What Is MEDDIC Sales Process And How to Use It? (+ Free Template)

The MEDDIC sales process is a step-by-step qualification methodology that can help salespeople focus on winnable deals.

As you know, unqualified opportunities can drag on for long sales cycles. MEDDIC helps reduce the risk by providing important questions to determine if an opportunity is worthy of pursuing.

In this blog post, we’ll outline the steps of the MEDDIC process and provide examples of how to use it in your sales efforts.

What is MEDDIC?

MEDDIC is a sales qualification methodology that helps sales teams determine whether a potential opportunity worth pursuing based on a set of criteria. It’s an acronym for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, and Champion.

By using MEDDIC, sales teams can qualify prospects to see if there is a real opportunity. Additionally, it improves closing rates by focusing on better-qualified prospects resulting in more sales success.

Metrics

Provide prospects the proof of the economic benefit of investing in a solution. Find out the quantifiable gains your buyer hopes you achieve from your solution.

For example, purchasing a Marketing Automation Platform will increase productivity by reducing 40 hours per week and generating a 3x ROI of marketing spend.

Your prospect’s key metrics will help you customize the economic benefit of investing in your solution in a way that relates to their business goals. By uncovering what metrics your prospect cares about, you can build a stronger business case and a good return on investment (ROI).

Questions to ask:

• How would you measure the success of your initiative?
• Which metrics around cost, efficiency, or business must you achieve?
• How would the business measure this success?

Economic Buyer

Identify the key decision-maker who has the power to authorize spending.

The economic buyer may not be your main point of contact with whom you’ve already established a relationship. It would be best if you were speaking with someone higher up.

Knowing the economic buyer’s objectives will help you address objections earlier in the sales process. If you can’t reach an economic buyer, work with your point of contact to understand their expectations, priorities, and decision-making process and influence their decision directly.

Questions to ask:

• Who would sign off on this?
• What does success look like for you?
• What value would you get from the product?

Decision Criteria

Determine the important decision criteria the buyer is using to evaluate your solution.

Buyers typically evaluate multiple solutions and compare offerings, often weighing their options based on several important factors.

The decision criteria vary based on the solution. Often companies will use factors such as ease of use, budget, integrations, and potential ROI.

If a buyer doesn’t have well-defined decision criteria, you can provide one or help them formalize their criteria. They clearly understand their decision criteria to tailor your messaging and prove your solution meets all requirements.

Questions to ask:

• What exactly would you need to see to make a decision?
• What would (other stakeholders) need to see to make a decision? Who are the decision-makers?
• Why is that important to you?

Decision Process

After uncovering the decision criteria, you’ll understand your prospect’s decision process.

These are the company’s internal steps that determine how decisions are made. Typically the decision process includes the main stakeholders who make the decision; a timeline, meetings, business case, paperwork, and approval process is required.

When more than one stakeholder is involved, ensure you’re sales multi-threading multiple people within the account.

For example, if the economic buyer has agreed to purchase your solution, but a contract was not sent, then you know your next step is to follow up the paperwork process to get completed. to

Understanding the decision process will help you know exactly what steps to take to avoid unforeseen roadblocks or deal with stagnation. Align your selling process with their decision-making to ensure you and your prospect work in parallel.

Questions to ask:

• Which personnel are involved, and what are the steps to reach the decision?
• How is the legal construct set up?
• What was the process for purchasing a similar solution?

Identify Pain

Without pain, there isn’t a sale. A customer must have a pain point they are trying to resolve, or a business need to purchase a solution.

Uncover your prospect’s pain points so you can tailor your value proposition to explain how your solution solves their pain points.

Pain can come in various forms, such as slow productivity, customer churn, or stagnant revenue growth. Pain is a strong buying signal that can be leveraged throughout the buying cycle.

Ask your prospect to be specific about their business’s pain points. For example, if your prospect is struggling to win new customers and has consistently missed their revenue targets in a row, dig deeper to figure out how much they’re missing their targets, their goals, or how long the pain has existed.

Diagnose their pain points and ensure the information they provide is detailed and valuable. It’ll help you pitch your solution in a more compelling and helpful way.

Questions to ask:

• What are the priorities you’re focused on right now?
• How do your departmental goals (targets) affect the overarching business goal?
• What are some of the considerations/concerns/risks to consider?

Champion

Identify a champion who can advocate on your behalf and can benefit most from your solution.

The champion will likely have a strong bias for action and is most affected by the company’s pain. They are invested in your success and will influence internal stakeholders.

Your champion doesn’t need to be in a position of power like a senior executive or manager. They need to understand how to make internal decisions and identify the correct stakeholders involved. They must also earn respect and wield influence within their company.

A strong champion can help you uncover obstacles before they happen and accelerate sales.

Questions to ask:

• Why is this person a champion?
• Does this person have the influence?
• Can they accurately explain my product’s benefits and how they benefit the company?

Who created MEDDIC?

The MEDDIC sales methodology was developed in the 1990s by Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli at PTC.

