Breaking Down the MEDDIC Sales Methodology
MEDDIC was initially developed and documented in 1996 by Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli, who were members of the sales team at the Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC).
They analyzed hundreds of PTC’s deals, trying to answer three key questions:
- Why were they losing deals?
- Why were they winning deals?
- And why were deals slipping?
As Dunkel and Napoli reviewed the answers, they discovered six common threads running through the material they had collected.
They determined that when the team could zero in on all six of these areas — and there was strong alignment between the potential customer and the proposed solution across every area — they typically won the deal:
- Metrics: An understanding of the specific numerical performance indicators the customer wants to move the needle on.
- Economic Buyer: Knowing who makes the final buying decision (and holds the purse strings) within an organization.
- Decision Criteria: Uncovering what pieces of information a team uses to make a purchasing decision.
- Decision Process: Learning the typical decision making process within an organization.
- Identification of Pain Points: Pinpointing the pain a customer is experiencing that prompted them to search for a solution in the first place.
- Champion: Identifying the member of the team who desperately wants the proposed solution in place and will go to bat for it internally.
These six commonalities became the core tenets of MEDDIC, dictated the sales methodology’s acronym, and took the sales of Parametric Technology Corporation from $300 million to $1 billion in just four years.
The MEDDIC framework serves as an easy-to-follow checklist, which makes it highly accessible and fairly straightforward to implement for most sales teams.
As you start to think about how MEDDIC might be able to help your team gain efficiencies and achieve sales success, let’s take a detailed look at each part of the framework.
1. Metrics
This is all about getting a clear picture of the numbers your potential customer is trying to hit.
Don’t underestimate the gravity here: Achieving these results and having the metrics to show for it could be a make-or-break moment for them. The solution you’re selling just might make the difference.
Aim to uncover the specific, measurable goals they’re aiming for and how those goals connect to the business challenges they’re up against.
If you understand how the customer defines success, you can give them a very targeted description of how your solution can help.
You can specifically address how it can assist them in achieving key metrics and ultimately deliver a return on investment.
Questions to ask when implementing the Metrics aspect:
- What are your primary business goals, and how do they align with industry benchmarks or standards?
- Which key efficiency, cost, or business-related metrics are crucial for your company’s success, and how are you currently performing against them?
- Within what timeframe are you aiming to see measurable improvements or results from a new solution?
- If the targeted metrics are met, what is the estimated financial impact on your business in terms of savings or revenue generation?
2. Economic Buyer
Who signs on the dotted line when it comes to purchasing solutions like yours? You’ll need to know, so it’s critical to understand who oversees the relevant budget and has veto power. Keep in mind it might not be your first point of contact, and there may be more than one economic buyer.
The next step is to focus on connecting the economic benefit for the buyer. If you have trouble getting in touch with the economic buyer (or buyers), tap your internal contacts to help you navigate the economic buyer’s mindset so you can craft a sales pitch that speaks to them.
Questions to ask when implementing the Economic Buyer aspect:
- Who is the primary decision-maker for this project, and are they directly sponsoring it? If not, who is responsible for the final sign-off?
- Can you describe how this project aligns with the specific needs or metrics of the decision-maker?
- Have you or the economic buyer been involved in similar projects or initiatives within the organization, and what were the outcomes?
- In the decision-making process, is it necessary for the economic buyer to use or see the product firsthand?
3. Decision Criteria
People usually explore multiple options almost every time when they consider buying something. This means they pit your product against competing ones, review a certain set of factors, and decide which solution is the best fit.
This set of factors is their decision criteria. By figuring out those factors and speaking to them directly, you can help the customer understand why your solution ticks all their boxes and trumps other choices.
Questions to ask when implementing the Decision Criteria aspect:
- What are the key criteria guiding your purchasing decision, including technical specifications, cost-effectiveness, and compliance with regulatory or legal requirements?
- How do you calculate ROI to justify the investment in this project, and what are the most important aspects of this calculation?
- Are there multiple stakeholders involved in defining the decision criteria, and if so, how are their needs being integrated?
- Can you describe your ideal solution, focusing on how it meets your decision criteria and business objectives?
4. Decision Process
What is the step-by-step process the business uses to arrive at a decision?
If your point of contact can provide insight into the decision-making timeline and key milestones, you can proactively help alleviate bottlenecks.
This helps you reconnect at moments that make sense, collaborate on a mutually beneficial action plan, and have a clear picture of what stage the deal is in at all times.
