MEDDIC Sales Process Explained (with Free Questions Checklist)

The MEDDIC sales process is a B2B sales qualification methodology. Its main purpose is to fill up your sales pipeline with leads with the highest chance of becoming paying customers (qualified leads), so your sales team can spend their time and effort most efficiently. 

The idea is that better-qualified leads = higher closing rate = increased sales success.

This makes sense, considering 67% of lost sales are a result of sales reps not properly qualifying leads before taking them through the sales funnel.

And statistics show that growth rates of over 30% in saturated markets and over 250% in startups are possible with the MEDDIC methodology.

Keep reading to learn what MEDDIC stands for and how to use it, step-by-step.

What is the MEDDIC sales process?

MEDDIC is an acronym for the six steps in this sales qualification methodology: 

1. Metrics
2. Economic buyer
3. Decision criteria
4. Decision process
5. Identify pain
6. Champion
   

🧠 Fun fact: The MEDDIC sales strategy was created in the 90s by PTC, a software company renowned in the SaaS industry for its strong sales culture. Using MEDDIC, PTC tripled its sales from $300 million to $1 billion in just four years.

We’ll go over each step in detail, including what it means and how to do it. (Or, download a free PDF checklist of the MEDDIC sales methodology for your sales team!)

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How to use MEDDIC: step-by-step

In this section, we'll guide you through the steps of using the MEDDIC sales process.

Step 1: Quantify the economic benefit to the lead with Metrics

You can’t sell something to someone until you understand what they expect to gain if they buy it. And while you can list product features till you’re blue in the face, nothing’s going to drive your solution home as numbers will.

Metrics give leads something quantifiable to entice them with. So hit them with an impressive return on investment number or promise to save them X hours a week as a result of using your solution.

But first, you’ve got to ask them the right questions.

Questions to ask:

• What are your business goals right now?
• Which metrics around cost, efficiency, or business do you need to achieve?
• How would you measure success?

Step 2: Find the decision-maker, also known as the Economic buyer

The “economic buyer” is the one who will ultimately decide if your product or service is worth buying for the company you’re trying to sell to. 

Your mission is to deliver your sales pitch to this person. 

A bit of detective work on a company’s website or LinkedIn will help you find out who the economic buyer is. Hint: as the name implies, they’re the person responsible for any economic profit or loss that may happen as a result of your solution.

So if you’re selling SEO services, for example, you’re probably looking for the head of content or growth marketing. 

Once you’ve found them (or think you have), reach out. Their answers to the below questions will let you know whether you’ve connected with the right person. Otherwise, they should help point you in the right direction.

Questions to ask:

• Are you sponsoring this project?
• What do you need to take this project to the finish line?
• Is anyone else involved in making the final decision?

Step 3: Understand the lead’s Decision criteria

When talking to a lead, very rarely are you their only option. More likely, your competitors are targeting them at the same time, or the lead is still considering other vendors offering similar or alternative solutions. 

That’s why it’s so important to understand their decision-making process, including their technical and business decision criteria.

Technical decision criteria

Technical decision criteria are based on whether your solution fits into the prospective organization’s existing infrastructure. 

For example, if you’re a SaaS company, does your software integrate with their current tech stack? If not, go ahead and disqualify this company as a potential customer (unless an entire tech overhaul is in order, then that’s a whole other story). 

Business decision criteria 

Business decision criteria depend on factors like whether the prospective organization has a predetermined budget for your solution and what the desired ROI is.

For example, the lead might be actively looking for a product like yours, so they’ve already allocated a set budget for it. 

On the other hand, they might’ve not put aside money for it but have the flexibility to fit it into their budget if you can prove your solution’s worth it—you can work with that too.  

Or they may simply not be able to afford you right now. That’s fine too. Disqualified.

Questions to ask:

• What are the most important criteria for you when making this decision?
• How are you calculating the ROI for this project to justify the investment?

Step 4: Find out the lead’s Decision process

So you’ve checked off the first D in MEDDIC—the decision criteria. Then what happens? 

It’s time to figure out the lead’s process in making the final purchase decision.

The decision process can be split into three routes: Technical Decision Making, Business Decision Making, and the Paper Process. Each with its own set of questions including but not limited to… 

Technical decision making

• What is the process for making a technical decision? 
• Who is involved, and what are the steps to make a final decision?

Business decision making

• What is the process for making a financial decision?
• How is this purchase prioritized, and what timeline is it based on? 
• Is there anyone else that needs to be involved for approval? If yes, who and how long does it normally take for them to decide?

Paper process

• What is the process to get the paperwork completed? 
• What is the legal review process on your end?

Step 5: Identify pain and how your product or service can help

To deliver an effective sales pitch, you need to identify how your product or service can solve a problem the prospective business is facing. Some examples of common business problems are high costs, employee turnover, and production delays.

By presenting a clear cost-benefit analysis to your lead, you can show them exactly what benefits they’ll gain by going with your solution—and what’ll happen if they don’t.

The difference between a strong and weak sales angle here is specificity. 

For example, say the lead’s pain is that their business, ABC Company, isn’t operating as cost-effectively as it could be. Tell them exactly how much they’re losing a year without your solution versus how much they could be saving with it. 

A strong angle: ABC Company needs to deliver X project by the end of the year, but they’re having some technical issues that are causing major delays. It may not be done in time, in which case they’ll incur a $50K fine.

Your product can solve these technical issues and ensure on-time delivery, saving their reputation and helping them avoid a hefty penalty.

A weak angle: ABC Company is working on a project but is experiencing technical issues. 

The difference is in the details. 

Questions to ask:

• What challenges are you currently facing?
• What are the implications of those challenges? 
• What happens if you do nothing?

Step 6: Connect with a Champion to vouch for your solution

If your product truly is a good fit for the company you’re trying to sell it to, there’ll always be someone there who sees it. Get that person on your team—they’re the “champion” in your sales qualification framework.

The champion is usually the person most affected by the pain you identified in the previous step, meaning they also have the most to gain from what you’re offering. Just think of them as your wingman, helping you close the deal by selling the product on your behalf.

For example, say you’re selling a contact center solution. Your champion could be a senior sales rep who has a fair amount of persuasive power with the executive team.

This rep recognizes that your product is going to improve things for their team and, ultimately, the company they work for, and will therefore be motivated to help you sell it to them.

Your champion can give you a lay of the land with details you wouldn’t be able to find yourself, like who you should be approaching and how, information about their customer base, or the current length of their sales cycle—all details you can use to fine-tune a sales pitch.

They might even help you set up a meeting with the right people. (Thanks, wingman!)

Questions to ask:

• What does this person have to gain?
• Does this person have an influence on decision-makers?
• Can they accurately explain your product’s benefits to the company?
  

Once you’ve got all six steps down, it’s time to bring that deal home.

The MEDDIC sales process empowers your sales team to truly understand the difference between any old lead and a potential customer, and allows you to qualify them accordingly. This means that you'll spend more on closing deals (use our free sales quota calculator) that are most likely to close. Wins all around.

Operationalize MEDDIC with Weflow

Operationalizing sales methodologies like MEDDIC can be hard. Sales reps won’t follow the methodology consistently, and managers won’t enforce it.

This will result in the team missing the data that’s needed to successfully manage the success criteria of each opportunity.

Weflow offers note templates that can help streamline the MEDDIC qualification process. It only takes seconds to create a note template which can be reused by your entire team.

Weflow also enables RevOps to set up central pipeline views and field templates to focus reps on fields that need to be populated at each stage of the sales process.

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