You’ve invested all your time and effort, but buyers aren’t moving from prospecting to purchasing. What’s going wrong?
The problem may not be your methods but the customers you’re targeting.In sales, the decision-making process for buyers might seem out of your control, especially when dealing with complex organizations. However, there are ways you can better understand your audience and effectively filter buyers.
The MEDDIC sales process helps you qualify your audience to guide the right ones through your sales funnel.
The MEDDIC sales process
The MEDDIC sales process was first developed in the 1990s by Jack Napoli and Dick Dunkel, under the leadership of John McMahon, at PTC (Parametric Technology Corporation). Using the MEDDIC framework, they propelled sales from $300 million to $1 billion in four years.
This process emphasizes that pitching to better-qualified customers results in a higher closing rate, ultimately elevating the success of your sales endeavors.
What is the MEDDIC sales methodology?
The MEDDIC framework is a dynamic B2B sales methodology that dives deep into the elements of the decision-making processes in your buyer’s organization. It guides you and provides clarity to comprehend the unique needs of your prospects.
But what does MEDDIC stand for?
- Metrics.
- Economic buyer.
- Decision criteria.
- Decision process.
- Identify pain.
- Champion.
Let’s get into the details of each part of the acronym.
Metrics
You guessed it right. We’re going to talk about Metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that matter the most to your clients.
The MEDDIC sales process starts with your customers and their intentions. If your client knows that you understand their KPI, they will be interested in the product that you’re selling them. It shows that you know what you’re talking about, and that helps with sales.
Instead of worrying about vague questions and answers based on emotions - focus on the KPI your customer cares about. For example, how much percentage would they like to increase their output this year, and what percentage of overheads would they want to save or cut this quarter?
Economic buyer
The E in the MEDDIC sales process refers to the person who makes financial decisions—the Economic Buyer. You should know who is making the financial decisions before you pursue a lead.
The decision maker carries the weight of wins and losses, and it is best practice to engage with them directly.
Most often, your first point of contact for a sale is not the economic buyer. They might be higher up the ladder in terms of hierarchy. One of the best practices is to engage with your economic buyer and understand their needs and goals.
An economic buyer will know what they need and how they want to achieve it. This makes selling to them easier by pitching them what they want.
Decision criteria
It is always good to be prepared for roadblocks that might arise in the future. When making a sale, you should know what might be some of the criteria your customer would consider. Do they have any technical criteria, vendors, or financial specifics that need to be thought of?
Let’s see some of the common criteria that you might come across in the MEDDIC sales process. Remember, these can change depending on your customer.
- Can it be implemented easily?
- Is it compatible with what I have?
- How much does it cost?
- What is the Return On Investment?
If you are unsure of their criteria, it is always good to know from them. You could ask for a summary of their requirements in an email. Knowing their requirements makes it easy for you to make the sale.
Decision process
It is good to know your customer’s decision process from beginning to end. Like the decision criteria help you understand what requirements you need to meet—the decision process offers a roadmap for closing deals.
You shouldn’t leave the sale decision to luck and know what you need to get the approval from your client.
Decision processes vary between companies, some requiring multiple levels of approval. Detailed insights expedite the process and prevent scattered approvals from stalling a sale. If you clearly understand the process, you’ll avoid leaving the sale to luck.
Identify pain
When customers come to you for a solution - there’s usually a pain point they want to avoid. The customer’s need for a solution should be understood completely—you wouldn’t have a chance to make an impact without knowing what they're trying to improve.
There are sales discovery questions that help you achieve this.
What are your customer's primary objectives? Knowing this can make your life easy by aligning your solution to their pain point. Understanding the customer’s problem not only improves the rapport you share but also helps you make a pitch that will surely succeed. You can help your customer by eliminating their problems and easing their operations.
Champion
It is always good to identify a person from your customer’s organization who will advocate for you. They usually have already decided that your product helps them and are interested in the solution.
Try identifying a champion who is regarded well and is heard in their organization and build a rapport with them. One of the best practices of selling is to establish rapport, and if you have a great rapport with your champion, your work is half done.
Pros and cons of using the MEDDIC sales process
You will encounter several sales frameworks to choose from. To make an informed choice, weighing each approach's advantages and disadvantages is essential.
Let’s explore the pros and cons of the MEDDIC sales process below.
Determine if a client is a good fit
The MEDDIC framework helps you pinpoint ideal clients by understanding their needs, key performance indicators (KPIs), and pain points. This enables efficient prospect evaluation.
Rather than exhausting your team's efforts across all prospects, MEDDIC empowers you to concentrate on those most likely to find success with your product. This strategic shift lets your sales team boost their close rate by focusing on better-qualified consumers.
Know what to do next
MEDDIC erases uncertainties by equipping you with the decision-making process and criteria that matter most for your prospect.
With all this information, your sales team can gain better insight, allowing differentiation between swift and complex decision-making buyers. You can then build follow-up strategies around these schedules, ensuring a more efficient and fruitful sales journey.
Elevate the buyer’s journey
With profound insights from the MEDDIC sale process, you can create a personalized and tailored buyer's journey.
This fosters trust and satisfaction as potential customers feel their needs are being truly understood.
That’s how MEDDIC goes beyond sales, creating an exceptional buying experience that leaves a lasting impact.
Learning more about customers
This methodology relies on asking specific questions and diligently recording relevant information. You’ll need to train your team to gather the right data properly. Your team must be skilled at drawing out information during interactions with buyers. Every customer may not be forthcoming or knowledgeable about their processes.
Clear buyer personas
Understand your buyer personas well to implement MEDDIC successfully. Before getting started, it’s important to have a grasp of your target audience to understand and formulate the right questions within the MEDDIC framework.
Be thorough before implementing MEDDIC. If you don’t have a solid understanding of your ideal customer, you won’t be able to thrive with this framework.
Implementing the MEDDIC sales process
MEDDIC can complement your existing sales framework If your company already has a customer-centric approach. It can help you gain invaluable insights into your customers, enhance operational efficiency, and create a better experience for your prospects.
To harness the full potential of MEDDIC, you need to Train your sales reps so they can understand how each component of the MEDDIC acronym translates into real-world practice.
If you effectively qualify leads at the start of your sales funnel, you'll have much smoother and faster closings.
Enhance MEDDIC with an AI assistant
As discussed earlier, like everything, MEDDIC is not perfect. However, you can thrive with MEDDIC with the simple addition of an AI assistant to your team.
Fireflies.ai can revolutionize the way you implement the MEDDIC sales process.
Fireflies is an AI note taker that automates note-taking during customer interactions, ensuring no crucial details are missed.
This AI assistant empowers you to effortlessly revisit and review all the vital discussions from your meetings to swiftly create action items and extract crucial sound bites to share with your team.
Furthermore, Fireflies.ai enables easy search and analysis of sales conversations. You can leverage these features to unearth valuable insights, refine your lead qualification, automatically push notes to the CRM, and enhance your sales strategy.
💡 Boost your sales with Fireflies!
Start implementing MEDDIC and enhance your sales strategies with Fireflies' AI assistant.
