The NEW MEDDICC & MEDDPICC Sales training AI & Roleplays

What is MEDDIC?

MEDDICC is a widely-used sales methodology that stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion and Competition. It is a comprehensive approach to selling that helps salespeople to better understand and qualify their prospects, as well as to move them through the sales process more efficiently.

Here are some best practices for using MEDDICC in your sales process:

1. Understand the buyer's metrics: Metrics are the quantitative measurements that buyers use to evaluate the success of their business. Understanding your buyer's metrics will help you better position your product or service as a solution to their specific business problems.

2. Identify the economic buyer: The economic buyer is the person or group with the power to make purchasing decisions within the organization. Knowing who this person is and what their priorities are can help you better tailor your messaging and build a stronger relationship with them.

3. Understand the decision criteria: Decision criteria are the factors that the buyer considers when making a purchasing decision. Understanding these criteria will help you tailor your sales pitch to address their specific needs and concerns.

4. Know the decision process: Understanding the decision-making process within the buyer's organization can help you anticipate potential roadblocks and tailor your sales approach accordingly.

5. Identify the buyer's pain points: Understanding the buyer's pain points will help you position your product or service as a solution to their specific challenges.

6. Identify a champion: A champion is someone within the buyer's organization who can advocate for your product or service and help you navigate the decision-making process. Building a strong relationship with a champion can help you move the sale forward more effectively.

7. Understand the competition: Knowing your competition and how your product or service stacks up against theirs can help you better position your solution and address potential objections from the buyer.

When using MEDDIC, you’ll ask questions related to each of the categories above. At the end of the process, you’ll know more about each customer and know who’s a great fit for your business.

Research shows that if you use MEDDICC consistently your hitrate will increase and your sales will soar.

MEDDIC was pioneered in the 1990s by Jack Napoli. At technology company PTC, Napoli and his co-founder used MEDDIC to triple sales from $300 million to $1 billion in just four years.

The tools of MEDDICC are simple to use - the only issue is that in order to get value from them is to use them. These tools are found in the resources tab.

• MEDDICC sales compass: a graphical presentation of your MEDDICC health score

• MEDDICC form: a document for collecting information and actions

• MEDDICC Navigator: the most important questions to ask

• MEDDICC Go-live plan: A close plan for winning the deal

Check out the new MEDDICC AI tools here: https://www.meddicc.se/en/meddicc-sales-apps

Metrics are quantifiable and measurable economic gains that a customer perceives as valid for a particular project or initiative.

It can be divided in 2 major groups:

Above the Line (investing to gain profit and growth for the organization as a whole) - these are more likley to be "C-level" concerns

These are business-centric like increases in revenue or profit, quicker time to market, higher quality and customer satisfaction. These metrics are used to make decisions and build Business Cases or ROI.

Below the Line Investing to minimize costs and waste - and to gain efficiency in the department or sub-division) - these are more likley to be middle managers concerns

For example, cost savings and efficiency gains. Many times paired with reductions on FTEs (Full Time Equivalent) and production costs.

Examples of financial metrics are:

• ROI

• TCO

• LLC

• Revenue

• Profit & loss

• Sustainability score (ESG)

Examples of production oriented metrics:

• Precision

• Quality cost

• Process improvement

Examples of marketing metrics

• Time to market

• Customer accusition cost

• Cost per reached customer

• Customer satisfaction

Examples of HR (people and culture) related metrics

• Employee turnover

• Employee satisfaction

Suggested questions to ask your customer stakeholders:

• How would you measure the success of your project?

• Which metrics around cost, efficiency, or business performance do you need to achieve?

• How would success be measured by the business?

• What are your peers expecting you to achieve?

• What OKR/KPI are you currently measured on?

What are the best questions to ask to understand and influence the Metrics?

A success story about finding the relevant Metrics and win the deal

The Economic Buyer is a person with the discretionary approval to spend. Economic Buyers are decision makers who give the ultimate “yes” or “no” to a project. Usually, the person has a clear sight on the business benefits, decision criteria, and the process to close a deal.

Meeting the real Economic Buyer, checking for his sponsorship, criteria, and next steps, usually sheds a lot of light on the complex decision criteria and processes. Preparing for the Economic Buyer meeting is key to success; however, you need to do your homework on the value proposition and earn the right to ask for this meeting.

Qualifying if you talked to the real Economic Buyer is key. A good qualifying question could be: ”If you & I come to an agreement, is there anybody else formally or informally that would need to be involved or approve?”