Also make sure you get a sense of any extra logistics and action items involved in the decision process.
This includes administrative tasks that need to be completed, key stakeholders who need to weigh in (and when they need to do that), and approvals required to get the deal across the finish line.
Questions to ask when implementing the Decision Process aspect:
- Can you outline the steps and key stakeholders involved in your decision making process, including any specific sequences and timelines, particularly for technical and financial decisions?
- Are there any known challenges or roadblocks typically encountered in your decision process, and how have they been addressed in the past?
- How does the approval process vary, especially in relation to budget constraints, and what are the critical terms, conditions, or legal reviews involved?
- Could you provide a timeline or deadline for making a buying decision, and how can we align our engagement with each stage of your decision process?
5. Identification of Pain Points
This serves as your initial engagement point with a prospect.
After all, an initial determination of how well your product can address a customer’s pain points is crucial to understanding if they’re a qualified lead.
Do a deep dive here so you understand the pain points in detail.
From there, design a sales pitch that clearly shows how your product can alleviate those pain points.
Questions to ask when implementing the Identification of Pain Points aspect:
- What are the primary challenges and frustrations you’re currently facing, and how do these impact your business in the short and long term?
- Can you quantify the financial and operational consequences of these challenges, including what happens if no action is taken?
- How do these pain points affect other members of your organization, and what are their perspectives on these issues?
- Looking forward, what are your fears or concerns for the next year, and what ideal outcomes would constitute a successful year for you?
6. Champion
Your champion is the person in the business who will fight to get your solution in place. This could be your initial point of contact, but it also might be the person who is experiencing the effects of the pain points most acutely. It’s someone who will do the heavy lifting for you to sell your product internally.
Make sure your champion — or team of champions (the more the merrier) — is someone who is well respected in the organization. This person needs to have the capacity to influence the economic buyer’s decision.
Questions to ask when implementing the Champion aspect:
- Can you identify individuals with significant influence in the decision-making process, and are you willing to advocate for our solution within your organization?
- What are the specific gains or interests of the champion in promoting this solution, and how can we best address key objections and sell the solution to senior decision-makers?
- Does the champion have a history of successfully advocating for similar solutions, and what level of commitment and enthusiasm do they exhibit for our product?
- Are there any potential obstacles or resistance the champion might face internally, and can they effectively communicate the benefits of our product to other stakeholders?
Now that you know everything about the MEDDIC method, let’s help you determine when it’d be best to apply it to get optimal results.
When Is The MEDDIC Sales Methodology Needed?
Consider using the MEDDIC framework if you’re facing these issues:
- Lead Qualification Difficulties: There’s a challenge in differentiating between qualified and unqualified leads.
- Struggling with Conversion Rates: You’re experiencing low conversion rates and unreliable forecasts, indicating a need for a more structured approach.
- When You Have a Complex Sale Process: Your typical sales cycle is intricate, involving numerous decision-makers and potential obstacles.
- Pipeline Bloat and Stalled Deals: The MEDDIC sales process can be beneficial when you often find yourself dealing with pipeline bloat — which is an accumulation of deals that are stuck at a certain stage without progressing. This issue, distinct from generally low conversion rates, often arises from unclear decision processes or misalignment with buyer expectations — something MEDDIC aims to fix.
Let’s now uncover the advantages the MEDDIC sales methodology brings to sales teams.
What Are the Benefits of Using MEDDIC?
Implementing MEDDIC can have a positive influence on much more than just your bottom line.
Here are reasons why it’s worth considering:
- Improves Lead Qualification: The MEDDIC methodology emphasizes meticulous lead qualification, which helps sales teams identify and prioritize qualifying prospects with the highest potential for conversion. This approach allows teams to focus their efforts on leads that are more likely to result in a successful sale.
- Increases Close Rates: MEDDIC increases close rates by ensuring sales reps conduct thorough prospect reviews and assess who is truly likely to buy into the solution.
- Prevents Resource Waste: This sales methodology prevents resource waste by focusing a sales team on the deals that are most likely to close and shelving the leads that just aren’t poised to purchase.
- Drives Increasingly Accurate Forecasting: The MEDDIC method drives accurate forecasting by disqualifying leads that can’t be won, and yields enhanced predictability for deal closings. This improved sales forecasting also helps drive more confident decision-making among members of the leadership team.
