Setting deals up for success with MEDDPICC

Closing deals has never been an easy feat. But today sellers are contending with longer, increasingly complex sales cycles all while navigating fierce competition and growing sales targets. Sellers need tactical strategies that put relationships at the center of the sales process. This is leading sales managers to rely on tried-and-true frameworks, like MEDDPICC, to build better pipelines and win more deals. 

What is MEDDPICC?

MEDDPICC is a sales qualification methodology acronym that stands for:

• Metrics
• Economic buyer
• Decision criteria
• Decision process
• Paper process
• Identify and implicate pain
• Champions
• Competition

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The methodology covers eight elements that allow enterprise sales teams and B2B sellers to qualify leads and move prospects through the sales cycle. MEDDPICC’s structured sales approach empowers sales teams to prioritize the right opportunities, which increases sales productivity by focusing resources on revenue-driving activities.

What’s the difference between MEDDPICC and MEDDIC

Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify and implicate pain, Champions (MEDDIC) is a decades-old sales framework initially developed by a software company in the 1980s. There have since been multiple variations to the original methodology to accommodate the modern sales cycle, including MEDDICC and MEDDPICC.

With MEDDPICC there is the addition of two notable elements—paper process and competition. These additional considerations help modern B2B sellers uncover more gaps in knowledge that have the potential to derail the sales process.

Why should you use MEDDPICC?

MEDDPICC improves win rates by encouraging sellers to ask effective questions when engaging with prospects. 

Using the MEDDPICC methodology reduces the guesswork in the B2B sales process, providing sellers with a standardized process to help:

• Source higher-quality deals and opportunities. By revealing the right data and customer insights through MEDDPICC, sales teams can efficiently prioritize high-value deals and confidently disqualify leads that are unlikely to close. 
• Shorten the sales cycle. MEDDPICC helps identify challenges and informational gaps at the earliest opportunity. It lets sellers address them before they become an issue. This alleviates the risk of unexpected roadblocks that can delay deals—or put them in jeopardy altogether.
• Improve sales productivity. Ineffective prospecting quickly shrinks all-too-limited resources. When teams are equipped with the right context and information, sellers avoid wasting time on guesswork. They can engage the right decision-makers, strengthen those relationships, and provide them with the information they need to close the deal.

Using MEDDPICC: A step-by-step guide

Here’s a breakdown of MEDDPICC and how sales teams can use the methodology to build stronger pipelines and close more deals.

Step 1: Metrics

The first step in MEDDPICC is to understand and highlight the quantifiable ways in which your solution provides value to the buyer, ranging from KPIs to revenue dollars.

In the discovery phase, sellers should ask questions to understand the success metrics that are a priority for the buyer. It’s also an opportunity for salespeople to bring existing proof points to the forefront of the conversation, enabling buyers to build a strong data-driven business case for the solution—even if they have yet to identify their own metrics.

Here are some questions you can ask to determine the right metrics for your buyer:

• How will you measure success with this project?
• What metrics or KPIs do you need to achieve?
• What metrics are you looking to improve with this solution?

Step 2: Economic buyer

To close a deal, sales managers need the support of the final decision-maker in the buying process—the economic buyer. This is often the individual or group of individuals who are able to approve and release the budget needed to close the deal. The economic buyer is a key piece of the sales puzzle as they can often impact the size of the deal and the time it takes to close.

As the final decision-maker, a warm introduction to the economic buyer can give sellers a leg up and increase the odds of success. When sellers can capitalize on a shared connection to this person or group, it enhances their ability to establish trust and credibility, both of which are crucial to understanding and effectively addressing the priorities of the economic buyer.

Here are some questions you can ask to identify and engage with the economic buyer?

• What stakeholders are involved in the purchase decision?
• Who is the internal lead for this project?
• What are the financial metrics that will make this a successful project?
• Who do we know at this company in an economic buyer job function?

Step 3: Decision criteria

Establishing the criteria a customer uses to evaluate your solution is critical to validating the prospect. Understanding and tracking customer decision criteria helps sales teams confidently qualify leads and seamlessly craft competitive messaging when engaging with stakeholders.

These criteria often fall into three categories: technical, economic, and relationship.

Technical decision criteria revolve around features, integrations, and functionality. They’re often easy to identify at the outset. Economic criteria are often set by, and most important to, the economic buyer.

Relationship criteria are more challenging to define but equally important, and often influenced by the seller. These are generally qualitative values that help the prospect feel aligned with your organization, making strong relationships a key differentiating factor in sales success.

Here are some questions you can ask to determine the decision criteria and if your product is a fit:

• What are the criteria you’re using to evaluate solutions?
• Do you have a budget that you need to stick to?
• What would your ideal solution look like?

Step 4: Decision process

Deals are rarely won in one go. Sellers face multiple stages of evaluations and approvals before they receive final sign-off. Understanding the steps in the decision process establishes how and when a seller can best engage with the buyer to drive a deal forward.