It was created under the leadership of John McMahon–if this name sounds familiar, then you’ve likely heard of Jon’s book The Qualified Sales Leader, a classic sales book.

Today, it’s a common sales qualification framework used by successful sales teams that sell to enterprise companies.

Why use MEDDIC Sales methodology

There are countless benefits to using the MEDDIC sales methodology.

Since MEDDIC is often employed in complex enterprise sales, it enables sales teams to pinpoint actual opportunities. This allows them to devote less time and resources to unqualified prospects and more to those with a high likelihood of closing.

Here are several benefits of using the MEDDIC sales process:

• Understand every element of a buyer’s purchasing process.
• Determine if a buyer is a legitimate opportunity or not.
• Sales forecasts with more accuracy.
• Close more deals.
• Gives a checklist of what to uncover and ask during the buying process.
• Forces sales reps to ask the right questions to uncover the right information.

MEDDIC also helps you uncover critical information to qualify your leads. As you acquire more information, you can thoroughly evaluate prospects early in the sales process and improve your forecast accuracy.

Lastly, MEDDIC works as a straightforward checklist to help you attain information. It doesn’t focus on psychological tricks or best practices.

How MEDDIC helps customers

MEDDIC sales methodology benefits salespeople and teams. Potential customers can also benefit from clear guidance on the problem they need to solve, how to purchase the right solution, and how to optimize their time.

Here are several benefits of using the MEDDIC for customers:

• Better clarity into the problem they need to solve.
• Learn the unconsidered needs of the organization.
• Get clarity into the buying process.
• Get support to help secure buy-in and budget allocation.
• Save time and optimize the buying experience.

Salespeople can use MEDDIC to clarify to potential customers the true problem within their customer’s organization that needs to be solved or potentially provide visibility into unconsidered needs.

When buyers haven’t purchased a solution, salespeople can guide them on how to buy, who to speak with, and which stakeholders to influence. A savvy champion will appreciate the salesperson’s support. This involves helping the buyer navigate the organization and secure buy-in, negotiating internally, and securing the budget.

The goal of MEDDIC is to align the sales process with the buying process and provide an optimal experience for the buyer.

How to implement MEDDIC sales methodology

MEDDIC sales methodology gives clear direction on how to learn about your potential customers and influence their buying decision.

Before starting the MEDDIC sales qualification, train your sales team on what information they need to obtain and how to do so. You can create a simple flowchart or checklist to visualize the steps in MEDDIC.

Have your sales reps trained on what questions to ask and when in the sales process—roleplay how to ask MEDDIC questions during discovery calls.

Document your sales team’s information and any sales meetings in your CRM.

Create mandatory fields on each opportunity record to ensure your sales team follows MEDDIC. Your CRM will give you visibility into where your deals are in the sales pipeline and what the upcoming steps are. Equip your sales team with the training and information they need to improve efficiency in every stage of the buying process.

MEDDIC Example

Here’s a simple MEDDIC sales process flowchart you can use with your sales teams.

Walk them through each step, what they mean, and the questions they must ask. Make it a collaborative exercise by asking them what valuable questions they think the sales team should also ask.

What is MEDDPICC

MEDDPICC is ideal for enterprise sales teams with long and complex contracting processes. Additionally, for sales teams that face fierce competition during the sales process. MEDDPICC has evolved to include Paper processes and adds an additional C for Competition. 

Paperwork Process

MEDDPICC ensures that the contracting process doesn’t surprise you towards the end of a deal.

It helps the sales rep be more proactive with the prospecting by uncovering the contracting process, legal, procurement, data privacy, and any other requirements your company needs to fulfill.

Your sales forecast will be more accurate when you know all the steps to signing the contract.

Questions to ask:

• How does your company’s procurement process work?
• What is the typical timeline for getting approvals?
• Does your security team need to validate our solution?

Competition

Identify your competition and what unique value they provide.

Ensure your sales team knows who they’re competing against and what your prospect thinks of their value proposition. You can prepare your sales team with competitive battlecards on the competition and customer stories about how your solution better suits similar prospects.

Knowing the competition gives your sales team a better view of the market. It’s not only for current competitors but also new entrants who pose a major threat to your sales.

Figure out your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses, how to beat them, and the relationship your champion has with your competition.

Questions to ask:

• What other solutions are you currently evaluating?
• What key differentiators are you seeing from the other vendors?
• Are there things you wish we did differently?

Ready to use the MEDDIC sales process?

Can the MEDDIC sales methodology make a big difference for your sales team?

The answer is yes if your goal is to work qualified opportunities and improve close rates. MEDDIC can help improve your sales team’s abilities and increase revenue.

To implement MEDDIC, first, train your sales team on your buyer personas. Once they understand how your product or service relates to the ideal customer, please encourage them to apply the MEDDIC framework to sales call planning and document the conversations. The questions will vary depending on the prospect, but the themes should remain the same.

A step-by-step process will ensure your entire sales team can accelerate prospects through the buying journey. Enabling your sales team to use MEDDIC sales qualifications in their deals is important for any sales process.

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