In this episode of the Salesman Podcast, Andy Whyte dissects each step in the MEDDIC process and explains how B2B sales professionals can leverage the framework to both progress and close more sales.
Andy is the author of MEDDIC: The Ultimate Guide and an expert on using MEDDIC in the complex sale
Featured on this episode:
Resources:
- Book: MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale
- Andy on LinkedIn
- MEDDICC.com
- Book: The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results
- Book: The Challenger Sale: Taking Control of the Customer Conversation
Transcript
Will Barron:
Coming up on today’s episode of the Salesman Podcast.
Andy Whyte:
I think the thing is this, a lot of… MEDDICC is probably the most widely used methodology or framework or whatever you want to call it, in enterprise sales. What you find is that everyone has a different word for it. As a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really is going to dictate how successful you are and that’s time.
Andy Whyte:
The paper process is the one that will have the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will. Because once you’re a vendor of choice, once you’re past selling and you’re into closing, it’s the paper process that takes the time and…
Will Barron:
Hello, Sales nation. My name is Will Barron and I’m the host of the Salesman Podcast, the world’s most downloaded B2B sales show. On today’s episode, we have an absolute legend. We have Andy Whyte. He is the author of the book MEDDICC. You can find at meddicc.com, which is M-E-D-D-I-C-C.com.
Will Barron:
On today’s episode, unsurprisingly, we’re talking about MEDDICC as a framework and how it can help you close more complex and enterprise-level sales. Everything we talk about in this episode is available in the show notes over at salesman.org. With that said, let’s jump right into it. Andy, welcome to the Salesmen Podcast.
Andy Whyte:
Thank you, Will. It’s awesome to be here. As I’ve mentioned to you before, I’m a big fan. I’ve been watching the shows. Thank you for having me on.
Andy’s Definition of MEDDICC · [01:30]
Will Barron:
I appreciate it. I’m excited to have you on. On this episode, we’re going to get into MEDDICC. We’re going to hopefully break down the analogy and go through each of these sections the best we can in the time that we have. But Andy, how do you describe MEDDICC? Would you say it’s a sales methodology or do you have a better way or a different way of describing what it is?
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, great question. I think the thing is this, a lot of… MEDDICC, is probably the most widely used methodology or framework or whatever you want to call it in enterprise sales. What you find is that everyone has a different word for it. I personally, don’t really mind what you call it, whether you call it a framework or a methodology. The only caveat I have around that is that one of the beautiful things about MEDDICC is it works with any other sales methodology. It plays very, very nicely.
“At its core MEDDICC is, I would say, a qualification framework. It helps people to qualify, should I be in this deal? And if I should be, what should I be doing to ensure I’m going to win it?” – Andy Whyte · [02:28]
Andy Whyte:
In fact, I think it enhances other methodology. Whether you use something like Sandler or Challenger Sale or any one of the many great methodologies that are out there, it kind of can work very well with MEDDICC. But at its core MEDDICC is, I would say, a qualification framework. It helps people to qualify should I be in this deal? And if I should be, what should I be doing to ensure I’m going to win it?
Why is The Sales Qualification Process So Important? · [02:47]
Will Barron:
For someone who is perhaps less familiar with a complex sale or high value deal size sale, why is the qualification process so important? Just to set up the rest of our conversation here.
“As a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really, it’s going to dictate how successful you are and that’s time. If you are a salesperson who is running around chasing after every single opportunity you have without kind of putting yourself on the front foot by identifying what your chances are of winning, then you’re going to spread yourself very, very thin.” – Andy Whyte · [02:53]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah. Good. Good question. So as a salesperson, you really only have one thing, one asset that really, it’s going to dictate how successful you are and that’s time. If you are a salesperson who is running around chasing after every single opportunity you have without kind of putting yourself on the front foot by identifying what your chances are of winning, then you’re going to spread yourself very, very thin.
“Not all good salespeople are good forecasters, but all good forecasters are good salespeople.” – Andy Whyte · [03:21]
Andy Whyte:
I have this saying which is that not all good salespeople are good forecasters, but all good forecasters are good salespeople. If you’re a sales leader and if you’re talking about, as we all do, to aspire to the very best jobs in sales, what sales leaders of the best jobs out there are looking for is they’re looking for somebody who can accurately forecast, who can say, “I’ve got this deal and I’m going to win it and it’s going to close on this date.” So it can be forecasted out.
Andy Whyte:
And if you are a salesperson that can do that, then you will always have the best job. You will always work for the best companies. But the key to being able to answer those questions and forecast accurately is being able to qualify your pipeline.
Will Barron:
I love it. I love it. Just a personal anecdote from my side, 99% of the friction I’ve had with sales managers and sales leadership in the past when I was working in sales was the fact that I would always hit target, I’d always do pretty well, not the best, but I’d always do pretty well. But there was no forecasting.
Will Barron:
It would always look like it would just flukally, I had to close one big deal a year that would crush it 80% or 20% of the target and get me beyond my 80% mark. It looks like it comes in flukally. It doesn’t go in flukally. It came on the back of hard work but because I wasn’t using a methodology or a system like MEDDICC as well as what I should have been to qualify, I just got managers on my back all the time and that made the last part of my final sales job, it a bit of a mess and a bit of a pain.