Questions to ask the Economic Buyer:

• What happens if you decide this project is the right thing to do right now?

• Do you sponsor the project and us as it looks right now?

• What does success look like for you?

• What are the next steps if we fulfil the success criteria?

• How do you initiate and complete a purchasing process?

• What information do you need to issue a purchasing order?

If the Economic Buyer confirms the project and outlines a possible close date, your deal has a good chance of closing. If you do not meet the Economic Buyer or get his approval, your chance of closing a deal in time drops below 50%.

What are the best questions to ask to understand and influence the Economic buyer?

A success story on how to find and influence the Economic buyer

Decision criteria are the factors used to compare and evaluate vendors’ offerings. Every project has formally or informally defined
decision criteria. These are often categorized as technical, commercial, and legal decision criteria. The decision criterias should be documented and confirmed by the client. The customer may not have outspoken criterias, unless the purchasing department is driving the process. If so you can help the client to establish criterias and how they are to be used and veighted. Most likley this will give you and your company an competitive advantage. Beware when your competition have influenced the decision criterias - or external consultants.

Formal:

Admin

• Agreements

• Policys

• Certifications

• Vendor qualification terms (ESG, DI&E), size, financial standing etc

Legal

• Terms and conditions incl penalites

• Liabilities

• Usage of rights

Financial

• Payment terms

• Bank guarrenties (escrow)

Technical

• Integrations

• It-landscape

• Certification

• Technologies

Informal:

• Cultural

• Political

• Relationships

• Alliancies

Suggested questions:

• Has the economic buyer signed off on the decision criteria and the decision process?

• Which personnel are involved and what are the steps to reach the decision?

• How is this put in sequential order and which timeline is it based on?

• How does the approval process look like for $100K, $500K or $1 million?

• Are all other business requirements confirmed?

• What are the clear decision criteria which lead to a signed contract?

• How do the decision criteria relate to the identified pain (metrics)?

• Have you clearly validated that your offering delivers on the decision criteria?

• What are the other business requirements?

• What are the IT requirements?

• Are the (IT) requirements formally confirmed?

• What are the technical criteria to make a decision?

• What approvals must be in place to be an approved vendor?

• Paper process:

• How is the legal construct set up?

• Are there frame agreements in place?

• Which contractual paperwork is the basis of negotiation?

•Decision criteria are the factors used to compare and evaluate vendors’ offerings. Every project has formally or informally defined
decision criteria. These are often categorized as technical, commercial, and legal decision criteria. The decision criteria should be documented and confirmed by the client. The customer may not have outspoken criteria, unless the purchasing department is driving the process. If so you can help the client to establish criteria's and how they are to be used and weighted. Most likely this will give you and your company and competitive advantage. Beware when your competition have influenced the decision criteria's - or external consultants.

•Formal:

•Admin

•Agreements

•Policy's

•Certifications

•Vendor qualification terms (ESG, DI&E), size, financial standing etc

•Legal, Terms and conditions incl penalties, Rights of usage

•Financial, Payment terms, Bank guaranties (escrow)

•Technical, Integrations, It-landscape, Certifications, Technologies

• Informal:

•Cultural

•Political

•Relationships

•Alliances

What are the best questions to ask to understand the Decision criteria?

Suggested questions:

•Has the economic buyer signed off on the decision criteria and the decision process?

•Which personnel are involved and what are the steps to reach the decision?

•How is this put in sequential order and which timeline is it based on?

• How does the approval process look like for $100K, $500K or $1 million?

•Are all other business requirements confirmed?

•What are the clear decision criteria which lead to a signed contract?

•How do the decision criteria relate to the identified pain (metrics)?

•Have you clearly validated that your offering delivers on the decision criteria?

•What are the other business requirements?

•What are the IT requirements?

•Are the (IT) requirements formally confirmed?

•What are the technical criteria to make a decision?

•What approvals must be in place to be an approved vendor?

•Paper process:

•How is the legal construct set up?

•Are there frame agreements in place?

•Which contractual paperwork is the basis of negotiation?

How to win a deal in tough competiton with a few questions and MEDDPICC thinking

A success story on how to turn a price question to a value offer

The decision process outlines how customers select your offering. This includes the related timeline, validation, and approval
process. These can be both formal and informal gatherings.

While the decision criteria are all about what the decision is based upon, the Decision Process is about the route to it.

We primarily separate this process into the route to a technical decision (Technical Decision Making), the route to money (Business Decision Making) and the route to paper (Paper Process).