- Creates a Common Language Across Every Team in Your Business: The MEDDIC sales qualification method provides team members with straightforward information to gather from each potential customer. It also outlines a process that’s easily understood by professionals at every level.
More than three-quarters of customers say they expect consistency when communicating with different teams in the same organization. The MEDDIC sales method can help deliver on that. Also, covering standardized topics that you obtain from the MEDDIC methodology facilitates the rapid identification of reasons behind lost deals.
- Improves Customer Success and Experience: The MEDDIC sales process improves the overall customer success and experience by requesting only the most valuable information. This allows you to avoid wasting time and enables the creation of highly tailored, pertinent sales pitches. Ultimately, the MEDDIC sales qualification method helps the customer arrive at a solution that addresses their pain points faster.
With a full view of this sales methodology under your belt, you might be considering how to use MEDDIC across your sales team.
Get started with a few tips:
6 Ways to Make MEDDIC Work for Your Team
Before you activate the MEDDIC sales qualification method, keep in mind that your revenue team needs to have a clear understanding of your buyer personas. Without that, it will be difficult to train new members and ensure sales reps are able to gather the most useful information.
Beyond buyer personas, consider these six ways to give the MEDDIC sales method a go within your team:
- Streamline MEDDIC Education for Your Team: Find an efficient, accessible, and engaging way to educate your team on MEDDIC, its value, and the day-to-day practicalities of infusing it into your sales process.
- Showcase MEDDIC Success Stories Internally: Don’t set it and forget it: Continually highlight internal success stories of using MEDDIC (and the times when things went awry) so the entire team can learn and refine their approach. Use the data in your CRM to help you measure MEDDIC’s impact. After all, the MEDDIC sales qualification method is a marathon, not a sprint. So, it will take practice to get the machine purring.
- Record Sales Conversations for Enhanced Information Visibility: Document all your sales conversations to drive visibility on information gathered. Also, ensure every aspect of MEDDIC was tackled, make it easier to collaborate across the team, and support ongoing MEDDIC learning.
- Embed MEDDIC Approach in Team’s Buying Process: When you’re exploring new solutions, incorporate the MEDDIC mentality into your team’s buying process so you can understand what it’s like from a customer’s perspective.
- Encourage Sales Leaders to Exemplify MEDDIC in Your Team: Get your team’s sales leader to model MEDDIC and infuse the terminology into their day-to-day communication. This will ensure that adoption is more seamless across the team.
- Use the Right Tools and Resources: Find and develop tools and resources — think flowcharts, checklists, and templates — that will make it easy to understand and use MEDDIC.
Wondering which tool can make it easy for you to use the MEDDIC sales methodology?
Scratchpad is the answer!
Implement MEDDIC Seamlessly With Scratchpad
If you’re considering implementing MEDDIC in your sales processes, you need to modify your CRM and other sales tools to align with this sales methodology.
This might entail introducing new fields, creating custom reports, or integrating new tracking metrics.
Fortunately, Scratchpad can be an essential instrument in your path to mastering the MEDDIC sales methodology.
What is Scratchpad?
It’s a Salesforce add-on that helps sales teams collaborate more effectively and swiftly within Salesforce.
It simplifies and enhances the efficiency of pipeline management, deal inspection, coaching, and forecasting — leading to a more streamlined sales process.
Here are the distinctive features that make Scratchpad unique:
- Advanced Grid Views
- Task Management
- Scratchpad Notes
- Workflow Tiles
- Team and Deal Collaboration
- Deal Spotlights
- Rollups
- Waterfall Analytics
- Sales Trends Analytics and Daily Snapshots
- No-code Automations for Instant Salesforce Updates
- Call Recorder With AI-Assisted Call Notes
- Slack Automations Library
- Sales Enablement Cards
- Process Compliance and Salesforce Hygiene
- Deal Inspection for Risk Management
- Scratchpad Command
1. Advanced Grid Views
Scratchpad’s Advanced Grid Views provide a rapid and effective way to update fields or objects in Salesforce, removing the hassle of switching tabs, waiting for pages to load, or remembering to save changes.
They also offer sales professionals an easy way to view all team deals at once, with the added ability to examine specific opportunities in more detail.
2. Task Management
Scratchpad Tasks offers a consolidated platform for reps and managers to monitor, schedule, organize, and assign crucial tasks needed to advance deals through the sales pipeline.