Andy Breaks Down the MEDDICC Framework · [05:02]
Will Barron:
There’s definitely value in this, not just in getting more deals done but from having a better relationship with your internal stakeholders as well. So without Andy, breakdown MEDDICC. Give us the high level of what the acronym stands for and then we can perhaps go through each step as best we can with the time that we have.
Andy Whyte:
Of course, yeah. To do that, if I may, I’ll just take us back in time a little bit to where MEDDICC was formed because it beautifully explains why MEDDICC exists. MEDDICC was created by a guy called Dick Dunkel in the ’90s. I think it was 1995 in a company called PTC, Parametric Technology Corporation.
Andy Whyte:
They were a big, big organisation, over 1,000 salespeople. They had this challenge where they started to plateau, they were starting to lose sales people. It was kind of that sort of growing pain at that size issue. The sales leader at the time, a guy called John McMahon, who is by the way, the pound for pound, the greatest sales leader of all time. This guy is the Maradona of sales leadership, the [inaudible 00:05:57] of sales leadership, he’s the guy, greatest of all time.
Andy Whyte:
He pulled the guy called Dick Dunkel, as I mentioned, out of the field, who was a great, great salesperson. He said, “Dick, we need more people like you basically. We need you to train the sales team to be like you.” And so he was doing that and if you can imagine, there’s a thousand salespeople, that’s lots of different teams and regions.
Andy Whyte:
What Dick was doing was travelling around meeting the teams. He ran this exercise, which I think is brilliant, which he still runs today, by the way, where he asked three key questions. Number one, why do we win deals? Number two, why do we lose deals? And number three, why do deals slip? What he noticed by asking those questions to multiple different teams with those six elements that were the same everywhere he went, they were six common elements of the reasons why if they had these elements in strength, they would win. If they didn’t have them and they were weak on them, they would lose or the deal would slip.
Andy Whyte:
And of course, you can guess where I’m going with this. Those elements became MEDDICC and the astute of the audience amongst us that would have read the show notes or looked at the title or seen my book will see that there’s two Cs in my MEDDICC. That totals to seven letters, not six letters and you’re absolutely right. It initially started with MEDDICC with one C, there’s now two Cs. There’s sometimes even a P and other letters in it.
Andy Whyte:
But I’ll get into what it stands for now, if you like. The first letter is M and it stands for metrics. The high level version of this is I like to say, imagine yourself six months from now, sat down having a quarterly business review with your customer. You’ve won the deal, what would be the KPIs in which you’re measuring the success of your solution with them? Those, whatever the answers to those are, it maybe improvements in conversion rate, it maybe efficiency improvements or anything depending on what the value is of what you sell, those are the metrics.
Andy Whyte:
The idea is you want to find those as early as possible in the deal through good discovery and kind of make them the headlines of your deal. That’s the metrics. Of course, we can get into more detail on all of these as we go, if it helps you.
Will Barron:
Sure. Let’s go each of them as quick as we can and then we’ll dive into them. Because I don’t think we have time to go into all of them. We’ll perhaps pick on the ones that you feel most salespeople get wrong most often.
Andy Whyte:
Beautiful. Let’s do that. The second letter is E, and it stands for economic buyer. This is the person who has the overall authority in your deal. This person can say no when others say yes and yes will never say no. They can create budget out of thin air. These are generally senior people.
Andy Whyte:
Then you’ve got the decision criteria. Now this one’s really kind of easy, because it’s kind of the clues in the name, it’s the criteria in which the customer is going to base the decision. Very easy in a RFP, this one. It’s like what are the things they’re scoring you against? It can be more holistic things like partnerships and your roadmap or whether they like you even you as a company. And then the second D is decision process. This is really how are they going to make their decision? What’s the process they’re going to go in? What authorizations? What stakeholders? All that sort of stuff.
Andy Whyte:
And as I mentioned before, there’s sometimes a P which stands for paper process, which is really just the contract, the NDA right through to getting stuff signed. And then this is an interesting one, we should definitely dive more into. It’s I. It initially stood for identify the pain. I actually say there’s three Is: identify the pain, indicate the pain and then implicate the pain. So we can perhaps go back into that one a bit more detail.
Andy Whyte:
And then you have the most important of all, the greatest CROs I’ve spoken to about MEDDICC will tell you this and that’s champion. No champion, no deal. Big champion, big deal. And we can talk more about champions because I think it’s probably the most used term to describe a customer, but it’s also the most incorrectly used term.
Andy Whyte:
And then the last C which I have on my book, which is commonly implemented as well stands for competition. Now, everyone listened to this goes, “Oh, you don’t need to explain that one, Andy.” But actually, it’s a commonly misunderstood one because most people think of the competition as your rival solution, the other company out there that you normally don’t like them and they’re worse than you, of course and they’re selling the same thing as you are, maybe a bit different. Obviously not as good as what most salespeople would say.