Technical Decision Making (TDM)

Based on the TDC, companies set up formal or informal processes that lead to a technical decision. It is important to understand what these steps are and who is involved in it.

As the decision criteria, this process should also be documented and confirmed by the client.

Business Decision Making (BDM)

Who needs to approve? Are there any formal boards? Is there a formal procedure or a paper process involved in a project approval workflow? How long does this usually take?

Paper Process (PP)

Rigorous regulatory or business compliance needs often lead to time intensive negotiations. These can take weeks or even months, but are necessary to have a legal agreement.

This process is the No. 1 reason why contracts get postponed and deals slip out of a quarter. Make sure you have executive sponsorship to give negotiations with Purchasing and Legal the right focus, the right time and the right resources. Be paranoid about the details!

Suggested questions:
• Which people are involved in the decision process?
• What are the steps to reach the decision?
• What are the sequence and timeline related to the decision process?
• What does the approval process look like for the value of our purchase?
• What does the procurement process look like?

Paper process:

• How is the legal construct set up?

• Are there frame agreements in place?

• What are the critical mandatory terms and conditions?

• Which contractual paperwork is the basis of negotiation?

What are the best questions to askto understand and influence the Decision process?

A real life success story - how the Decision process could be 50% shorter thanks to a Champion and a few power questions

What are the documents and agreements nedded to complete the paper process?

•Paper process:

•How is the legal construct set up?

•Are there frame agreements in place?

•Which contractual paperwork is the basis of negotiation?

What are the documents andr agreements nedded to complete the paper process? In this success story you will hear an example

How to create a Go-Live plan with the customer - to shorten the sales cycle?

Understand how to use a MEDDICC Go-LIVE plan

Link to AI -tool MEDDICC Go-live plan generator: https://meddicc-goliveplan.lovable.app/auth

Together with the Champion, the Pain is one of the 2 major qualifiers in the discovery phase that are required in order to understand if you have an opportunity.

A strong pain can be a technical or business shortage that the client would like to overcome, stop or change.

It must impact the customer in terms of time, cost, risk or revenue, if not solved within a certain time frame.

We call it “the consequence of doing nothing when the compelling event takes place.”

Important: A weak pain or unclear consequences will usually cause delays or reduced budgets due to the lack of priority for the executive management!

Example of a strong pain:

ABC Soft needs to deliver a solution by the end of the year. They have major delays caused by serious bugs, which may prevent an on-time delivery. (Pain) There is a penalty clause of $100K per week if the software is not up and running on January 1st. (Implication/Consequence: Cost->strong, Reputation-medium)

Outline the pain linked to business consequences and compelling events. This exercise will help you understand the prospect’s pain, the magnitude of the pain, and how you can help to solve it. Identifying pain helps you qualify the opportunity to understand if and how you can sell to the prospect. Helping your customer resolve a serious problem that would result in additional pain if left unaddressed gives your deal a reason and a timeline.

Implicate pains

Implicating the Pain means you have Identified, Indicated, and Implicated the Pain your solution solves upon your customer.

Pain is a problem the customer has with their business that is serious enough that there is a need for a solution.

3 Types of Pain P- ain Creates Urgency

Financial Pain: This relates to where the organization is either missing out on revenue or has higher costs relating to the pain.

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

People Pain: This relates to pain that impacts the People in the organization either by productivity, morale, skill, or ability.

Elite Sellers build influence maps of the stakeholders within the organization they are selling to. Mapping the types of pain to stakeholders keeps you focused on what kinds of conversation you need to have and with whom.

Identified Pain -

Indicate (the cost of the) Pain: By quantifying it into a document that illustrates their return on investment. Indicating the pain relates to the’ Problem’ in Solution Selling and the reasons for pains.

Implicate Pain: By making customers feel the negative impact the pain is having on their business.

Suggested questions:

• What problem are we solving and why is your offering uniquely positioned to solve it?

• How does it align with the company initiatives and is this a priority for this year?

• Who cares about the pain? Why is it important to you and your company?

• Is the pain compelling?

• What is the consequence of doing nothing?

• How does the pain specifically impact your business?

• How can the impact of the pain be measured?

• Whare the reaons for pain?

• Who are experiencing pain and how are they experiencing that?

• Is it really compelling: What is the consequence of doing nothing? Does it impact your business?

What are the best questions to ask to identify Pain, the impact and the value of pain? And how to turn the pain into a compelling event?