3. Scratchpad Notes
Scratchpad provides the quickest way to create, update, share, and sync sales notes with Salesforce, significantly improving efficiency and teamwork in sales management.
4. Workflow Tiles
Scratchpad’s Workflow Tiles offer easy access to Salesforce fields and data via customizable shortcuts, making workflows more efficient for AEs, Managers, and RevOps teams.
Additionally, these tiles improve collaboration, such as when AEs work with SDRs or SEs on specific deals, or when handing off a closed-won opportunity to an Account Manager, keeping everyone uniformly updated.
5. Team and Deal Collaboration
Scratchpad boosts sales efficiency by fostering better collaboration within teams. This leads to improved account planning, more efficient handoffs, more thorough deal inspections, and streamlined one-on-one interactions between a sales rep and a manager.
6. Deal Spotlights
Scratchpad’s Deal Spotlights actively identify potential issues and gaps in your open sales pipeline.
This feature enables you to proactively detect and address challenges and make necessary updates independently, often before they are highlighted by your sales manager or the operations team.
7. Rollups
Scratchpad simplifies the rollup process, eliminating the need for using spreadsheets to track deals. Its Rollups feature allows you to track how each deal progresses at various stages, providing critical insights into the history and reasons behind specific changes.
8. Waterfall Analytics
Scratchpad’s Waterfall Analytics delivers a straightforward breakdown of your sales forecast changes and their underlying causes. This ensures an accurate, regularly updated sales forecast that aligns seamlessly with your current pipeline.
9. Sales Trends Analytics and Daily Snapshots
Scratchpad’s Sales Trends Analytics allows you to identify patterns in the evolution of your sales forecast.
This allows you to compare current sales data with that from past months, quarters, or years. Included within Trends Analytics are Daily Snapshots, which offer a detailed historical record of daily changes in your sales pipeline.
10. No-Code Automations for Instant Salesforce Updates
Enhance your revenue operations using Scratchpad's no-code automations, which streamline Salesforce updates and reveal potential gaps in your pipeline.
The system includes crucial alerts for absent MEDDIC fields and blends with sales process management, employing Slack notifications to monitor sale progress, identify unfinished tasks, and facilitate proactive sales management.
11. Call Recorder With AI-Assisted Call Notes
Scratchpad Call Intelligence features an advanced Call Recorder with AI-assisted notes, which significantly streamlines the process of documenting calls in the MEDDIC process.
This system automatically creates transcripts and summaries of conversations using AI technology, offering profound insights into customer interactions through cutting-edge call recording methods.
12. Slack Automations Library
Scratchpad’s Slack Automations and Sales Inbox enhances sales team efficiency with various Slack alerts and automations within your Scratchpad workflow. It provides notifications for critical updates, celebrates closed-won opportunities, and sends reminders for important sales dates.
This tool ensures teams adhere to sales methodologies, delivers instant updates on deals, and notifies the sales manager about major pipeline changes, contributing to efficient and timely sales management.
13. Sales Enablement Cards
Scratchpad’s Enablement Cards enhance sales productivity by integrating key enablement materials, such as battle cards and pricing information, directly into the workflow of a sales representative.
This feature offers immediate access to playbooks and competitive intelligence within Scratchpad — eliminating the need to alternate between different systems.
The cards, equipped with intelligent playbooks and real-time keyword triggers, enhance customer engagements, and their integration with the Guru library enriches sales calls with current, relevant content.
14. Process Compliance and Salesforce Hygiene
Scratchpad rapidly improves Salesforce hygiene and compliance within 15 minutes, helping RevOps encourage proper sales representative behaviors and minimizing administrative work through automated deal alerts and customized views.
This tool boosts sales rep efficiency with no-code, adaptable processes, and instant Slack updates, and integrates vital sales resources such as playbooks and battle cards into the pipeline management system.
15. Deal Inspection for Risk Management
Scratchpad Deal Inspection provides a fast and effective solution for an executive or sales leader to comprehensively examine deals, pinpoint risks, and gain in-depth insights.
With its intuitive interface that smoothly integrates with Salesforce, it enables quick and thorough analysis of deal dynamics, stakeholder involvement, and adherence to sales processes.