“Competition in today’s world where our customers have so much options and so much opportunity, is any one person or thing that is vying for the same budget or resources that you are.” – Andy White · [10:28]
Andy Whyte:
Now, the catch here is actually the competition. In today’s world, where our customers have so much options and so much opportunity is any one person or thing that is vying for the same budget or resources that you are. That could be both or it could be three things, it could be the rival solution, it could be the customer themselves looking at what you do and saying, “Well, we can build that ourselves.” Or it could be something that’s does a similar thing to what you do but a completely different solution or platform or something like that that could still the people that are going to implement your solution or steal the budget for it. That’s it. That’s MEDDICC in probably three or four minutes.
Andy Describes the KPIs That Can Potentially Help in Identifying and Solving Customer Pain Points · [11:05]
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well, let’s start at the top here because I feel like metrics are something that often get forgotten. We as salespeople will often go into a room virtually now I guess, these days, sit down with people and go, “Hey, you have this problem, we have this solution. You’ve got some budget, we’ve got something to suck the budget away from you.” I find typically there’s not a lot of discussion of what does success look like for you.
Will Barron:
Do you care to solve this problem or not? Just because you’ve got this problem, oversells it. Or the place is on fire constantly. Everything is falling apart behind the scenes. But I don’t care to solve all the issues because they don’t drive revenue, for example. So with that said, what would be an example of a KPI of success if we’re selling to the enterprise or we’re trying to do a large deal here. What kind of KPIs would we be trying to pull out from the potential buyer?
Andy Whyte:
Sure. Well, I predominantly have worked in marketing technology, which is a good place to use as an example, because unlike so many other technologies out there, we are all consumers. We’re generally always being marketed to, so we can kind of relate to these things. And I like to… In fact, the sales MEDDICC group who are a consultancy that implement MEDDICC, they break metrics into two: metrics ones and metric twos.
“What happens so much for salespeople today, is they spot an opportunity, whether it’s inbound or outbound and they know they can help a company and at the first chance they get, before they’ve even joined the Zoom call, they’re straight away telling the customer about how ugly their baby is.” – Andy White · [12:31]
Andy Whyte:
This is really, really key. Because what happens so much for salespeople today, is they spot an opportunity, whether it’s inbound or outbound and they know they can help a company and at the first chance they get, their laptop lid, before it’s even up, before they’ve even joined the Zoom, they’re straightaway telling the customer about how ugly their baby is. They come on and they go, “Will, my solution, you… When you email me, you don’t personalise it or whatever the value is and it’s horrible and look at your competitor. They’re so much better than you. You suck basically.”
Andy Whyte:
And the customer’s going, “Thanks a lot. I don’t really… Do I really want to introduce you to my boss, because you just told me I suck and now my boss will think I suck as well.” But that’s the common mistake we do. And we even do it in outreach, we show like bad examples.
Andy Whyte:
What the difference between metrics ones and metric twos are as metrics ones are where you research the customer ahead of your meeting and you think about your existing customers and the value you provide to them and you think about, “Well, which of my existing customers have relevant value to the customer I’m about to go and see?” And so when I sit in front of you as a person in a marketing department, for example, I can say, “Hey, I work for X company. Here is the value that I provide to my customers. Here’s an example of a customer that before working with me had these problems.
Andy Whyte:
And now since working with me and my solution, they’ve not got these problems. Look how great it looks. By the way, these are the metrics, these are the things that they’re getting, the areas of value. Their conversion rate has gone up or their checkout-dropout has fallen off,” or whatever those metrics therefore become.
Andy Whyte:
What that will do is build trust, which is very hard to do in today’s world in COVID times. It will help build trust and value and the customer is more likely to open up to what you want them to be able to do, so you can do good discovery and find the metrics twos, which is the metrics that are specific to their needs.
Andy Whyte:
Now, they could be exactly the same as the metric ones if they were a close enough company, but the idea is you almost have to use the metric ones to unlock the metrics twos and then you can really, really personalise what value you’re going to bring.
The Crucial Customer Metrics Salespeople Need to Monitor When Identifying Buyer Goals and Areas of Improvement · [14:51]
Will Barron:
Is the end goal here Andy to get a one singular holy grail metric that the company is working for? Or can it be just as effective to say, “We can potentially fix/solve, improve one, two, three, four, five different things.” Is one way better or should we focus on one or go for multiple?
Andy Whyte:
It’s a great question. There isn’t a single answer to that. And so it really is going to come down to the opportunity itself. I’ll give an example of that based on something that I think everyone will know. I used to work for the leading social media software provider. In that example, I could be talking to, let’s say, Unilever, a gigantic company. They could be spending an absolute fortune on Facebook advertising for Lynx Aftershave or something like that. So my metrics to them might be, “Well, I can help you identify more people that are likely to buy Lynx by using our data platform and our services.”
Andy Whyte:
That’s a metric, that’s going to not only increase their goal of getting more people to engage with Lynx, but it’s going to save them money. So there’s one metric, increased revenue on the end, metric number two, it’s going to decrease their ad spend, it’s going to give them more bang for their buck, basically.