A real life story about finding pain and winning the deal

How is your Champion - who will sell for you when you are nnot there? Who will win if you win?

Pain is an important driver and implication drives urgency.

However there is always an owner with a personal interest to get this pain solved. This personal interest drives the person to collaborate with peers, consultants and vendors to attack the pain as soon as possible, speeding up the buying process.

The goal should be to identify these individuals. Even if they don’t carry the official management head, they can be spotted as they are well accepted by their peers, are very influential and usually have a good track record of successful projects that make them visible in the chain-of-command.

Once you identify the goals of your potential Champions, you will be able to develop the relationship by enabling him to address the pain, i.e. linking them to the subject matter experts in your company, inviting him/her to the right seminars or linking them up with your references so they can learn from their experiences in handling projects like his.

Once you’ve built up a real Champion, he will recognize your support and understand that you will be able to help him solve the pain moving forward. It will become a joint effort and your Champion will become a true defender of the cause, selling on your behalf whenever you’re not around.

The champion is the key player who has the power and influence to drive the opportunity to close. The champion sells on your behalf.

· The definition of a Coach is someone who is friendly and gives useful information about your deal.

· 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 Champion has a vested interest in your success (because your success means their success) Your Champion will help you kick start any internal processes that may slow the deal down at later stages. Processes such as: Reference Process; Technical Validation Process; Security Process; Legal Process; Procurement Process

· 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.Champion Red Flags

• No Buying Experience

• Not run any similar deals in their current company

• They won’t leave their lane (take risks – Real Champions get it done!)

• They Don’t Tell you Anything you Don’t Already Know

Questions to ask:

• Why is this person a champion?

• Does this person have the influence?

• What is his/her personal interest?

• Will he/her stand up for you and sell for you when you are not there?

• “In the conversations you’ve been having about my solution internally, has anyone raised any concerns or negative opinions?”

What are the best questions to validate your Champion? And how do you maximize the relationship?

Outline the competitive landscape related to this opportunity. Understanding the competition (internal and external) will help you better position your offerings. Be sure to validate your strategy and key differentiators with your champion and economic buyer

The Competition is any person, vendor, or initiative competing for the same funds or resources you are.

Possible Competition could be:

• Rival solutions-Your natural competitors

• Other projects/initiatives that require the same funds or resources

• The organization’s internal team building their own solution

• Inertia-The organization opting to do nothing

• The Build versus Buy debate is often as much a political one as it is technical.

Signs your Deal is Heading for Inertia

• The customer is seemingly unwilling or unenthusiastic to build out the Metrics

• You are unable to engage with the Economic Buyer

• The Decision Criteria is undefined and/or there is no Decision Process

• You haven’t been able to Identify Pain strong enough to make an impact upon the organization

• You are single-threaded and/or are failing at finding other stakeholders interested in sponsoring your deal

• There is no compelling event

If you hear directly or get the sense that your Competition has been knocking you, don’t panic. Do not lower yourself to their level by participating in a tit for tat counter-argument. Instead, take the high road.

There are three areas of your Competition to consider:

• Political: Who internally within the customer is aligned towards or is favorable to the Competition?

• Technical: How does our solution match up against the technical elements of the Decision Criteria?

• Commercial: How are we articulating our solution’s unique value and/or the lost value of not selecting our solution?

By the time your Paper Process is fully underway, your Competition should have been eradicated from your deal. The Strongest Champion Wins, not Vendor

Competition is one of the most neglected and underestimated risk factors when it comes to securing and closing a deal. Even if your prospect assures you that he or she is not looking into other solutions, it could still be that the approvers will ask for comparisons or purchasing will request to get additional quotes for price comparison’s sake.

Moreover, competition could go beyond a solution that’s offered by another company. It could also refer to the client’s “Do It Yourself (DIY)” solution or current way of doing things. Ie. The “if it ain’t broken why fix it” mentality where they decide to do nothing and continue with the status quo.

You really do not want to find out that you’ve been competing with another solution only after losing the deal.

Knowing your competition inside out will help you strengthen your case to neutralize your enemies early in your sales process. Identifying and building multiple champions will allow you to grow deeper roots within your prospect’s organization and gain more access to information. Doing so will also enable you to better understand the needs of the organization, so that you can set traps for your competitors and convince your prospect that your solution is the only solution that they will need.

Questions to Ask:

• Who are we competing against?

• Why are we competing against them?

• Could they do nothing?

