Sales qualification methodologies are essential for sales teams to create a consistent, predictable, qualified pipeline of opportunities. One such framework, MEDDPICC has gained significant traction for its universal utility, while other frameworks like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) also hold their ground. In this article, I’ll explore a field sales perspective on leveraging MEDDPICC in the context of Enterprise and SMB sales.
MEDDPICC: Sales Qualification In Practice
First things first, it’s important to grasp the basics—MEDDPICC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, and Competition.
Each element of the acronym is designed to uncover critical aspects of a prospect’s buying process, ultimately leading to better qualification and higher win rates in theory. However, the difference between converting an opportunity and losing it often comes down to how the methodology is adapted in practice.
Metrics
While MEDDPICC rightly evangelises that salespeople focus on tangible, quantifiable outcomes that a product or service can bring to the customer, it is important to highlight that in reality, these metrics are often different depending on who you’re engaged with, and what stage of the sales process the opportunity is at. For instance, SaaS technical evaluators usually express their most important metrics in terms of efficiency i.e. the speed or ease with which they can perform tasks or deliver results. However, as you get closer to the economic buyer, the metrics most important to them are expressed in business terms such as revenue growth or cost visibility or perhaps even governance, risk and compliance – sales teams that can anticipate these changing goal-posts, and tailor their proposition accordingly, often ring the gong.
Economic Buyers
Identifying and engaging with the person with the authority to sign off on an opportunity early in a sales engagement is a common red-herring, especially in large, matrixed organisations. While ‘top-down’ account coverage has historically led to better sales outcomes, this does not guarantee that the economic buyer will be more inclined to sign off on your proposal. More often than not, ‘gatekeepers’ shield the economic buyers from sellers, and in fact, the economic buyers themselves change mid-way through a sales cycle, although admittedly, this is less likely a concern in SMB businesses that are relatively flat in their decision-making. As such, when operating in ambiguity, sales teams need to leverage multi-level account management to cultivate and engage different buyer personas across Business, Operations, Technology etc.
Decision Criteria
Understanding the specific factors a prospect will use to make their decision is usually the simplest part of implementing MEDDPICC, and a good discovery process, followed by a demo or a POC will usually reveal all of the relevant factors in the customer’s decision criteria including cost, functionality, reputation, integration and so many more. In rare cases, especially in the Public Sector, there are less obvious criteria such as political factors that good sales teams often look out for, although little can be done to influence these (unless you’re an American Defense contractor in Australia it seems).
Decision Process
While it is common sense to ask for information on the customer’s internal buying process, from evaluations to final sign-off, in large Enterprises this is often opaque even to the people inside the organisation. The history of delayed sales opportunities testifies to the incredibly difficult job of predicting the path a particular opportunity will follow to closure. Combine this with the ‘happy ears’ syndrome that some salespeople suffer, and it is easy to understand why blind spots and bottlenecks often delay opportunities from progressing. Especially in SMB, where there are very loosely defined processes for how a purchasing decision is reached, and where there are multiple conflicting stakeholder perspectives, it’s important to be mindful that opportunities will take, at times, a surprising and non-linear path to closure.
Paper Process
Understanding the formal evaluation and procurement process is one thing, but working the process in your favour with certainty is quite another. While Enterprises and Public Sector are notoriously taxing in terms of the legal and procurement hoops that they make vendors jump through — from tender responses, vendor registration, and contract negotiations to final approval, most SMBs will have a ‘painless’ paper process by comparison, albeit unstructured at times.
Identify Pain
A common area of misunderstanding for most sales teams is in the way they look for and define pain, usually in terms of the absence of a solution, rather than the underlying issue or need which is impacting the business in some way. Identifying pain requires a highly nuanced understanding of the organisational context and the inertia that is caused by the status quo. Simply identifying pain is hardly ever enough to make a difference between ‘doing nothing’ or ‘doing something now, which often comes down to how strongly the pain is perceived in the overall context of the organisation. For instance, while SMBs may not feel as much of the pain from manual processes as larger organisations, they may feel the overhead cost of maintaining extra resources far more than larger businesses.
Champion
Finding and cultivating trust with a Champion – someone who advocates for your solution internally, as opposed to a Coach who helps you navigate the ‘process’, is part skill and part art. While established vendors often have their supporters already in place, others that are challenging the incumbents often need to cultivate champions to disrupt the status quo, and salespeople who practise this fine art, are usually the ones you want on your team.
Competition
In this hyper-competitive market, sales teams should assume that their competitors know their strengths and weaknesses almost as well as they do, and should be messaging and positioning their solution in a way that counters the arguments and objections that competitors may have seeded. Be aware though, that a ‘dog-fight’ is not an effective sales strategy and often results in price competition which, as the adage goes, is a race to the bottom.
In a Nutshell
MEDDPICC offers a valuable framework for sales management to gain insights into their teams’ ability to consistently qualify opportunities, especially in a complex, sales environment. However, it can be challenging for salespeople to implement it in a way that increases the predictability of their sales conversion and requires formal enablement, as well as proactive coaching from experienced practitioners.