“Metrics depend on who you’re talking to, who you’re selling to and what their needs are.” – Andy White · [16:26]
Andy Whyte:
But then over here, you could have another metric completely separate, which is to say, “Hey, what happens if an intern goes rogue on your Facebook page and just starts causing havoc?” Well, that would be an entirely different metric from these sort of revenue metrics. Then all of a sudden, it’s like a brand risk and it could affect the share price. It depends on who you’re talking to, who you’re selling to and what their needs are. It could just be one, but it could be many.
How to Identify and Engage with The economic buyer · [16:40]
Will Barron:
Okay, perfect. You’ve transitioned perfectly to the second part here of MEDDICC, the economic buyer. Does the economic buyer when we’re talking about people, does the economic buyer have to be our champion? Can we just know, identify who the economic buyer is and be cordial and polite to them or do we actually need to engage with them and kind of build a relationship with them directly?
“According to data from iSEEit, 80% of deals that were won had engagements with the economic buyer. 80% of deals that were lost or slipped didn’t have engagement with the economic buyer.” – Andy Whyte · [17:12]
Andy Whyte:
I have a really good answer for this one and it’s data backed, which I’m sure you will like. There’s a SaaS company called [inaudible 00:17:11] and they provide MEDDICC software. It helps implement MEDDICC into Salesforce. They were able to analyse the data of won deals and lost deals. Here’s the stat. 80% of deals that were won had engagements with the… Sorry, it’s over 80%. I can’t remember the exact figures but had engagement with the economic buyer.
“If you want to be successful, consistently successful, you absolutely have to be engaged with the economic buyer. I would be as bold as saying that if you aren’t engaged with the economic buyer, then you are order taking, not selling.” – Andy Whyte · [17:42]
Andy Whyte:
80% of deals that were lost or slipped didn’t have engagement with the economic buyer. That’s the data backed to answer your question. The economic buyer is not the same person as a champion. It’s someone more senior than the champion. You absolutely, if you want to be successful, consistently successful, you absolutely have to be engaged with the economic buyer. I would be as bold as saying that if you aren’t engaged with the economic buyer, then you are order taking, not selling.
Will Barron:
Sure. Let me give a anecdote here without giving too much away. Let’s say salesman.org is looking at partnering with a big CRM company right now and there’s discussions ongoing in the background. When the show goes out, it’ll all be signed, sealed, and delivered hopefully. So let’s say that this is the case. Hopefully, this is being addressed to the audience and make it real for them as well.
How Salespeople Can Engage The Economic Buyer and Close More Deals By Adding Value to The Conversation · [18:55]
Will Barron:
So I have daily conversations with a champion within the organisation. I could probably ring the economic buyer, the CMO of the entire organisation and he’ll probably answer my call and have a chat with me. But there’s not much value I don’t think I could give him that otherwise couldn’t be just passed through their own internal chain of command.
Will Barron:
How do I engage with that CMO without pestering them, without communicating with them unnecessary information that they can just get from their own team? What value can I add to that individual to increase the level of engagement so that I can spend with them?
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, great question. You’re a bit of a unique case to the answer to this. If I may, I will broaden out the answer because I don’t think too many managing directors of the company would be in this sort of situation where they’re doing a sponsorship deal. Let’s imagine that you the… You’re a middle manager or something like that or not middle manager, you’re middle ranking in this.
Andy Whyte:
Now, what you most likely have and what most people listen to this podcast will have whether they are individual contributors, sales leaders, is they’ll have a boss or maybe a few bosses above them. This is multi-level selling 101. It’s not necessarily your job, Will, as the salesperson to contact the economic buyer. It’s your boss’s job. And they should do that early on. Now this is a really, really, really good tip and this is not one of my tips.
“The idea should be that you should, before you’ve even had the first meeting with a potential customer, you should get your boss to write to the person’s boss that you’re going to meet.” – Andy Whyte · [20:02]
Andy Whyte:
The idea should be that you should, before you’ve even had the first meeting with a potential customer, you should get your boss to write to the person’s boss that you’re going to meet. There is no ask here. It’s very straightforward. You simply just write to them and say, “Hi, Sara. I’m Andy. It sounds like our teams are meeting next week to talk about these things. I’m really, really excited by it. We’re really excited to talk to you because we’ve helped companies just like you do A, B and C areas of value. I didn’t have any ask at the moment, but I just wanted to open this line of communication to you just in case you had anything you want to talk to me about.”
Andy Whyte:
Now, chances are you will get a reply if you’ve teed it up. But that’s it. If you set the bar, then you can constantly re-engage those things, add value, ask questions and that sort of thing. Yeah, but it’s a good question. A lot of people… If it was easy to contact the economic buyer, everyone would do it and that’s why it’s such a awesome thing to have as a focus because the more you do it, the better you’re going to be.
Will Barron:
Sure. That makes total sense. It’s almost a level of professionalism and the fact that we’re taking this deal so seriously that we’re willing to have our higher ups are not ours. And then myself included, those [inaudible 00:21:17] sales people, pestering people higher up the food chain. So that makes total sense and especially if we’re dealing with the enterprise.
