MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale

by Whyte Mr Andy

Metrics 2 (M2's) - Return on Investment Through effective research, discovery, and by building a consensus with your Champion, you can shift from M1's, which are hypothetical, into M2's, which are specifically curated in collaboration with your customer based upon quantifying the value your solution will provide, AKA the Return on Investment (ROI).

Elite enterprise sales organization, App Dynamics, tackled this brilliantly by ensuring their Sellers leave every meeting with three questions answered: The Three Whys: Why should you buy Application Management? Why should you buy from App Dynamics? Why should you buy now?

What does your solution do that is unique, and subsequently, so is the value? What is the Metric that quantifies that value?

This is often called a Proof of Concept (POC), trial, pilot, or test. It is imperative for the success of your deal that you underpin this test with a 'Success Criteria,'

Metrics and Procurement By the time you engage with Procurement, you should have your Metrics wholly locked down and validated by your customer. If you are engaging with Procurement before having the universal buy-in of your value, you need to STOP and work on getting it. Otherwise, Procurement is likely to knock chunks out of your proposal, and you won't have any reasonable defense at your disposal.

“Our Metrics predict that for each week you don't implement our solution, you are losing $100,000 revenue which exceeds the amount you are trying to negotiate!" A strong point, but don't expect to be the first person to play this angle, and it's likely to be met with a negative response, perhaps something like: “If I skip running a thorough Procurement process with every bit of technology put in front of me just because it has a positive ROI, we’d get ourselves into a real mess.”

Mid-Stages: Metrics at the mid-stage of your sales cycle is the moment your Metrics come into their own, despite most Sellers never realizing it. At the mid-stage, your customers will be carefully evaluating your solution, potentially against your Competitors, and always against other priorities and projects. This is the time where your Metrics need to be bulletproof.

Summary Snapshot of Metrics in the Sales Process: Early: How much will this help me? Do I believe you? Mid: How much does this value compare to others? Late: Have they proven that this value is available?

I know of one Elite Seller who, from staying engaged with his deal post-signature, was able to identify that within the customer's first full month of using his solution, he generated enough additional profit to pay for his solution’s entire annual cost. Imagine how compelling that anecdote has been for him!

We know how important it is for a Seller's success to have successful customers as references; therefore, Elite Sellers always ensure that the handover process to Post-Sales is as thorough as possible.

Your Champion’s role isn’t just limited to identification and engagement with the Economic Buyer but they also play an advisory role. The Economic Buyer is likely to be a senior executive and your Champion should coach you on how to work with the Economic Buyer. Questions to ask your Champion: How do they like to be engaged? E.g. Phone? Email? Letter? What do they care about? E.g. Making Money? Saving Money? Reducing Risk? What are some things that you know they like? What are some things that you know they dislike?

Going Direct An often-missed route to the Economic Buyer is to go directly to them. Sellers often overlook this route for fear of upsetting their Champion or for looking disconnected if you are the one to introduce yourself. Whilst it is, of course, better to be introduced to the Economic Buyer, introducing yourself is vastly better than not being in contact at

John Kaplan at Force Management has an ace way of circumnavigating this issue and that is to write what he calls ‘The Champion Letter’. This is a letter written to the Economic Buyer that introduces yourself and your solution whilst, at the same time, praising your Champion for what an outstanding job they are doing on the project. You can even call out all of the value they have helped you to uncover. It is quite hard for a Champion to be angry at you when you’ve effectively just been praising them to someone senior within their organization.

Using a Senior Executive to Engage Aligning your senior executive team with their peers within the customer’s organization is good practice. One of the secrets to the success of organizations like Salesforce.com is their ability to engage senior executives on a consistent basis. However, Sellers frequently wait too long to begin this process and all too often they only ask their senior execs to engage when they feel like they are on the back foot. Elite Sellers engage their senior execs at the earliest point, which can even be before the first meeting.

In your research, you uncover an article written by their Chief Digital Officer talking about an initiative that your solution will support. You ask one of your senior execs to reach out to the CDO and mention that she has heard that her team is meeting with the CDO’s team. She also references the article and how she feels your solution can provide value to help her with her initiative. The message doesn’t contain any ask, it simply just introduces your senior exec and positions her executive support on the project. It is often good to close with a promise to update the CDO following the meeting on how you heard it went, which leaves the door open for a follow-up.

