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion.
Despite a well-drafted sales pitch, sometimes the sales team struggles to close deals. The problem could be with the customers you are selling to. With the MEDDIC framework, you can better qualify your prospects at the earliest opportunity and increase the chance of conversions.
How MEDDIC Framework Was Created
Dick Dunkel developed the MEDDIC sales qualification framework inside PTC (Parametric Technology Corporation) in 1996. Using this sales framework, PTC was able to triple its sales from $300 million to $1 billion in just four years.
Dick advocated that the sales funnel should only be filled with qualified leads saving sales reps’ time and effort. While evaluating the sales performance of his team, he realized there were six commonalities. Those commonalities are acronyms in the MEDDIC framework.
The MEDDIC Framework Components
To use MEDDIC, you need to guide your prospects through these components to be able to qualify them.
Metrics
You need to first determine the KPIs they will be using to determine the effectiveness of your product or service. This allows the sales reps to uncover the value and pain of their prospects and pitch a personalized solution to them.
Some standard metrics used by almost all businesses include ROI, productivity efficiency, cost saving, etc.
Qualifying question: What goal do you (your potential customer) want to achieve? And how will you measure your success? What metrics will you use to measure the progress of the project?
Economic Buyer
Find out who’s in charge of decision-making. While talking to the prospect, the sales rep needs to determine who has the ultimate authority to approve the purchase in the company. These decision-makers are also called economic buyers.
Organizations can have multiple stakeholders involved in the decision-making, including the finance executive, department head, and other senior executives. You may have to ask your point of contact how you can connect with the economic buyer. You need to establish a line of communication with them through each stage of the process.
Try to have a one-on-one conversation with the economic buyer. Understand what appeals to them – break down their goal and criteria for purchasing a product.
Qualifying question: Who has the power to make a decision? Who has the final authority to sign the agreement and process the purchase?
Decision Criteria
Decision criteria are factors that influence a company’s final decision. Understanding those factors help the sales teams in crafting a pitch that is comprehensive and one that works while satisfying the company’s criteria.
These factors can vary for each customer. Some common factors include return on investment (ROI), budget constraints, ease of use, integration, and legal requirements.
Understanding the decision criteria would allow the sales representatives to show how they can deliver.
Qualifying question: How will your prospect decide how to buy a solution? How do they evaluate a solution?
Decision Process
You need to know what internal process they need to follow to get approval. The decision process includes the team involved in making a decision, how long it will take to make a decision, and what steps need to be taken to go through the final purchase.
When you know a company’s decision process, you are less likely to lose a deal because of sluggishness.
For instance, the economic buyer decides to buy your product, and the company conducts due diligence before signing up for any paperwork. In case you don’t hear back from them, you can follow up to ensure the process is being carried out.
Qualifying question: Does your company have a procedure in place for any decision-making process? What is the usual timeline for getting the approval for purchasing a new product or solution? Does the timeline vary based on the size of the deal?
Identify Pain Points
If customers are looking for a solution, it sure means they are facing some kind of issue. Your job is to find out what pain points they are trying to solve. It could range from high production costs to low productivity and low revenue, to name a few.
Knowing their problem will help you qualify them and personalize your pitch to make them understand how your solution can benefit them.
Let’s say you find out a company lost $500000 of revenue in a month because of being understocked. You can explain how your inventory management software can help accurately forecast the stock requirements and ensure you don’t lose any customers for being understocked.
Qualifying questions: What are they losing if they don’t fix this problem? What do you think can resolve this issue?
Champion
A champion is a person who would support your solution the most. This is because they are the most affected by the pain points, or they could be the ones who would benefit the most. A champion doesn’t have to be directly involved in the decision-making process. However, they need to be someone whose opinions are respected in the organization.
Having a champion by your side will ensure that the whole buying process doesn’t slow down.
Qualifying question: Discover your champion who will advocate your product and ensure that the process goes through.
Why Use MEDDIC Framework
The MEDDIC framework can help the sales rep with two critical factors essential for predicting revenue growth for the business.
1. Efficient Allocation of Resources
A sales manager's role is to ensure that their sales reps are efficient and producing results. Sales reps are one of the highest-paid staff members within the organization.