Will Barron:
I think that… I’m hesitant to use this word, but I feel like that’s the appropriate thing to do, isn’t it?
Andy Whyte:
Yes. Yes, it is absolutely right.
The Difference Between the Decision Criteria and the Decision Process in MEDDICC · [21:33]
Will Barron:
Cool. Okay. Well, let’s move on to decision criteria again. Tell me your thoughts on how separate the decision criteria is versus the decision process. Are these… I know in the acronym MEDDICC, they’re separate elements but should these be… Are they related or should they be kept in separate silos?
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, people quite often try and push them together and I think that’s… Those would be people that haven’t had a great implementation of MEDDICC because they are very, very different, even though they’re both kind of got the same D in them. The reason why it’s the decision process itself is really about how are they going to make their decision? What is the process? Who are the people involved? And so that’s over there and then the decision criteria is what are they going to make their decision based upon?
“What the best salespeople do is they uncover the decision criteria. Now, you know as well as I do, quite often buyers, they won’t have a decision criteria. They know they want something, so it’s your job because then you can become the trusted advisor and you can craft the decision criteria for the customer.” – Andy Whyte · [22:30]
Andy Whyte:
Now, this is a really good one to dig into, because it’s the one that can really be a game changer for salespeople. What the best salespeople do is they will uncover the decision criteria. Now, you know as well as I do, quite often buyers, they won’t have a decision criteria. They know they want something [inaudible 00:22:41], they won’t have it. So it’s your job. And that’s actually a good thing, by the way, because then you can become the trusted advisor and you can craft the decision criteria for the customer.
Andy Whyte:
So you can do some discovery and find out what they need. And of course, the elite salespeople will be including their own unique capabilities as decision criteria. They’ll have a meeting, they’ll do some great discovery, they’ll get what they think is the decision criteria and then they’ll follow up after the meeting and say, “Have I heard this, right? It sounds like this is your decision criteria.” You can even be as bold as calling it that and put all the things you think that they’re making a decision on and then include…
Andy Whyte:
And also, it sounded like whatever solution you’re going to go for, it absolutely must have these things which will be your decision criteria, which is bad news for your competition, especially if they don’t have those features, functionality or they’re weaker in that area. You can really set yourself up for success. This is something I noticed from watching a few of your former guests that when we talk about procurement, everyone’s sort of, “Oh no, procurement.” And they shudder and they think that’s a terrible thing.
Andy Whyte:
Now, I feel like if we were to talk to procurement people and tell them that we do that and the reasons why, there’ll be very offended because most procurement professionals I know, they would be offended because they’ll say, “No, no, we are just trying to find the best value for our company. We’re not just trying to get the best price. We’re trying to find the best value.”
Andy Whyte:
Now, if you imagine that scene, when you go into what is effectively a negotiation for a procurement. We never just go in there to have a cup of tea with them. They’re always going to do something. And you go in and they do that classic, “Will, I’m looking at your training package here. You’re twice the price of the other quote we’ve had.”
Andy Whyte:
Now, most sellers at that point, they’ll get into sort of, “But mine’s got the videos in it,” or this or that. But if you’ve really nailed the decision criteria, then you’ll be able to say, “Cool, okay.” What you’re saying is if you’ve not got the budget for this or you’ve got to isolate the objection, they’d be, “No, you just seem expensive.” And you say, “Okay. Well, we could make it cheaper. If you’re looking for cheaper, we could take these things out but it sounded like you needed those things.” And those are obviously the things you’ve put in the decision criteria that are unique to your solution.
Andy Whyte:
And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden the dynamic changes because the procurement person can clearly see based on the criteria of what they need, only you can provide it and you’ve actually obviously set that up and it’s just a really smart way. That obviously works not just with procurement, but with anyone you’re having a conversation with around the decision criteria.
Will Barron:
I’ve shared this anecdote on the show before. I won’t share it in full. But we used to do this selling medical devices here in the wonderful UK to the NHS. There’s only really two endoscopic camera systems… Probably in the market, there was only two that surgeons want to use. I worked for both companies and so I’d just do the opposite both times.
Will Barron:
Basically, HD cameras had just come in to the marketplace. One company used interlaced footage, which really made very little difference. But in fast movement when the camera’s inside the patient, perhaps it looks smoother and better. And then the other brand used non-interlaced footage, which on a static camera perhaps looked better. Not really much difference between the two in all honesty when you’re inside a patient and you’re performing your procedure, the last thing you really care about is how the lines are drawn on the screen at 60 frames per second.
Will Barron:
Well, we used to use this as… Well, I used to use this as leverage with procurement. I’d asked them, “What are you looking for? This, this and this?” A lot of the times, they didn’t know what they were looking for. I would always spend the extra hour of procurement, I’d always spend that extra bit of time trying to almost provide a bit of a service to help them make a good decision.
Will Barron:
Sometimes it was us, sometimes it wasn’t us. But whenever we got to an RFP or request for proposal stage of the buying process, which we’ll come on to in a second, the decision process, it always included whatever company I worked for the appropriate must have interlaced footage or must not have interlaced footage, immediately locking out the competition and 99 times out of 100, we’d win those deals.