Talk in the Language of the Economic Buyer “You get delegated to who you sound like.” In your first interaction with the Economic Buyer, they are going to be trying to gauge what kind of a Seller you are. Make no mistake about it, they will have vast experience of working with Sellers—both good and bad—and the chances are they will make their mind up about you in minutes, if not seconds.

First Interaction Guidance Behave like a Consultant, not a Seller: This is easier said than done. The chances are, you have been waiting for the opportunity to engage with the Economic Buyer for a while and you don’t want to miss your chance to talk about how great your solution is. Hold that urge! Be consultative and don’t talk about your solution. Talk about the business objectives and outcomes they are trying to achieve. Aim to Win Credibility Early: Give industry examples to illustrate your points whilst also demonstrating your knowledge of their industry. There are two rich sources of information you can use to show your knowledge of their industry. The first is via reference points from your existing customers: What have you helped them solve? What results did they see? Which mutual connections do you have? Who can you introduce them to? The second is by referring to industry reports and analysis. Even better if you can highlight some industry benchmarks and standards and show how they compare. Ask Questions: By asking questions, you will not only uncover useful information but you will also separate yourself from the majority of Sellers who use this opportunity to pitch. Killer-Question: “Champion and I have built some Metrics which we think will measure the success of our solution, but before I show you ours, I’d love to get an idea from you of what you think would be a great indicator of this solution being a success for you?” The answer to this question is likely...

“From our conversation today, it seems as though we can really help you solve your objectives. With your sponsorship, I think we could find more areas of value across the organization. Would you be willing to sponsor the project?”

Follow-Up: After the first interaction, follow-up by writing an email to the Economic Buyer and copying in your Champion. The email should exist to serve the Economic Buyer, not the Seller. Therefore, it must include value for the Economic Buyer to balance the asks you will make. Include evidence that supports any discussion points, such as the business case, or any industry reports in which you referred to. Summarize the call within the email and ensure any action points are confirmed and the next steps are clearly articulated and allocated to owners.

This introduction doesn’t have to be a big event, nor does it call for any action from the Economic Buyer. It can simply be an email from the Seller introducing themselves and high-level details of the project they are working on and with whom. In most cases, you will get a reply thanking you for the introduction and usually a note that says something like “I am looking forward to seeing how the opportunity progresses”.

Once your deal is closed, the Economic Buyer is unlikely to have any further hands-on activity with your solution. Elite Sellers know that keeping the Economic Buyer informed on the progress of the implementation of the solution will reap rewards later on for the Seller, when they want to re-engage in a renewal or upsell conversation. Not forgetting the likelihood that the Economic Buyer could become an invaluable reference for your future deals if you deliver on your promises to them.

Why did you take this meeting? - Instead of launching into a presentation after the intros, the attending sales leader should ask the Economic Buyer why they took the meeting. This will provide valuable insight into how the discussion should proceed.

Follow up - Always ask the Economic Buyer for their contact information. If you’ve had a good meeting, they will want to connect with you. If not, they will defer. An exception to this is if they defer to the Champion. This is a good sign that they support your Champion.

The fundamental factor of the economics is having a rock-solid business case. The crucial component in any business case is the Return on Investment (ROI). Most organizations will have a required ROI ratio which means that for every $ they spend, they will want to get a multiple amount back.

Risks - How does your solution help the organization to reduce or mitigate any Risks they are facing? Time - What is the amount of time that is associated with your solution? Both from a time to value perspective and in terms of outright time required to implement and maintain it. Opportunity Cost - What is the value of your solution versus other opportunities the customer is considering and what will be the cost of prioritizing your solution over them? Commercial terms - As crazy as it often seems, I have seen organizations pass on solution providers who weren’t able to be flexible on commercial terms as seemingly trivial as invoice payment terms.

consistent: Executive Alignment/Sponsorship - Do the interests and values of the organization’s executives align? Does your customer feel as though they have executive-level support? I have seen executive engagement turn the tide of deals before. Industry and Direction - Do the directions of the organizations align? For instance, if your customer is a retailer, are you able to demonstrate that you are actively moving in the direction to do more in retail? Reputation - What is your reputation in the eyes of your customer? Do third-party partners recommend you? Are online reviews favorable? Have you connected the customer with relevant references?

If You Don’t Influence the Decision Criteria, Your Competition Will

Easy to Read - Your business case will be passed around your customer’s business, including to people you haven’t met. For this reason, the business case needs to be written in a language everyone can understand. No buzzwords or terminology that isn’t widely understood.