• Are they adopting an open Source/DIY approach?

• Who in the account is championing your competition?

• Do we know who else needs to be involved?

The best questions to ask to find out: who are your competitors, how can you build a stronger case - can you win and how?

Hands on tips about how to beat competition - a success story

How to handle objections - get more inspirations on how to pre-emt and handle the most common objections.

Use MEDDICC smarter - add storytelling to your toolsbox and combine with NLP (neuro linguistic programing) - reinforce with the magic of powerful language!

Learn how to apply MEDDICC to the sales process

Learn how to use the MEDDICC Navigator to capture information

Learn how to use the MEDDICC Salescompass

Pro tipos on how to get started with MEDDPICC 

A case study to practice the sales compass.

A case study to practice the sales compass and MEDDICC Navigator

Stephan Orth is an experienced CEO, salesmanager and consultant with 30+ years of experience from consulting, software and solution sales in many different companies. Stephan have been using MEDDICC for a several years. From MEDDICC he especially emphesize E=economic buyer - since in all organizations there are very few people who controls spending and can reslease funds.

Using MEDDICC helps the sales organization to use the same language

A personal thank you for taking the MEDDPICC course with us! Greetings Jens Edgren and Jon Cleaver

Introduction of the roleplays.

Metric roleplay and questions

Economic buyer roleplay and questions

Decision criterias roleplay and questions

Decision process roleplay and questions

Identify pain roleplay and questions

Champion roleplay and questions

Competition roleplay and questions

Quick MEDDICC coaching on a sales case

Salesmanager full MEDDICC Coaching on a sales case

Use the MEDDICC form to take notes as you have sales calls - use the different squares to organize the discussion - and towards the end of the call you can see where you have a lot of information and where you need to ask more questions - now or later.

Upload to your CRM or take a picture and upload to your files.

Transform your sales conversations from price discussions to value conversations.

This tool helps salespeople reframe pricing objections and guide customers towards the true business value of the solution.

Plan, structure, and execute every sales call with confidence with MEDDICC Sales Call Planner.

This app helps you cover important topics, ask the right questions, and drive clear next steps — so every meeting moves your business forward.

With MEDDICC Sales Compass you can easily qualify each deal and see exactly which areas you need to focus on to drive it forward.

The app gives you a clear action plan that helps you prioritize the right activities and maximize your results in each sales process.

With the MEDDICC ROI / TCO Sales App, you can quickly create clear business cases and focus on ROI (Return on Investment) and TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) for software solutions. The app includes charts, calculations and downloadable resources that help you demonstrate the value of your solution and drive business forward faster.

With MEDDICC DealMaker Pro, you can effectively handle customer objections and drive deals forward. The app helps you structure your responses, face challenges with confidence, and ensure that no deals get stuck in the process.

Close more deals faster with a Go-live plan.

Avoid losing momentum in the deals.Or getting caught in your customers inability to decide.

Take action, through a joint plan with the customer, control the decision making process.

Create a reliable deal forecast.

This app will help you:

• Create a Go-live plan

• Create a timeline with activities and goal dates

• Track progress & share with customer

Choose language: Swedish, English and finnish

All data is safe in your personal account, stored in EU.

Do you want to book more sales calls?

Have you had difficulties getting positive responses?

Do you want to sound different and stand out?

Here you have free access to MEDDICC prospect generator - an app to create prospect messages that converts to meetings and eventually, deals.

• Create a tailored message to the unique client

• Create a library of reusable messages

• Get Jens P Edgren expert advice

In this app you simply enter a few datapoints of your client, what you want to sell - and BOOM - cut through prospect messages are delivered in seconds.

The data is stored in your account, safe in EU.

You will learn expert advice on a salesprocess based coaching model. Björn hansen is an experienced sales director - featured in the book The New MEDDPICC sell more, faster by Jens Edgren - found on Amazon

In this video Björn Hansen will give a hands-on example of how a a well performing sales person ran into a selfconfidence trap and with the right support, using the 4 step coaching model - met his targets and landed a new job

Björn gives great coaching tips using a simple 3 step sales process to describe how sales people can be strong in a part of the sales process and with coaching, develop to be a master seller

How to you coach sales people who believe they are the best - but infact are underperformers? Björn gives a real live story of a powerful change

How can the ability to make decision help you become a better leader - and boost selfconfidence into your team? Björn shares how.

Björn shares a story how a dicision changed the focus of the sales team hand with the use of MEDDICC increased the hitrate and won a large contract.