How Salespeople Can Influence The Procurement Officer’s Decision Criteria · [27:06]
Will Barron:
I feel like we’re only touching the surface of each of these steps here, Andy, but there’s a lot of strategy that can come on the back of this that can… A little bit of work up front can really pay dividends towards the end of the sales process, can it?
“I always liken sales to sports because it’s a performance activity.” – Andy Whyte · [27:21]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, you’re absolutely right. And that’s the most beautiful… I always liken sales to sports because it’s a performance activity. There was things that… Imagine that 30 yard out free kick that Ronaldo takes and he calls into the top right hand corner. What you’ve talked about there is the sales equivalent of that.
“When you are able to influence the decision criteria of an RFP, that’s elite selling.” – Andy Whyte · [27:35]
Andy Whyte:
When you are able to influence the criteria of an RFP, the decision criteria of an RFP, that’s elite selling that is. Everyone can do it. But if you just need to lean in and make sure you kind of really focus on building that decision criteria.
Will Barron:
Yeah. This is a stupid way of describing it. I can’t think of off the top my head a better way of describing it. I think it’s just big boy selling. It’s selling in the big leagues. It’s what you do, adding strategy to a longer term enterprise sale or didn’t have to be enterprise sale. But when you have a methodology and a strategy and you stick to it and you refine it and you learn an A/B test from your customers, what works, what doesn’t work.
Customer Relationships Versus Selling Strategies · [28:20]
Will Barron:
In my mind, that’s the difference between a sales professional and then you have other salespeople who are trying to blag it and use quick wit and banter and even trying to leverage relationships more than strategy. I feel like nine times out of 10 again, I’m not the greatest salesperson, I’m pretty good, but I will wipe the floor was someone who comes in thinking that they can blag it with just a few levels of strategy every single time.
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, yeah. I used to play football as an amateur. In the changing room, we used to have this quote above the wall that said, “Hard work always beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard.” That said, with something like MEDDICC, if you embrace it, it’s a blueprint for success. It really is.
Why Is It Important That Salespeople Know How The Buyer Makes Purchasing Decisions? · [29:11]
Will Barron:
For sure. Okay, so we’ve touched on decision criteria. Let’s touch on decision process now. We’ve kind of alluded to it slightly in that last point. But why is it important that we… It’s a stupid question to ask but why is it important that we know how the buyer makes purchasing decisions? Sorry, or the process of of choosing, I guess.
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, sure. Well, it’s that classic thing of we’ve all been in those deals where we thought that we’re doing great and all of a sudden, [inaudible 00:29:35]. “Well hang, what happened there?” And it’s those seven other stakeholders that we never knew were involved in the process. That’s not because we…
Andy Whyte:
That’s not because they’re weird, it’s just that companies… We always think as salespeople, we get up in the morning and all we do is sell and depending on how complex the sales we have, we could even have a one deal a quarter we’re working on. And so that’s what we think about, but the companies we’re selling to, we’re just not even probably 5% of their day. And so there’s always going to be stakeholders and they’re going to rely on other people that maybe are close to the process.
“If you don’t understand your decision process and your paper process, you have no chance of forecasting accurately.” – Andy Whyte · [30:33]
Andy Whyte:
And so you need to know who those people are, you need to know how they’re evaluating who those people are. There’s almost two stages. There’s the validation side of the decision process, where they’re kind of figuring out what they need and who to trust for it. And then there’s like the authorization side of things where it’s about now we’re into procurement process, legal side of things and all. Going back to what I said at the top about forecasting, if you don’t understand your decision process and your paper process, you have no chance of forecasting accurately. You really, really don’t. Yeah, that’s why it’s so important.
Why It’s Not Inappropriate to Ask Your Clients Their Buyer’s Decision Process · [30:50]
Will Barron:
Just to double down on this for a second, it’s more than appropriate, especially with procurement, to ask what your decision process is, right? It’s not an unreasonable question to ask, especially in a larger deal size.
Andy Whyte:
Correct. I tell you, I had an anecdote this week from a gentleman called [inaudible 00:31:06] in Germany, he’s a top MEDDICC consultant there. He told me that the head of procurement at Siemens who are obviously a gazillion dollar company told him that he prefers to buy from companies that use MEDDICC because they go to him and his team and they’re looking for the right things. They’re professional and they’re trying to run an efficient process from both sides. Yeah. Absolutely right.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Okay. Paper process, an extra P. MEDDPICC with a…
Andy Whyte:
MEDDPICC, yeah.
Will Barron:
Is that what it gets [inaudible 00:31:41].
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, yeah. And it’s so funny people get so so precious over whether it’s MEDDICC, one C, two Cs, Ps and that sort of stuff. I’m just like look into them all and find the one that works best for you. Because they all have their pros and cons.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Andy Whyte:
But yeah, MEDDPICC is similar to the decision process. But it’s that… All the things that can happen, especially today with the cloud, as in the world I sold the technology sales, you’ve got data privacy, user privacy, you’ve got infrastructure security, you’ve got lawyers, you’ve got a gazillion different contracts and everything.