Decision Criteria Document Including a breakdown of your interpretation of the Decision Criteria is an elite move, especially if you can make it seem as though you are simply articulating what you have heard. When this is done right, you have a genuine chance of locking in your interpretation of the Decision Criteria to be the official version.

Who needs to approve this deal? What is their role? Are there any committees or formal boards? How long does each person take? Who or what can slow this down? Who can help me speed it up?

Within the early stages, you will want to uncover the Technical Decision Process; how will they validate whether a solution is feasible for their needs and who are the stakeholders and departments that are involved within that process? Mid-Stages:

Work backward from the compelling event - Define the compelling event with the Champion and then work back to establish the events and milestones you will be executing against hand in hand with your customer.

For each stakeholder in the Paper Process, you want to ensure your Champion has confirmed that they are aware, briefed, and available for the timeframes that have been committed to. Killer-Questions To your Champion: “Have you worked through these stages with a solution of similar complexity/cost to mine before?” “What things should we look out for?” “What have you seen go wrong?” “What things should we be doing to be on the front foot?”

Seller should always have a deadline they are working towards whether it is tied to resources that are being reserved for the implementation of the deal or related to a time-limited commercial offer by the Seller. Having a deadline drives urgency on both sides and maintains momentum on the deal.

Elite Sellers introduce documents early - Asking to engage in the Paper Process stages early allows Sellers to test their Champion's commitment to progressing the deal. The sooner you can work through the Paper Process, the sooner you will move your deal towards closing.

Efficiency Pain: This relates to a Pain that is occurring because something prohibits the organization from being efficient or effective.

The quantification of Efficiency Pain is usually time: the time it takes or the number of resources required for a process to occur. People Pain: This relates to pain that impacts the People in the organization either by productivity, morale, skill, or ability. The quantification of People Pain is often measured in the output of individuals or departments and therefore is more specific to where the pain lies.

Tactics to Identify the Pain Identify pain by talking about problems you have solved for other customers and expand upon them by asking if they are having the same issues. Suppose you can put yourself into the position of your customer’s customers and can identify pain, such as a poor user experience. In that case, you can use this information to surface the pain to your customer through their customers’ eyes.

Tactics to Implicate the Pain Show a glimpse into the future Utopian state that your solution can provide. Use two-sided discovery to make the customer live in the moment of their pain Note: As MEDDICC is a qualification methodology, the purpose of The Three I’s Transition is to help you qualify whether you have Identified, Indicated, and Implicated the Pain. Just like the rest of MEDDICC, you should apply it over the top of a sales methodology.

I’ve often said that the main difference between Order Takers and Elite Sellers is that Elite Sellers make deals happen in their timeframes, and Order Takers take the order when the customer places it.

Elite Sellers aren’t dictating the time frame or anything that bold, but what they are doing is selling in such a manner that it creates urgency and subsequently accelerates the timeframes.

In the early stages, you need to identify if there is a real pain that is not only felt by the business but that you can solve.

As you move into the mid-stages of a deal, your Champion should fully understand the pain, how it impacts their business, and how your solution will help solve the pain.

Which of the following three scenarios best describes the pain associated with your deals: i1 — You have identified some pain i2 — You have Indicated the cost of the pain to your customer i3 — You have implicated the pain onto your customer, and they feel the negative impact it is having upon their business

No business pain, no business - If the initial cost of doing nothing is too low, qualify out. Find the person in power who cares about the Pain - Implicating Pain that no one in power cares about is a waste of your time. It is the fastest way to get to a "No Decision" scenario,

Always Champions! The purpose of working with a Champion is that when we align ourselves with them, they help us make progress with our deal and give visibility into previously dark areas. The more Champions you have, the more you will be able to align yourself with your buyers while uncovering more useful information. That said, generally, most deals tend to have one primary Champion.

To Evolve a Coach to a Champion, they require the following explicit criteria: A Champion has power and influence A Champion acts as an internal Seller for you A Champions has a vested interest in your success

The best way to enable your Champion to be credible in selling for you is to arm them with the I and the M from MEDDICC - Pain, and Metrics.

Build Your Champion Once you have evolved your Coach into a Champion, your work has only just begun. Elite Sellers know that having a Champion isn’t binary and that they need to continually work on building their Champions to enable their full potential.

Make your Champion Pitch Perfect Your Champion is likely to have to pitch your solution internally when you aren’t there. It is one hundred percent your job to coach your Champion to ensure their pitch is perfect, and if it isn’t, it is your job to work on them to improve it.