Many technology companies use the MEDDIC, MEDDICC, or MEDDPICC® sales methodologies to decide which accounts to pursue and how best to do it. By answering the MEDDIC questions, and re-answering them over the life of a deal, sellers and marketers increase their odds of finding and winning good-fit deals:

  • Which metrics carry weight in the account?
  • Who’s the economic buyer and who influences them?
  • What are the steps in the decision process?
  • What decision criteria will buyers use?
  • How will contracting (the ‘paper process’) work?
  • What connects identified pain points to your offer?
  • Who’s the champion who’ll sell internally for you?
  • Who else (internal and external) is competing for the business?

With the right sales intelligence tools on your side, your team can more easily identify better deals and better position yourselves to win them.

How better sales intelligence can help you find answers to MEDDIC questions.

The questions are straightforward. The hard part is getting accurate answers. Typical background research such as listening to analyst calls and reading 10-Ks paints a high-level picture. However, it’s limited to sanitized, market-facing information. It’s not going to define decision steps or contracting processes.

Of course, you can ask clients directly ー if you get a meeting. But peppering clients with qualifying and discovery questions provides them with little value and puts you at a disadvantage versus a better-informed competitor.

Instead, best-in-class revenue teams use Emissary Knowledge. Unlike public details scraped from the internet, Emissary’s sales intelligence platform houses firsthand insights collected directly from executive-level buyers who’ve worked inside the world’s more sought-after accounts.

Utilize the following sales intelligence insights, found in Emissary Knowledge, to answer MEDDIC questions:

MEDDIC INSIGHTS FOUND WITHIN EMISSARY KNOWLEDGE
METRICS
  • Growth/reduction in tech budgets and drivers of the change
ECONOMIC
 BUYER
  • Clarity on whether corporate IT, or the individual businesses, drive technology strategies and purchases
  • Understanding of how business and technology teams collaborate
  • Signing authority and spending levels by role type
DECISION PROCESS
  • Understanding the steps, timeframes, and teams involved in the progression to a “yes’’
  • Clarity on the annual budgeting process and key times for engaging decision-makers
  • Insights into the potential for out-of-cycle pilots and deals
DECISION CRITERIAPreferences for, or against, specific approaches, or technologies. E.g.:

  • Cloud hosted solutions
  • Open-source solutions
  • Broad anchoring solutions vs. point integrations
  • Externally purchased vs. internally developed solutions
  • Tolerance for risk, appetite for tech innovation
PAPER
 PROCESS
  • Vendor vetting process including legal, security and compliance
  • Typical time to contract
  • Strength of procurement, thresholds for involvement
IDENTIFY/ IMPLICATE PAIN
  • Typical challenges for technology implementations
  • Digital transformation maturity
  • Cyber resiliency maturity
  • Budget focus for tech investments
CHAMPION
  • Selling tips for navigating the culture of the organization (e.g., top-down, bottoms-up)
  • Potential partners and alliances with a current presence in the account
COMPETITION
  • Traditional competitors for your solution
  • Internal sources of inertia which could lead to a no-decision

These insights help to qualify an account for pursuit, confirm deal staging, fuel messaging and shape account penetration strategies.

You’ve got an opportunity, now what?

One of the most important principles of MEDDIC is that it’s an ongoing process. You don’t run through the questions once and stop. Revenue teams keep re-analyzing the account throughout the deal pursuit, re-answering the questions in greater depth.

As your accounts progress from prospect status into an opportunity, glean deeper insights utilizing sales intelligence conversations through 1:1 coach calls. This service provides live access to the Emissary advisors and their firsthand account experience.

Use 1:1 coach calls for situational deal advice: requalify opportunities, test positioning, build decks and sales materials, and determine the best next steps.

MEDDIC INSIGHTS YOU CAN GAIN FROM 1:1 COACH CALLS
METRICS
  • Coaching on how best to build a business case that highlights your strengths and demonstrates impact on key metrics.
ECONOMIC
 BUYER
  • Understand the organizational structure and contact job roles.
  • Learn the style and needs of specific buyer(s).
  • Brainstorm options to access key stakeholders.
DECISION PROCESS
  • Identify likely buying committee members and potential politics at play among individuals and teams.
  • Clarify how to develop credibility (E.g., connections, case studies, demos) with specific buyers.
DECISION CRITERIA
  • Get feedback on pitch decks and presentations to align them to key decision criteria.
PAPER
 PROCESS
  • Learn about negotiation approaches for similar buy cycles.
IDENTIFY/ IMPLICATE PAIN
  • Get coaching to narrow messaging into discrete value statements that drive urgency (versus general capabilities presentations.)
CHAMPION
  • Identify individual contact(s) who may be champion candidates 
  • Brainstorm access and messaging strategies for those individuals.
COMPETITION
  • Get feedback on your assumed differentiator and positioning. 
  • Get coaching on how to resolve potential objections.

With the average sales cycle for tech purchases at 7+ months involving 5+ decision-makers, you’ll want to keep mining these resources over the entire course of the buying process.

Primary-sourced intel makes the difference.

Although MEDDIC has evolved over the years, its core premise remains the same. Sellers and marketers who intimately understand buying motivations and processes outsell their less informed peers.

And the deeper your insights, the greater your results. A superficial MEDDIC implementation fueled with assumptions yields limited results. To truly reap the benefits, revenue teams need access to a sales intelligence platform that helps answer MEDDIC questions accurately, in a technology purchase context. Fueling MEDDIC with Emissary turns a strong methodology into an unbeatable advantage.

Learn More About Emissary Insight’s Strategic Sales Intelligence

When you’re ready to equip your entire team with a unique, first-hand sales intelligence tool that can help you identify and win over better prospects, turn to Emissary. Talk to us today to learn more about how we can support your growth.

1All registered trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners. MEDDPICC® is the registered trademark of MEDDIC Academy

2 Emissary Buyer Snapshot: How Tech Execs Buy Enterprise Software. n-673