Here are some questions you can ask to understand the decision process:

• Who is involved in the technical and financial decisions?
• What is your process for making a decision?
• What is the priority and timeline of this decision?

Step 5: Paper process

To an extent, the paper process may overlap with the decision process. However, this often relates more to the legal, procurement, and administrative side of the decision-making process—after technical and financial decisions have been made.

Legal procedures are typically one of the last steps to finalizing a deal. Unforeseen requirements in the paperwork stages can delay or cause deals to fall apart.

Identifying any legal or contractual requirements from the get-go helps sellers navigate barriers ahead of time and close deals more seamlessly.

Here are some questions you can ask to get ahead of the paper process:

• What are the due diligence requirements or legal processes required for this project?
• What steps are required to obtain contract signatures in your organization? 
• How long does it typically take to complete legal review and paperwork for new contracts?

Step 6: Identify and implicate pain

When qualifying deals in the sales pipeline, it’s critical to identify and surface any pain points that you can solve. If your solution doesn’t solve their pain, you don’t have a winning deal—you’ve either failed to identify the pain or need to redirect resources to better opportunities.

But effective sales professionals don’t simply identify the pain points: they implicate the pain onto the buyer. This highlights the negative impact and increases the urgency for a fix—paving the way for sellers to position themselves as the best solution to make that pain go away.

Here are some questions you can ask to identify and implicate pain in the sales process:

• What are the challenges and frustrations you’re currently experiencing?
• What are your biggest concerns over the next few years?
• What happens if you fail to meet your targets and objectives? What happens if you exceed them?

Step 7: Champion

Your champion is an influential and credible individual who can vouch for you within the prospect organization. They’re advocating for you and your solution behind closed doors. 

As a result, the champion typically has a personal stake in closing the deal. For example, your solution may help solve a pain point they’re personally experiencing. Or, it may impact their professional performance and their ability to secure their bonus.

Identifying and building an effective relationship with your champion can also provide access to internal insights, such as barriers and concerns, that can impact your ability to close the deal. 

Here are some questions you can use to identify and qualify the right champion:

• Who will experience the biggest impact from this solution?
• What is your relationship with key stakeholders in the decision process?
• What objections are we currently facing internally?

Step 8: Competition

In the current economic landscape, competition for resources—and buyers—is tough. Prospects are almost always considering multiple alternative solutions and carefully weighing their options. Identifying competitors is necessary for evaluating your position and the likelihood of deal success.

However, it’s important to look beyond direct competitors. Sales teams should identify anything that might be competing for the same resources. For example, the customer may have other business priorities that can impact the budget required to close the deal. 

Proactively understanding the competition helps sellers better highlight competitive advantages and ROI in order to better frame their solution as the best fit for the buyer.

Here are some questions that can be used to identify your competition in the sales process:

• Are there any other companies that you’re currently considering?
• What concerns do you have regarding our solution?
• Is there anything our solution doesn’t offer that another company does?

Streamline your MEDDPICC process with Affinity for Salesforce

Affinity for Salesforce helps sellers improve their deal qualification process and implement MEDDPICC with ease. With access to AI-driven relationship intelligence insights and automated data capture, sales teams can source, qualify, and advance deals faster.

Affinity for Salesforce enables sales teams to:

• Tap into your organization’s shared network. MEDDPICC is built on relationships. Affinity delivers relationship paths so sellers can find warm introductions and engage key decision-makers—increasing the chance of closing deals by up to 25%.
• Seamlessly connect and share insights across teams. Affinity for Salesforce helps sellers turn up smarter with easy access to historical engagement activity and deal insights. Teams can stay aligned and access the relationship context needed to effectively implement MEDDPICC while making better decisions throughout the sales cycle—all within the CRM.
• Improve workflow and focus on closing deals. Put tedious data entry in the past with automated record creation and activity tracking so sellers can collect actionable insights wherever they’re working, freeing up time for revenue-driving activities.

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MEDDPICC FAQs 

What is the MEDDPICC sales methodology?

MEDDPICC stands for Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Paper process, Identify pain, Champion, and Competition. It helps B2B sellers improve their sales qualification process to improve the quality of their sales pipeline and close more—and better—deals.

Should your sales team use MEDDPICC?

There are many frameworks that sellers can use in the sales process, including MEDDPICC and MEDDIC. Your sales team should use the MEDDPICC methodology if you want to improve your sales productivity and lead qualification. Layering on relationship intelligence tools can help streamline your MEDDPICC process even further by tapping into your company’s shared network—enabling better paths to key decision-makers so sellers can source and qualify deals faster.

How does the MEDDPICC methodology improve your ability to close sales?

The MEDDPICC methodology improves your ability to close sales by encouraging sellers to identify the information and stakeholders needed to effectively validate prospects. Sellers who use MEDDPICC in the sales process have a better understanding of their customers, allowing them to prioritize high-quality deals and advance them faster.