MEDDPICC Sales Framework: How to Qualify More Pipeline and Close More Deals

Selling is hard and is only getting more challenging. 93% of revenue leaders expect buyer objections to increase and many companies are reporting longer sales cycles. During those crucial initial discovery meetings, sellers routinely fail to meet buyers’ high expectations. As a result, 72% of sales leaders don’t expect their teams to hit quota. Many leaders are looking to popular tools like the MEDDPICC sales framework to help their teams hit quota.

The MEDDPICC sales framework has a rich history that dates back to the 1990s. It was initially developed as MEDDIC by PTC, a renowned software company, and popularized by John McMahon and Dick Dunkel. MEDDPICC has been widely adopted by elite sales organizations due to its simplicity and depth. It provides a systematic approach to understanding customer needs, addressing objections and closing deals. Over the years, the framework has evolved and gained recognition as an effective qualification method and sales training for complex sales. It continues to be a valuable tool for sales professionals in today’s competitive business landscape.

What is the MEDDPICC Sales Framework?

To hit quota, reps need to aggressively prioritize and discover which deals have a real chance to close. One of the key methods for driving strong discovery can be summed up in 8 letters: MEDDPICC, which stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champions, and Competition. Following this framework can help reps gather the intelligence they need to move deals forward.

Overall, the MEDDPICC framework provides sellers with a comprehensive approach to qualification and sales execution. By following its principles, sellers can increase their effectiveness, close more deals and ultimately attain their quotas.

Key Questions for Using MEDDPICC in Sales

When using the MEDDPICC sales framework, the goal is to ask questions for every one of the eight elements represented by the acronym. We’ve put together a list of potential questions your team can ask to gain the right information for each component. Of course, you may wish to tailor these questions to your business and industry.

Metrics

Buyers often require hard numbers to feel comfortable investing in new solutions. During a discovery call, it’s important to uncover which metrics matter most to buyers.

Here are some example questions:

• “If we helped you drive 20% more qualified leads, how would that impact your bottom line?”
• “How many more opportunities a month do your reps need to hit quota?”

Economic Buyer

It’s important to discover who actually has the buying power. This person is going to be a key decision maker and should be brought into the buying process early.

Here’s a question to uncover the economic buyer:

• “Who creates the budget for solutions like ours on your team?”

Decision Criteria

It’s critical to figure out how your functionality aligns with buyer goals. Remember that you may offer functionality that a buyer does not even know they need yet.

These questions can help you satisfy this part of the MEDDPICC framework:

• “What would your perfect solution look like?
• “What are your short-term and long-term goals?
• “How were these goals determined?”
• “How are you tracking progress today?”

Decision Process

What does the buying process look like? Who is on the committee? This process helps level set what a selling journey might look like.

You may want to use these questions to learn more about the buying process:

• “Do you have a set time frame to make this change?”
• “What could prevent you from making a change?”
• “Who needs to be involved in making this decision?”

Paper Process

Deal forecasts are often off because deals get tied up with legal. Legal processes can vary greatly from business processes and this needs to be accounted for.

Consider using these questions to keep things on track from a legal perspective:

• “What does your procurement process look like?”
• “What information does your legal team typically need?”

Identify Pain

It’s important for sellers to not only identify pain but ascertain the cost of not fixing that pain. Drill into triggers for the meeting (e.g. Did they fill out a form? Download content?)

Here is a question you may want to leverage at this stage of the MEDDPICC sales framework:

• “What would happen in the next 12 months if everything stayed the same?”

Champions

Especially in complex deals, it’s essential to understand who your internal champions are on the buying committee. It’s likewise essential to know which members of the buying committee need to be present at subsequent meetings.

These questions can help make sure you’re aligned with your internal champions:

• “Who on your team should see a demo?”
• “What resources would help you get buy-in from your team?”

Competition

Deals are getting extremely competitive as buyers are doing more research and taking more ownership over their purchasing journey. It’s important for sellers to be aware of the competition and how to best differentiate.

You might want to equip your sellers to say something like this:

• “I’m glad you mentioned . You probably have some idea of what we do. But did you know that customers have been leaving them for us because we offer…?”

How to Reinforce the MEDDPICC Sales Framework in Real Time

To hit quota, sellers need to nail every single discovery meeting. Coaching can help, but sales leaders don’t typically have time to coach reps on every deal, let alone listen to a recording of every discovery meeting. How can managers help their teams stay on track with the MEDDPICC sales framework without riding along in every conversation?

Revenue.io checklists provide reps with actionable reminders of best practices to apply in real time, such as critical messaging to say or items to accomplish over the course of a live conversation. Checklists are a perfect way to remind reps to follow the MEDDPICC framework. Each qualification step can be automatically checked off by reps after they ask the right qualification question.

Discovery often happens across multiple calls, so checking a box could also automatically populate a custom field in your CRM that determines that reps won’t be asked to drill into specific MEDDPICC criteria during subsequent calls with the same account. As an example, mention of a competitor could automatically check off the competition box and populate guidance for a rep specific to that competitor.

Here’s an example of how to set up a real-time notification that triggers for Decision Criteria:

If “Decision Criteria” is unchecked, deliver a reminder to drill into decision criteria if the following keywords are not mentioned within 5 minutes of a call: solution, goals, progress, perfect, ideal, decision.

For more examples of how to use Revenue.io checklists to reinforce the MEDDPICC sales framework, check out this resource.