Sales discovery is a crucial phase in the selling process that can significantly impact the speed, efficiency, and outcome of your sales efforts. In this blog, we will be discussing the MEDDIC sales process and why it is a wise choice to adopt it, especially for SMBs and mid-market companies, and not just enterprises.
Through this blog post, we will talk about what MEDDIC is, the components of MEDDIC, how Avoma’s sales team practices MEDDICC (instead of MEDDIC), how it helps make the sales process more efficient and thereby impact the overall effectiveness to drive revenue.
So, let’s start with the basics.
What is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. It is a sales methodology that provides a structured framework for qualifying and managing sales opportunities. MEDDIC has been designed to help sales teams better understand their customers, assess the viability of prospects, and develop effective strategies to close deals.
However, the MEDDIC process is much more than just a sales technique. It is a strategic tool that helps align your sales approach with your customer's buying journey.
This alignment allows you to navigate the often complex and lengthy sales process more efficiently by providing clear guidelines on key aspects of the sales process such as identifying the right decision-makers, understanding the customer's pain points, and crafting a value-packed proposition.
Let’s look at each of the pillars of MEDDIC and understand them.
Metrics
Metrics are the quantifiable economic benefits that a customer expects from purchasing and using your product. You can identify the metrics that are a priority to your prospect by asking them about their expectations in terms of increased revenue, cost savings, time savings, or any other specific measurable improvement related to your product or service.
For example, a buyer’s goals may include reducing their time spent on coaching their sales and customer success team by 30% and yet improve the effectiveness by 50%.
To uncover the metrics that matter to your prospects, you can ask discovery questions such as:
- What are your top 3 KPIs for <the pain they want to solve>?
- What are your goals for the quarter?
The idea is to build on the problem, show them the aspect of your product that’s most relevant to the prospect, and also establish the cost of inaction.
Economic Buyer
The economic buyer is the person who holds the budget power in the customer's organization. They have the financial authority to make the final purchase decision. Identifying the economic buyer helps to ensure that sales efforts are being directed towards the person who can truly say 'yes' to the deal.
Let’s say that you are talking to a potential customer who is a marketing manager. The marketing manager is interested in your software, but they don't have the final say on whether or not to buy it.
You need to identify the economic buyer in this situation. You can ask questions like:
- Are there any other stakeholders or decision-makers involved in this process that we should be aware of?
- Would you be the primary decision-maker?
- Who else would be involved in approving the purchase?
The marketing manager tells you that the CEO is the economic buyer. You now need to figure out how to appeal to the CEO. You do some research and find out that the CEO is focused on increasing sales and reducing costs. You also find out that the CEO is a big fan of technology.
You tailor your sales pitch to focus on what their goals are, what’s of value to them, and how your SaaS can help them get there.
Decision Process
The decision process refers to understanding how the customer's organization makes purchase decisions. This includes knowing who is involved in the decision, what steps are taken before the final decision is made, and what factors could potentially delay the buying decision.
From our experience, it typically involves asking your prospects, questions like:
- What is your ideal timeline to implement a solution like ours?
- What does your decision making process look like?
- Are there any time-sensitive factors or external deadlines influencing your decision?
- Do you have a timeframe as to when you want to see tangible outcomes as a result of our implementation?
- When do you envision starting the implementation process?
The processes and expectations may differ with every organization. However, if you don’t understand the internal process, and where they stand today, your sale might slip through the cracks.
And on the other hand, if you know your next steps, you can move faster.
Decision Criteria
The decision criteria refers to the specific criteria that the customer's organization will use to evaluate your product or service.
This could include factors such as:
- Price
- Functionality
- Vendor reputation
- ROI
- Ease of use, and more.
You can understand this by asking specific decision-related questions to your prospect such as:
- Do you have any specific criteria or requirements for evaluating and selecting a solution in our industry?
- What are the main factors you consider to compare the vendors you have shortlisted?
Understanding the decision criteria can help the sales team to tailor their pitch and highlight the features that are most important to the customer.
Identify Pain
Identifying pain is about understanding the customer's specific problems, needs, or challenges that your product or service can solve. Prospects land on your website or get in touch with your team because they have a problem. It's your job to figure out what that problem is and how your product can help them solve it.
However, problem identification and definition is more important than problem-solution. The prospect needs to feel that their problem is heard, understood and are in the right place when they talk to you.
Ask them questions to understand them better, such as:
- What does your day-to-day workflow look like?
- Why is XYZ a challenge? How were you handling it till date?
- What made you look for the solution right now?
By identifying these pain points, the sales team can better position the product or service as the solution to the customer's problem.
Champion
According to MEDDIC, the final pillar is Champion. The Champion is an advocate for your product or service within the customer's organization.
Your champion doesn't have to be a VP or Director or a manager. The core criteria of a champion is their influence in the organization. Influence makes all the difference.
Champions are those who believe in the value of your product and can help to influence other decision-makers in the organization.
You can identify them by asking questions such as:
- Who would be the point of contact who’ll drive this initiative at your organization?
- How can we work together to ensure our solution aligns with your organization's goals?
Identifying and building a relationship with a champion can significantly increase the likelihood of closing the deal.
However, the MEDDIC process is much more than just a sales technique. It is a strategic tool that helps align your sales approach with your customer's buying journey. This alignment allows you to navigate the often complex and lengthy sales process more efficiently by providing clear guidelines on key aspects of the sales process such as identifying the right decision-makers, understanding the customer's pain points, and crafting a value-packed proposition.