Andy Whyte:
That’s what it comes down to. It’s not just that. It’s like who’s signing it? Who has to approve it before it’s signed? What if someone goes on holiday? And so it’s really just keeping on top of those things. What can go wrong here and how am I going to mediate that if it happens? It’s a really straightforward one, but it’s a really important one.
Will Barron:
Crazy important. Doubling down on this analogy here of me selling medical devices, but if we ever wanted… Surgeons would always want the camera systems to be able to put data on the hospital network so that they open a computer in a different room and they get all the files and the images and the videos from the procedure in there all nicely and all wrapped up in a bow.
Will Barron:
Very rare were we able to actually integrate that because as soon as we get anywhere near one of these cameras stats with an ethernet cable, IT come running in the room, bashing heads and waving keyboards to attack people because they know that as soon as it gets plugged in, they’ve got a responsibility to maintain it, to maintain the licences and there’s obviously additional costs and paperwork that go along with that.
Andy Describes How Salespeople Can Avoid Some Existing Pain Points To Avoid Making the Deal Complex and Help Close the Deals Faster · [33:14]
Will Barron:
So this point for us, it was almost our job to avoid existing and this sounds counterintuitive, but to almost do as limited integration as what we possibly could, that the end user was happy so that we didn’t have to involve other people, because then the deal would never get done because it would become too complex. So it can work both ways. Can it, right?
“The paper process is the one that has the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will.” – Andy Whyte · [33:36]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah, the paper process is the one that have the biggest impact on whether your deal will close on time when you think it will. Because once you really… Once your vendor of choice and once your past selling and your into closing, it’s the paper process that takes the time and whether it’s understanding if the company you’re selling to has internal or external legal counsel, I straightaway… If I’m looking at a deal in my team and someone’s forecasting a deal within a month and we haven’t got legals, then we find out they’ve got an external legal team, forget it. You’re going to see more reding on that contract than anything at all. It’ll look like your background.
Implicating Versus Identifying Customer Pain Points · [34:35]
Will Barron:
Okay. Well, so from then on, and let’s rattle through these last three. I’m going to put you on the spot. I’d love to have you back on to perhaps get into one or two of these in detail in a future episode. Let’s rattle through the last three of these now. Just because of time constraints. Or implicating pain. You mentioned that there’s potentially three Is that we could stick on this one.
“Identifying the pain is what you can almost not fail to do if you’re a salesperson today. You talk to a customer and you find some pain.” – Andy Whyte · [34:45]
Andy Whyte:
Yes. I’ll give you the really short version. Identifying the pain is what you can almost not fail to do if you’re a salesperson today. You talk to a customer and you find some pain and what the average sales person will do will accelerate into their sales point, their PowerPoint presentations, “Hey, I found some pain. Let me tell you how I solve it.” That’s not great. That’s pretty poor selling.
Andy Whyte:
The next level up, which is what the majority in certainly in my world events price sales do, which is they indicate the pain. They find some pain, they go, “Okay, how much of that is a pain and how much is it costing you?”
Andy Whyte:
And then they’ll indicate back to the customer by a business case or an ROI or something like that. “It’s costing you 2 million a year,” and the customer feels, “Well, that’s a little bit more painful than seeing your slide deck. But it’s okay, I’ll take that into account.”
“Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it’s like, I’ve found some pain, I’ve quantified it, but now I’m going to really make you feel it.” – Andy Whyte · [35:38]
Andy Whyte:
Now, implicating the pain is the one that really elite sellers do. Where it’s like, I’ve found some pain, I’ve quantified it, but now I’m going to really make you feel it. So via a really smart discovery where I’m asking you what the implications of the pain, how much is it costing you and just digging deeper, SPIN Selling basically.
Andy Whyte:
Digging deeper and deeper and deeper to the point where it sort of starts as, “That’s not great.” But at the end of the discovery session, I’ve dug in so deep to it, you’re just like, “Will, can we just forget about this and just get the contracts done already because I really need to solve this?” It’s not easy to do. It takes a lot of skill and discovery. But the sellers that can do it will always overachieve on that quote, because they’re the ones that are really bring the pain up and they’ll sell more higher value deals because of it.
How to Strategically Implicate a Customer’s Pain Points · [36:19]
Will Barron:
Sure. Again, just continue this analogy for me. Tell me if I’m right or wrong here. But a lot of this would be, well, we want these cameras, because we will be able to do the procedures quicker. So then I would start to lay on top, well, you’re using a standard definition screen camera system right now, a high definition camera system. Maybe you’re going to have better patient outcomes and it’s difficult to quantify. So now I bring a surgeon in that will… “Are you going to perform better?” Because the surgeons want the latest toys.
Will Barron:
So they’ll agree with whatever what kind of pitch it to a CFO in the NHS. We’re bringing them in, “Hey, do you think you’ll be able to perform a safer procedure and reduce the chances of the NHS get sued? Any kind of patient problems on the back of this?” And of course, they say yes. And they go on board. And there’ll be two or three other things that we would layer on top of that. Would that be on the right tracks of this I here?
