MEDDPICC · M · position 1 of eight
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.
How it actually gets missed
Reps usually have a number by the second call, and usually it is theirs — a figure from a value calculator, or an estimate the buyer nodded at once. It survives every internal review and dies the first time someone in finance asks where it came from.
Without a metric, the business case has no spine.
How deep, not how many
Metrics has three rungs, and where a deal sits on them is the difference between a dimension you have answered and one you have qualified. These are the rungs SalesWolf actually scores — the same ladder the product reads, not a scale invented for this page.
- named
- Somebody has said which measure matters — cost per order, hours of reconciliation, days to close the month. You know the units, and nothing else yet.
- quantified
- There is a figure attached, and you know who produced it. An estimate from the champion counts here; it does not count above here.
- tied to value
- The figure is connected to what the customer is buying, in a chain someone in finance would accept. This is the rung most deals never reach, and the one a CFO’s question lands on.
Done when · You can cite a Finance-owned number, not an estimate, in front of the buyer.
What to ask
“When this is working a year from now, what number does your team report differently?”
Gets the measure in their words and their reporting cadence, not yours.
“Who owns that number today — is it yours, or does it live with finance?”
Separates a figure your champion estimated from one the business already stands behind.
“If you took that figure to your CFO tomorrow, what is the first thing they would push back on?”
Surfaces the weakness in the business case while there is still time to fix it.