Our experience working with a lot of sales and customer success teams tells us that MEDDIC is missing one more C – Competition.
The missing C in MEDDIC — Competition
Knowing who your competitors are, and more importantly, how your prospective clients perceive them and are evaluating them, can provide invaluable insights. And that is why we at Avoma call it MEDDICC.
Understanding whom you are competing against can help steer your sales approach and messaging, highlight your own unique value proposition, and help you strategize on how to differentiate your offerings from the competition.
Therefore, it’s important to ask your prospects questions such as:
- Who else are you evaluating?
- How did you arrive at shortlisting these 3 tools for evaluation?
How adding the Competition pillar enhances MEDDIC
The consideration of competition should be integrated into the Decision Criteria and the Decision Process stages. When you explore and understand the Decision Criteria, you should also aim to uncover the benchmarks set by the competitors.
Likewise, in the Decision Process, knowing the competition can help you anticipate and navigate through potential roadblocks or objections that might stem from competitor activities.
Moreover, understanding your competition can also enhance the process of Identifying Pain, as you might uncover challenges or frustrations your prospects have with competitors' offerings. This knowledge can then be leveraged to present your own solution as the superior alternative.
While the MEDDIC sales process offers a robust framework for a strategic, structured, and solution-based approach to sales, it is essential to incorporate a focus on understanding the competition, to truly maximize the potential of your sales strategy.
MEDDICC isn’t just for enterprises but for SMBs too
While the MEDDIC process was initially designed for large enterprise sales, it is not limited to that. In fact, many SMB SaaS companies can and do benefit from employing MEDDIC in their sales organizations.
There's a common misconception that smaller companies don't need such a structured sales process. However, regardless of the size of your business, having a clear and systematic sales approach is critical to achieving consistent and sustainable growth.
In fact, SMB SaaS companies stand to gain greatly from implementing MEDDICC. This is especially true given the highly competitive and rapidly evolving nature of the SaaS industry. Without a robust sales methodology, it can be difficult to consistently identify and close high-value deals.
MEDDICC provides a clear roadmap for your sales team to follow, enabling them to navigate the often complex and unpredictable sales landscape with greater confidence and effectiveness.
It is especially beneficial for SMB SaaS companies that have a relatively complex product or service offering. In such cases, the customer journey is often more intricate and requires a more consultative and strategic sales approach. This is exactly what MEDDIC provides. It helps your sales team properly assess the customer's needs, identify key decision-makers, and devise an effective sales strategy.
One of the key benefits of the MEDDICC sales methodology is that it can significantly speed up your sales cycle.
This is achieved by providing a clear and structured process that helps your sales team better qualify prospects, effectively handle objections, and efficiently guide the customer through the buying journey. This not only increases the likelihood of closing the deal but also helps move the deal forward in a timely manner.
Automating MEDDICC implementation and coaching
Once your team is onboard, you can begin incorporating MEDDICC into your sales process right away. Remember, MEDDICC is not a rigid set of rules. Rather, it is a flexible framework that you can adapt and tweak according to the unique needs and challenges of your business.
The MEDDICC sales process gives clear direction on how to learn more about your potential customers and convince them of your product or service's value. But how can you encourage your reps to start using this process? Implementing MEDDICC and coaching your team to follow the approach needn’t be hard.
With Avoma, you already have the MEDDICC scorecard as a default scorecard template. Just choose the questions you want every sales call to be measured by, and you’re all set.
The best part is — Avoma's AI Coaching Assistant solves your biggest pain when it comes to sales coaching on MEDDICC — you need not listen to every call and evaluate the sales calls based on the MEDDIC parameters manually.
The Avoma AI listens to all the calls and scores them based on the MEDDIC parameters defined by you. The way it works is—each call is automatically scored by AI, and you can see which ones need your attention the most based on the ones with the lowest scores.
So, no more guessing or picking calls to listen randomly. You can spend your time when you add the most value–coaching each rep exactly based on where they need help.
It ensures that none of your personal biases come in the way. More importantly, AI ensures 100% coaching coverage on all the calls, which is otherwise impossible when done manually.
Incorporating a new sales methodology like MEDDICC into your operations may seem daunting at first. But with Avoma, transform your sales efforts and help you realize better results with MEDDIC is a matter of setting up a scorecard in just a few clicks and training your team on the go.
Keep in mind that adopting a systematic sales methodology like MEDDICC is a continuous process, not a one-time event. So, be patient, stay determined, and you'll gradually see your sales performance improve.
Summing up…
Incorporating the MEDDICC sales methodology into your sales process can prove to be a game-changer, especially for SaaS startups and SMBs. It offers a systematic and structured framework that can help your sales team better understand your customers, qualify prospects more effectively, and expedite your sales cycle.
While it may initially seem like MEDDICC is tailored for big enterprises, many SMB SaaS companies can and do reap significant benefits from employing this methodology. With MEDDICC, your sales team will have a clearer direction and better focus, which can lead to increased effectiveness and efficiency in your sales efforts.
Remember, implementing MEDDIC is a continuous process that may require time, patience, and effort. But the potential benefits it can offer, such as improved sales performance, shorter sales cycles, and more consistent growth, make it a worthwhile investment.
So, if you're looking for a proven method to elevate your sales game, consider adopting the MEDDICC sales process. It could just be the strategy you need to take your sales operations to the next level.
