6 top tips for embedding MEDDIC

During our recent member webinar series on applying MEDDIC in the real world, we asked our guests to share their top tips on the subject.

These six guests, from individual contributors to sales leaders to CEOs, all use MEDDIC or MEDDPICC in their daily operating rhythms, whatever part of the business ecosystem they operate in.

The MEDDIC methodology is the glue that binds the following tips, it enables our guests to close their deals and close them with control.

So, here are the top tips for embedding MEDDIC/MEDDPICC in your organisation:

Tip 1: Use MEDDIC/MEDDPICC as the “golden thread” that ties everything together

Our first webinar series guest, successful salesperson Riad Dustagheer, (Sales Lead, ServiceNow), talked about MEDDIC being his secret sauce for transforming his deal success. The real trick? Consistently weaving the methodology into daily routines like a golden thread.

By structuring your daily note-taking activities around a basic MEDDIC framework, you ensure that every new opportunity starts with MEDDIC as the foundation upon which you build your deal. This foundation relies on Identified pain and Metrics, so be sure to keep records of pain points and proof points from previous deals that will benefit your future opportunities.

This approach helps organise your notes and provides a handy reminder of the methodology's critical parts as you progress your deal.

Tip 2: Proof points help to get buy-in from teams 

Nilofar Sarwar, (Sales Director UKIE at Confluent), emphasised that adopting the MEDDIC/MEDDPICC methodology is transformative for an organisation, but success relies on getting buy-in from both the executives and sales teams.

To gain the backing of senior executives:

• Showcase the advantages of a common language in all sales teams, highlighting forecast accuracy and ease of collaboration.
• Enable the leadership team and the entire go-to-market organisation through inclusive training and deal reviews.

To get buy-in from the sales team:

• Share real-world success stories during deal reviews where sales professionals can underscore the value of using MEDDIC/MEDDPICC in their deals.
• Emphasise instances where MEDDIC contributed to a successful result. For example, if an account executive had a productive meeting with an Economic buyer, highlight how their effective Champion building was crucial.
• Use these as proof to showcase the practical benefits and effectiveness of adhering to the MEDDIC methodology.

Tip 3: Avoid MEDDIC/MEDDPICC becoming a tick-box exercise

Sam Spark, (Director of EMEA Sales at Redgate Software), warns against making MEDDIC a formality rather than a strategic tool that informs and guides your sales approach.

While tracking the MEDDIC/MEDDPICC criteria in your CRM system is essential, it’s not just about checking boxes. It is about strategically leveraging this data.

Customising your CRM with visual indicators of deal health can promote collaborative discussions in deal reviews or one-to-ones. Red flags can be a springboard for collective problem-solving, providing coaching opportunities to develop a deeper understanding of the deal and certain areas of MEDDIC/MEDDPICC.

Tip 4: Use MEDDIC with your CRM for joint go-to-market team deal reviews

On a similar theme, Rizan Flenner, (Founder and CEO of Salesforce opportunity management tool iSEEit), discussed the value of integrating the MEDDIC/MEDDPICC framework with your CRM to provide a clear and structured view of each deal right across the GTM.

The benefits of this strategy are brought to life by conducting weekly joint deal reviews:

• Invite all teams who touch the deal, such as sales, pre-sales, marketing and customer success.
• Look at all deals through a MEDDIC/MEDDPICC lens, using it as the common language that aligns all teams.
• Invite everyone to ask questions, share advice or brainstorm solutions.

The outcome of these joint deal reviews is a sales team with a list of activities to progress their deals, a marketing team with a deeper understanding of effective strategies to engage with potential customers, including targeting Champion and Economic buyer personas, and pre-sales teams that can align use cases to customer pain and seed differentiation in the Decision criteria.

Tip 5: Engage leaders for successful adoption

Several times during our webinar series, we discussed the importance of leadership involvement in MEDDIC/MEDDPICC adoption as a key factor to positive outcomes. Our fifth guest was unequivocal:

“Leadership must play an active and continuous role for any sales qualification framework like MEDDIC or MEDDPICC to be successfully adopted”, David Meyer, Managing Director and CRO of Clarify.

David has been a successful leader long enough to know that to guarantee long-term success, leaders should take the lead in creating, embracing, and embodying the MEDDIC methodology.

• Be actively engaged throughout the entire process,
• Provide coaching to your teams day in and day out, not just one-time training

This active involvement inspires team members to follow suit, fostering a culture where MEDDIC becomes a natural part of the daily rhythm and where success naturally follows.

Tip 6: Bring MEDDIC/MEDDPICC to your day-to-day work

Our final guest, Richard Young, (Head of Local Governments at Salesforce), emphasised the importance of consistent use when implementing MEDDIC in real-world scenarios: incorporate it into your daily routine.

Here at inspir'em, all our MEDDIC/MEDDPICC delegates receive a bespoke deal sheet with prompts to apply the methodology throughout the sales cycle. This is the ideal tool for daily use to evaluate deals effectively, especially for those new to the framework.

Richard's guidance to sales leaders stressed the significance of coaching teams with MEDDIC-related questions. For instance, a common challenge with MEDDIC is differentiating between a coach and a Champion. By prompting your team with questions, they can self-identify the issue and develop a strategy to recognise and cultivate a Champion for successful deal closure.

So, there we have our “6 top tips for applying MEDDIC in the real world,” provided by six people who have all walked the walk and seen this methodology's benefits first-hand.

If you’re already an inspir’em member, you can log in today to watch every webinar in the MEDDIC in the real-world series. You’ll come away with more tips and feel inspired about using the MEDDIC methodology to improve your deal process.

Not an inspir’em member? Look at what inspir’em membership can do to accelerate your sales process.