Need a “MEDDIC”?

On day one of new hire training, the SVP of Sales at a high-growth Bay Area tech company covers two things in his one hour presentation – 1) expectations for his sales team, and 2) the MEDDIC approach to managing a sales campaign.  Want to add some science and realism to your sales process?  Want to close more deals, and live by a forecast that you can count on?  Read on…

The MEDDIC approach to selling:

Metrics & ROI – Do you know what the true ROI will be on the project?  What is the payback period?  Does the customer agree with this asssessment?  Did they participate in building the ROI model?  And have you reviewed it with the Economic Buyer?

Economic Buyer – This is the person who owns the budget (or can create the budget) for the products/services you are selling.  Do you know who is Influential/Authoritarian?  Do you know who is Influential (non-authoritarian).  Often these influential people are the ones who will cause the Influential Authoritarian to make a purchase decision.

Decision Process – How are the decisions made?  Who is in the power base?  Who will sign off on moving forward at each stage.  “Buyers buy backwords”, do you understand the timeline for implementation and all steps that have to happen in the process?

Decision Criteria – “The way by which you are evaluated will determine if you are going to win”.  Did you set the success criteria, or did your competitor?  Have you provided your prospect with a “lock out document” (a set of capabilities that they should make sure to look for in a solution)?

Identify the pain – Is it measurable?  Who benefits from fixing it?  What happens if it’s not fixed?

Champion – This could be THE most important person in a sales campaign.  This is the person that you educate who will fight for you when you are not in the room.  This person usually has personal motivation for wanting you to win.  Try to understand what that motivation is, and help them help you.

Compelling Event – You MUST either have a compelling event created by the situation or client (ex. mandated compliance by a certain date, go live date across new Internet site to support a new product launch, etc…), however if the sales cycle doesn’t have one created by the client you will probably struggle to close the deal.

If you don’t understand each of these aspects, you can probably still win a deal from time to time.  When you do use the MEDDIC approach, your deal size will go up, your sales cycles will get shorter, and your forecast accuracy will dramatically improve.

Good selling.