The MEDDIC sales process: Definition, methodology, and implementation

B2B salespeople, you know how limited your time is. You can’t “woo” everybody, so you must ruthlessly prioritize how and where to invest your time.

And just because the marketing team passes a prospect your way doesn’t mean that person is actually sales-qualified. Misalignment between what counts as “qualified” means you might spend (read: waste) your time with someone who will never buy.

Top performers avoid this problem, which explains why they spend 10% less time selling than their average counterparts. So, if you’re struggling to talk to the right people and close deals, it might be time to implement the MEDDIC sales process.

Let’s discuss the MEDDIC sales qualification framework, how it works, and what the implementation process looks like.

What is the MEDDIC sales process?

MEDDIC is a sales framework used by sales professionals to qualify prospects and identify potential buyers. It’s a method to mitigate wasted time and close deals faster.

MEDDIC stands for:

• Metrics
• Economic buyer
• Decision criteria
• Decision process
• Identify pain
• Champion

Under this sales methodology, you’ll go through the acronym, asking questions that correlate with each letter. At the end, you’ll discover whether or not a prospect is suitable for your solution.

Benefits of the MEDDIC sales process

Why should sales teams implement MEDDIC?

After all, countless other sales methodologies similar to MEDDIC make grand claims to improve close rates and grow revenue, too. MEDDIC differs because it concentrates purely on the lead qualification process.

Here are four benefits of leaning on MEDDIC as your go-to lead qualification framework:

1. It improves the quality of your leads with continued use

On average, 79% of marketing leads never turn into sales-qualified leads. MEDDIC streamlines the lead qualification process by empowering marketers to ask a few targeted questions before sales professionals waste hours cultivating relationships destined to go nowhere.

2. It fosters better collaboration between marketing and sales

Naturally, when marketing disqualifies more dead-end leads before they get to sales, there’s a stronger partnership there. Lead qualification, at its best, is a collaborative effort involving the marketing team passing quality leads to the sales team. MEDDIC establishes a baseline for what counts as a “qualified lead” that both marketing and sales agents can follow. The collaboration between sales and marketing teams is why MEDDIC effectively reduces lost time and revenue.

3. It prioritizes deals with a higher likelihood of closing

Spending time on leads that aren’t the right fit for your product or service reduces the overall effectiveness of your sales team. Implementing a formal sales process like MEDDIC makes it easier to prioritize leads with the highest likelihood of closing by learning more about your customers from stage one.

4. It’s been proven to increase revenue

Instead of sifting through hundreds of leads at random from your contact list, hoping to sell a high-ticket product, MEDDIC focuses your sales efforts on only the most qualified prospects. As you can imagine, this works wonders by:

• Increasing sales pitch success rates
• Improving sales efficiency
• Reducing time-to-sale by learning more about potential customers upfront

The six stages of the MEDDIC sales methodology

The MEDDIC sales methodology follows six steps to qualify leads and pinpoint the right customers. It involves asking critical questions at each step to learn more about your leads.

Here are the six stages of this process, including why each one matters and which questions you should ask.

Metrics

What does your prospect hope to gain from your product or solution?

This is the first question top sellers figure out the answer to. Seek to uncover the quantifiable gains a prospect wants from you. For example, maybe they want a solution to get their products to market in half of their current time. Or maybe they’re hoping to reduce operational expenses by 20% in the next 18 months.

Why is it important?

Learning about a prospect’s end goal enables you to describe how your product or service could help them get there.

Additionally, it shows you what your prospect cares about so you can decide if they’ve got a solid business case for your solution. If your product aligns with their goals, you can economically justify your solution and close the sale.

What questions to ask

• What’s your goal for X this year?
• How are you tracking your current business goals?
• What KPIs are you responsible for measuring?
• What would success look like for you with the purchase of a new solution?

Economic buyer

There’s nothing worse than spending weeks discussing a solution with a buyer only to discover they have no authority to make purchasing decisions. Knowing who the economic buyer is (and their mindset) is crucial because they are the last word in purchasing decisions.

Sometimes, this won’t always be possible, especially in larger companies with more extensive hierarchies, but if possible, use your contact to learn more about the economic buyer and their motivations.

Why is it important?

The economic buyer is the final decision maker. Do your best to talk directly with them consistently throughout the deal cycle. Convincing someone that your solution is the best has little meaning if they don’t actually have the power to buy.

What questions to ask

• Who’s responsible for purchases in your department?
• Who would make the final decision to sign off on this?
• What do you need to see before a purchase is approved?

Decision criteria

How does your target company make decisions?

Companies are inundated with potential solutions and often compare vendors before making a choice. Uncovering the criteria your prospect is using to make a purchasing decision lets you position your solution as the best option and tailor your sales approach.