Let’s take a quick look at the main features of Deal Inspection:
- Scratchpad Change Highlights for Pipeline Management: Scratchpad Change Highlighting revitalizes your Salesforce pipeline by allowing you to observe and analyze both positive and negative alterations in each deal. This feature brings clarity to your pipeline management, allowing you to comprehend the reasons behind close date shifts, value fluctuations in deals, and stage transitions in opportunities. It offers a dynamic visualization of changes in deals, improving your ability to track and respond to pipeline developments effectively.
- Change History for In-Depth Deal Analysis: Scratchpad Change History provides a detailed audit history for every deal, aggregating all actions, updates, and modifications in a single, easily accessible place. This functionality allows for an in-depth analysis of risks, monitoring of deal progression, and identification of deals that are not moving forward.
- Deal Spotlights for Condition-Based Tracking: Scratchpad's Deal Spotlights use Conditional Highlighting to facilitate effortless monitoring of deals based on set criteria. This tool quickly identifies critical aspects of opportunities in your pipeline, such as deals that haven’t progressed through stages, those needing immediate attention, late-stage opportunities without recent updates, or deals marked as committed but with past-due close dates. This focused approach helps in comprehensively understanding and managing the intricate details of each opportunity.
16. Scratchpad Command
Scratchpad Command allows reps, managers, and leaders to access and update Salesforce workflows and create records either within their preferred web applications or directly in Salesforce. Utilizing straightforward keyboard shortcuts (CMD+J for Mac or CTRL+J for Windows), users can easily search for and create opportunities, accounts, contacts, or leads in a single click.
Still need clarity on some MEDDIC-related questions?
2 MEDDIC FAQs
Here are the answers to a few common questions on MEDDIC and other related sales methodologies:
1. What Is the Difference Between MEDDIC, MEDDICC, and MEDDPICC?
MEDDIC, MEDDICC, and MEDDPICC® signify a progressive development in sales methodologies, with each version introducing additional elements to better navigate increasingly complex sale situations.
Here’s how to differentiate these sales methodologies:
- MEDDIC: This is the foundational framework. It focuses on understanding and aligning with the customer’s key metrics and decision-making criteria. The approach emphasizes identifying the economic buyer, understanding the customer’s pain points, and leveraging a champion within the customer’s organization. MEDDIC is primarily about aligning the sales approach with the customer’s internal processes and needs.
- MEDDICC: This version adds an additional “C” for Competition. This means while retaining all the focus areas of MEDDIC, MEDDICC brings a competitive edge to the strategy. It requires sales teams to have a deeper understanding of the competitive landscape. This implies not only knowing who the competitors are but also understanding how to position the product or service more effectively against these competitors. The added component encourages sales professionals to differentiate their offerings more clearly and to develop strategies to handle competitive threats.
- MEDDPICC®: This iteration includes all elements of MEDDICC and introduces an additional “P” for Paper Process. Paper Process is about understanding and navigating the administrative, legal, and procurement processes of the customer. This aspect is often crucial in enterprise sales, where closing deals often involves complex contractual negotiations and compliance with various regulations. By incorporating the Paper Process, MEDDPICC® ensures that sales teams efficiently handle complex paperwork and approval processes crucial for deal success, beyond just engaging the economic buyer and outmaneuvering competitors.
2. What Is the Difference Between MEDDIC and BANT?
MEDDIC and BANT are both methodologies designed for qualifying sales leads, but they stand apart in their complexity, focus, and application in different sales contexts.
- MEDDIC (which includes Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion) is an intricate method that provides a more detailed evaluation of the sales process. It’s usually ideal for complex, large-scale sales environments (like multinational corporations) where it delves deeply into various aspects of the sales process — identifying key stakeholders and understanding the detailed buying procedure.
- BANT (which includes Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing) offers a simpler approach. It swiftly assesses a lead’s readiness for a purchase — making it suitable for straightforward sales contexts such as small businesses. But in 2024, BANT is losing its popularity due to its shallow qualification approach and inability to adapt to a complex sales cycle.
Scratchpad: A Reliable Tool That Simplifies the MEDDIC Process
Whether you’re a seasoned sales veteran or a newcomer, understanding MEDDIC is key to mastering the sophisticated dynamics of modern sales. It fosters a deeper connection with potential clients and enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.
Wondering if there’s a tool that can help you easily implement MEDDIC and drive more sales?
Look no further than Scratchpad!
Try Scratchpad for free today and discover how it can support your journey to MEDDIC mastery.
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MEDDPICC® is a federally registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively licensed by MEDDIC Academy, and is being used with permission.
