Strategic Selling names four buying roles; MEDDPICC names two people.
Miller Heiman’s Strategic Selling, now Korn Ferry’s, maps a deal by its four buying influences: the economic buyer, user buyers, technical buyers and a coach. MEDDPICC has a letter for only two people, the economic buyer and the champion, and spends the other six on what has to be true for the deal to close.
Updated
Miller Heiman or MEDDPICC: which should I use?
Both, if your company trained you in both: the Blue Sheet tells you who to reach on a deal, and MEDDPICC tells you what you still have to find out from them. Where they overlap, on the economic buyer and the insider who helps you, use the stricter test, which is usually MEDDPICC’s.
| The deal needs | Strategic Selling | MEDDPICC |
|---|---|---|
| Whoever gives final approval to buy | Economic buyer | Economic Buyer |
| The people whose daily work it changes | User buyer | Identify Pain,Required Capabilities, not a MEDDPICC letter · SalesWolf tracks it |
| The people who check it against their standards: technical, legal, procurement | Technical buyer | Decision Criteria,Paper Process |
| Someone who guides you through the sale | Coach | no letter |
| What each person stands to gain for themselves | Personal win | Champion |
MEDDPICC’s other six letters ask what has to be true, not who has to agree: Metrics, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain and Competition.
Strategic Selling’s roles and wins, paraphrased from Robert B. Miller, Stephen E. Heiman and Tad Tuleja, The New Strategic Selling (revised edition, 2005). Strategic Selling® and LAMP® are Korn Ferry trademarks; the Blue Sheet and the Gold Sheet are Korn Ferry tools.
Is the economic buyer the same in both?
Same name, same job: the economic buyer gives final approval to buy. Strategic Selling allows that role to be held by a board or a committee; meddicc.com defines it as one person, the one with overall authority in the buying decision. In SalesWolf a name is only where the letter starts: named, then motivated, then engaged.
Is a coach the same as a champion?
No. A coach guides you: who decides, how things really work inside. A champion sells for you in a room you aren’t in, and MEDDPICC asks you to test that.
SalesWolf keeps both roles. It proposes champions from your calls; a coach you set by hand.
Where do the user buyer and technical buyer go in MEDDPICC?
Neither has a letter of their own. A user buyer’s problem is Identify Pain, in their words; a technical buyer’s screen is a decision criterion, and their security review is Paper Process.
What is a personal win, in MEDDPICC terms?
Strategic Selling asks for each buying influence’s personal win. MEDDPICC asks for it on the champion: a champion with no personal win in the outcome is still a candidate.
In SalesWolf, a champion reaches motivated when their personal win is on the deal.
Does MEDDPICC fit inside LAMP?
Yes, one level down. Korn Ferry describes LAMP as “planning for and managing relationships within strategic accounts”, with the Gold Sheet as its account plan; MEDDPICC qualifies one opportunity inside that account. A LAMP plan says which opportunities to go after, and each one gets its own MEDDPICC.
SalesWolf works one deal at a time. It keeps the people on the account, and it doesn’t write an account plan.
SalesWolf runs on MEDDPICC and nothing else.
This is the definition.
On a deal it has a position, and the position is the argument.
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