Why is it important?

Different things matter to different people. Knowing the criteria a sales lead is using empowers your sales team to focus on the boxes a prospect is trying to check. It could be potential ROI, fitting within a limited budget, or integrating well with existing processes.

Demonstrating that your solution meets their criteria establishes suitability and positions you to convince them that you’re the perfect partner.

What questions to ask

• Why are these criteria important to you?
• Who will compare our solution with your criteria?
• What information do you need before you’re ready to make a decision?

Decision-making process

Decision criteria tell you the factors a prospect considers as they make a decision. Their specific decision-making process informs you how they come to a decision. You need to know who’s making the final decision, their timeline, and formal approval processes.

In other words, this part of the MEDDIC framework tells you which pieces must be in place within the decision process before a prospect is ready to close.

Why is it important?

Insight into a lead’s buying process prevents deal stagnation because you have the data you need to help them through their decision-making process.

For example, if you’ve got the green light from the economic buyer, but there’s been no follow-up on the paperwork, your team can push for that specific paperwork to be taken care of instead of passively waiting around.

What questions to ask

• What does your decision-making process look like?
• How long, on average, does your internal decision-making process take?
• Who’s involved in making the final decision?

Identify pain

Why does a customer need your solution?

This is where the real relationship building and selling now begins. Discover what challenges your prospect is looking to overcome and analyze whether or not your solution could adequately address their pain. Said differently, there’s little point in selling increased marketing efficiency if what the customer really cares about is lowering shipping costs.

Why is it important?

Selling is all about offering excellent solutions to problems.

Identifying a customer’s pain lets you see what they’re looking for in a solution. It’s about qualifying whether you have the solution to overcome a customer’s primary challenge or not.

What questions to ask

• What are the biggest challenges your department is facing?
• What’s preventing you from achieving your goals right now?
• Why is solving this challenge important to your organization?

Champion

Last but not least in this framework, find a champion within your prospect’s organization. This will be the person who pushes for your solution to be the decision maker. This individual doesn’t have to be a decision maker, but they do have to be someone well-respected enough to influence other decision makers on the inside.

Why is it important?

Rarely are you selling the merits of your solution; you’re selling why your solution is better than the other solutions your prospect could choose instead.

Finding a champion for your cause gives you someone who can advocate for you, which is always more compelling than you advocating for your solution.

What questions to ask

• How will you help your company understand the value our solution provides?
• What other solutions are you evaluating?
• Are there any objections we’ll come up against?
• How can I help you get buy-in for this solution internally?

How to implement the MEDDIC methodology in your organization

Implementing the MEDDIC framework works best at customer-centric organizations. If you’re a sales leader at a company like that, here are a few essential steps to help you weave MEDDIC into your lead qualification process.

Provide training on the MEDDIC framework

Start with formal training. Your sales team must understand the six steps from a practical standpoint. Training provides opportunities for you to show sellers how each step works in practice through roleplay or even discovery call reviews.

Be sure before you roll out any sort of formal MEDDIC training that you have buy-in from your sales management and enablement counterparts. You’ll undeniably need to explain why MEDDIC would benefit the sales organization and aid in improving your go-to-market team’s revenue efforts. Make it a collaborative, exciting pivot for your salesforce.

Incorporate MEDDIC into your current sales qualification framework

MEDDIC is designed to assist your qualification framework, not replace it. However, integrating it into your existing sales processes may require shifting your team’s approach and mindset.

Remember, MEDDIC is a set of principles embedded within the traditional sales funnel, not a new method. This is why you’ll need to take the time to determine how it impacts other parts of your sales machine, including buyer personas, training materials, your customer journey, and sales qualification templates.

Monitor and implement regular checkpoints

Like any solution, measuring its impact is critical to getting the most out of MEDDIC. Establish a system for tracking its impact, spotting unexpected pain points, and addressing any issues or concerns you hear from sellers.

Use tools and technology to support implementation

Leveraging technology often streamlines the MEDDIC implementation process. Which technology you should adopt will differ from team to team, but some examples may include:

• CRM systems (like Streak)
• Process mapping tools
• Sales analytics platforms

Leverage the right tools for sales success with Streak

Optimizing your sales framework, whether you’re implementing MEDDIC or not, means staying organized and tracking the progress of every relationship. CRM tools like Streak are designed to capture every prospect interaction and boost deal efficiency.

With Streak, there’s finally a great way to pull all of your digital conversations, deals, and KPIs into one place, right within Gmail. Our customers take advantage of innovative features like funnel reports, saved views, pipelines, and more to make their sales functions more efficient and store more helpful information about their prospects.

If you’re ready to join the 750,000+ other happy customers using Streak, go ahead and request your free 14-day trial today and get ready to transform your sales pipeline.