Metrics: a number the customer owns
Without a metric, the business case has no spine.
Updated
What are metrics in MEDDPICC?
A metric is the number the customer will use to justify this purchase after it is made. A number the rep produced is not a metric; 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.
What does a good metric actually look like?
One the customer’s finance team owns and would repeat without you in the room. A figure from your value calculator is quantified at best; it is tied to value only when someone on their side has checked it and will defend it without you.
What are M1, M2 and M3 metrics?
In meddicc.com’s terms, an M1 is a business outcome you have delivered for an existing customer, an M2 is a metric made specific to this buyer, and an M3 is that M2 validated after go-live, which can then go back into your M1s. On an open deal the M2 is the one in play, and the rungs on this page, named, quantified and tied to value, are how far it has got.
An M1 is your evidence, not the buyer’s. It earns you the conversation; the M2 still has to be built from their own numbers, and it counts only once someone in their finance team will repeat it.
Their definitions are on meddicc.com (read 2026-10-10).
In SalesWolf an M1 goes in your company knowledge base as a proof point, and the First Meeting Deck’s “Where we've done this before” section is drafted from your proof points. The M2 is the Metrics dimension on the deal. A deal in SalesWolf ends at won or lost, so the M3 is measured outside it.
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.
How deep, not how many
Metrics questions, from named to tied to value
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 marks on the deal, by the same names and in the same order. What is written under each is the standard to hold a deal to. The product can only mark what is on record, so check its rung against this bar before you rely on it.
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.
“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.
“Which report would you open to see whether this worked?”
Finds the measure by finding where it already lives.
quantified
There is a figure today and the figure they want, and you know who produced each. An estimate from the champion counts here; it does not count above here.
“What is that number today, roughly, what does it need to be, and where do those figures come from?”
Gets a baseline, a target and their source in one answer. An estimate is fine here, as long as you know whose it is.
“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.
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 a CFO’s question lands on.
“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.
“If that number moved the way you expect, what would you stop spending on, or start doing?”
Connects the figure to money the business would actually move, which is the chain finance checks.
Done when · You can cite a Finance-owned number, not an estimate, in front of the buyer.
The questions for every letter, on one page.
This page in plain text, with nothing to sign in to. Open it on a phone on the way into the call.
Sample deal · Halden Freight · Metrics
On a deal, it has a position. On this one, it has none yet.
Qualification
Gaps aren't failures. They're the next things worth learning.
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