Sellers need to find out if their sales reps are able to qualify the leads or are being inefficient in their work. MEDDIC helps companies better qualify their leads and ensure that they are investing their time in the right deals.
2. Forecast Accuracy
Elite sales leaders can qualify leads and accurately forecast their revenue performance based on the number of opportunities in their pipeline. This allows organizations to efficiently allocate resources and hire more staff to grow customer cases and identify where to invest more.
Should Your Team Use the MEDDIC Framework?
Many sales methodologies exist, but not every sales framework is meant for all businesses. MEDDIC works well for enterprise-level organizations that have to go through complex deals as it involves various departments and stakeholders.
MEDDIC can be helpful if:
- the products/services are high-priced.
- the customer needs to be on board with the (seller’s) company for a significant period.
- the customer’s organization is making a deal to make changes in its systems.
How To Implement the MEDDIC Sales Method?
Implementing MEDDIC can help your sales team better qualify your prospects, increase efficiency at work, and thereby increase the chance of closing more deals.
Following are the steps to implement the MEDDIC sales method:
- Understand Your Buyer Persona
- Visualize Your MEDDIC Process
- Document Discovery Calls
- Monitor and Review Performance
1. Understand Your Buyer Persona
To qualify your prospect, you need to understand your buyer persona deeply.
Every sales department should be clear about their buyer persona – define the target audience, understand their goals, identify the issues they struggle with daily, and how your product or service will help overcome those pain points.
So before starting the MEDDIC sales qualification process, invest time to study your buyer persona.
2. Visualize Your MEDDIC Process
Next, create a flow chart of the basic steps of the MEDDIC framework. This flowchart will show them all the collaterals to use at every stage. It will help them proceed through the process in a systematic manner and identify economic buyers, pain points, and champions.
3. Document Discovery Calls
Have your sales reps document discovery calls and all other interactions by the MEDDIC step. You can easily create and save a template in your CRM and have your sales reps enter each field information as they go further into the conversation with their ideal customers.
Besides, having everything stored in a single place will give you a nice overview of how your reps perform and if you need to make any changes to your qualification criteria.
5. Monitor and Review Performance
Based on the data collected, analyze your win and loss rate. Using a sales CRM, you can get an overview of your pipeline and determine whether the MEDDIC process is working. A CRM gives you insights into each stage of your sales process, making it easy to identify the roadblocks and improve your conversion.
For instance, you may notice that your sales reps are qualifying a lot of leads, but only 10% of your leads are getting converted. The issue could be in your qualification criteria.
Qualification criteria could change based on the latest market trends and other organizational factors. This is why your sales personnel should understand the concept of learning and unlearning so as to update their sales book and qualify the right prospect.
What is MEDDPICC?
MEDDIC was first introduced in 1995. However, today business models are more complex than ever. And with the advent of technology, there are stringent requirements on security, privacy and SLAs.
Hence, MEDDIC has been updated to MEDDPICC, where P is for Paperwork and C stands for competition!
Paperwork Process
Paperwork processes involve intense negotiations that can continue for a long time. This includes the regulations and compliance requirements.
The paper process is an original part of the MEDDIC sales process. If the paper process is critical for the legal aspects of the business, it can be a separate step.
Qualifying question: What are the steps or the sequence of tasks to arrive at a decision? What are the legal rules and various compliances? Is there a legal review process?
The additional C stands for Competition. Competition is much more prevalent today, not only against vendors’ rivals. But today’s sellers are also competing against the possibility of the buyer building their own solution.
Competition
The sales team needs to be aware of their competition in this highly competitive market.
Competition can be:
- Direct or indirect
- Competing with internal projects
- Buyers going for internally-built solutions
- Buyers deciding to do nothing
The MEDDIC sales method gives sellers a framework for building competitive strategies. It aims at overcoming competitors' strengths and knowing their weaknesses. Use that information to run a deal and win it all.
Final Thoughts
If you are using MEDDIC in your sales process, it should be a common language across your entire revenue team. The advantage of MEDDIC is that it eliminates the second guess from qualifying the prospects and helps the sales team close more deals.
