MEDDPICC · eight letters · ten dimensions
Every dimension has a depth. Most deals stop at the first rung.
MEDDPICC names eight things to qualify. Naming them is the easy part — a criterion you have named is not one you have proven, and a champion who likes you is not one who has been tested. Each page below is what the dimension requires before it counts, and the questions that get you there.
The eight letters
M
Metrics
A metric is the number the customer will use to justify this purchase after it is made. Most deals carry a number the rep produced; a qualified metric is one the customer’s own finance function owns and will repeat without the rep in the room. The difference decides whether the business case survives contact with a budget review.
Done when · You can cite a Finance-owned number, not an estimate, in front of the buyer.
E
Economic Buyer
The economic buyer is the person who can approve the spend without asking anyone else. That is a narrower group than the people who can stop the deal, and usually a different person from the one running the evaluation. A deal is forecast on a name; it closes on a relationship with that name.
Done when · You can name who holds budget authority and how you reach them.
D
Decision Criteria
Decision criteria are the standards the customer will actually score you against, which are rarely the ones in the RFP. A criterion you have merely heard named is not one you have positioned against, and neither is one you can prove. Most lost deals were lost on a criterion the rep knew about and never tested.
Done when · You can name the criteria the customer will decide on and where you stand on each one.
D
Decision Process
The decision process is the chain of internal approvals between the customer wanting this and the customer approving it. Every step carries a person who runs it and a duration you can estimate, and a step you do not know about is what stalls the deal in the last week. Mapping it is not project management — it is how you find out who else has to be sold.
Done when · You can walk the deal from here to signature — every step, who runs it, and when.
P
Paper Process
The paper process is everything between yes and signature: legal review, security review, procurement, vendor onboarding. It is the least glamorous dimension and the one that most often moves a deal into the next quarter, because it runs on a duration nobody thinks to ask about until the last week. A verbal yes with an unmapped paper process is not a forecast.
Done when · You can name who on the customer side owns legal, security, and procurement.
I
Identify Pain
Pain is the problem pulling the deal forward, in the buyer’s own words rather than a vendor’s paraphrase. A pain that has only been stated is a topic; a pain that has been quantified is a business case. The gap between the two is why deals with enthusiastic champions still lose to no-decision.
Done when · You can say, in their words, what is actually pulling this deal forward.
C
Champion
A champion is someone who sells for you when you are not in the room, and that is a test rather than a temperament. Being liked is not being championed. A champion has a personal win in the outcome, the standing to move other people, and a history of having actually done it for you at least once.
Done when · You can name a champion with a personal win in the deal, evidence they move others, and a test they've passed.
C
Competition
Competition includes every alternative the customer is weighing, and the one that wins most often is doing nothing. A competitor you have merely named is not one you have positioned against, and positioning is not the same as having set a trap — a question the customer will now ask your rival, in your absence, that you know the answer to and they do not.
Done when · You can name every alternative they're weighing, including the status quo, and where you stand on each.
And two the acronym does not have
These are not MEDDPICC letters and this page will not pretend otherwise. SalesWolf works them because the two most common ways a well-qualified deal still slips are a deadline nobody priced and a demo built on a guess.
Why Now
Compelling Event
A compelling event is the dated thing that makes doing nothing more expensive than deciding. MEDDPICC does not have a letter for it and SalesWolf works it anyway, because the absence of one is the single most common reason a well-qualified deal slips a quarter. An event that has been stated is a topic; an event with a date and a stated consequence is a deadline.
Done when · You can name the dated event the customer is working back from.
What It Must Do
Required Capabilities
Required capabilities are the things the solution has to actually do, stated as jobs rather than as features. This is not a MEDDPICC letter; SalesWolf works it because without the list the demo is a guess and every differentiator the rep leads with is a coin flip. A capability that is merely named tells you what to show, not why it matters or whether you have proved it.
Done when · You can name what they need the product to do, what each one is worth to them, and our edge on it.