Andy Whyte:
That’s it. It’s exactly it. Yeah. And it’s that thing around with the example there, it’s like the implicating the pain would be really digging into, in the case of the surgeon, I’ll be digging into the feelings they have of what if something… How many bad issues going wrong will this solve and how many, like you said better outcome for patients. I’m not knowledgeable enough about the space to know what they were treating, what they’re solving. But if I did, I’d be like scratching on that little wound a little bit, so to speak, to try and really open it up so that it…
Andy Whyte:
[inaudible 00:37:46] Yeah, actually, this is a really big problem. And I need to solve this immediately, if not sooner. That’s kind of the trick.
Will Barron:
Because we tie into the… And this sounds manipulative post mortem. But during the conversation, it’s not manipulative. You’re asking questions and they’re giving you answers that they feel are appropriate. I wouldn’t feel like maybe you could do this in a manipulative way if you chose to. But I would only be asking, I’d be asking relatively open-ended questions so they could choose not to give me the response I was looking for.
Will Barron:
But you get to the point where you’d be talking about their careers and how many legal actions can you have against you before the general medical council in the UK go, “Hey, there’s a problem here.” A lot of that can be tied to very literally just being able to see better on a screen. Maybe I’m in a good position here or I was in a good position, because that’s an obvious wave of add an implication and maybe a software product would be more difficult to add this. Maybe that’s a conversation for another time. Next, go on to champion.
Andy Whyte:
Champion.
Who is a Sales Champion? · [38:45]
Will Barron:
Do we have a champion? Do we have multiple champions? Are the different levels of champion? Do we need a champion and do we need to identify the person who’s going to kibosh the whole thing and the enemy? How does this framework work in regards to all that?
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, great, great way of phrasing it. You can have more than one champion for sure. But the most important thing with a champion is that it’s a qualified champion. In MEDDICC, there’s three qualifying criteria. And these are really, really important. It’s okay if you haven’t qualified this, it doesn’t mean you need to rule out talking to this person but before calling them a champion, you have to have these things, three things.
Andy Whyte:
Number one, power and influence. Okay, it’s not rank. It’s just when they speak, when they say something, do people listen. The second is they have to have a mutual win with you. They want to… There has to be something in it for them, your success needs to equal their success. The third is they have to be selling on your behalf. You can’t be there all the time. There’s going to be lots of conversations when you’re not there and they need to be selling in your behalf. And what that means is when somebody says, “Well, I think we can build this ourselves,” or, “I like the competition or whatever it is,” they stand up and step up for you.
Andy Whyte:
Obviously, these three qualifying criteria, some are easier than others. You can see power and influence in a meeting, see if their people listen to them. You can kind of talk to them about your mutual win. The one around selling for you, the real easy hack here to understand if they talk to you to say, “Hey Jess, surely you’ve been talking about this project internally?” “Oh, yes, yes, we have.” “Has there been anyone that’s not been in favour of our solution?” “Oh, yeah. There’s Steve. He didn’t like it.” “What did Steve say?” “Oh, well. Steve told me this.”
Andy Whyte:
So first one, tick. Jess has told you what Steve said. That’s a good sign. The real ultimate test is, “And what did you say to Steve?” She says, “Well, I told Steve and I made sure everyone else knew that Steve was wrong as well.” That’s the champion. That’s the first part. You’ve got your champion. And you can have more of those than you want. But it’s really important you have a proper champion, rather than thinking just everyone likes me. “Everyone likes me.” That’s no good.
Andy Whyte:
The next one is the competition’s champion, your counter champion, if you like. Now, it really comes down to who has the stronger champion, right. And if you find out that your competition has a stronger champion, you’ve got two choices, you either build up your champion to be stronger, you’ve got to train them, you’ve got to support the order, give them the talk track or you’ve got to find another champion because whoever has the strongest champion will win. It’s basically the law.
How To Identify and Nature Your Sales Champion · [41:36]
Will Barron:
I feel like I could ask you 15 questions here. I guess the most important thing here to understand for the audience, I don’t know if there’s data on this, I’m asking you anecdotally, do these champions come about because they like the salesperson or the people in the organisation personally?
Will Barron:
Is this all based on relationships or is this typically because the champion knows that your product or service is the correct thing and they’re excited to get it implemented?
“The best champions actually often don’t have to like you.” – Andy Whyte · [41:53]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, brilliant question. Absolutely astounding. Because this is the thing. The best champions actually often don’t have to like you. In fact, they can be a bit of a pain in your ass. They can. And so, yeah, that’s the thing. The Challenger Sale is the book that gets talked about all the time and rightly, it’s a good book. But the followup book, The Challenger Customer, for me, is a better book. And in that book, it talks about the difference…
“The different types of buyers. And actually, the one that’s your friend is actually not as good as the person that the persona that is actually just wants the best for their company.” – Andy Whyte · [42:39]
Andy Whyte:
And I think one of the reasons why it doesn’t get as much hype, by the way is because people think it’s for customer success people or something, it’s about customers, but it’s actually talking about the person you’re selling to. And it’s saying that where there’s challenge of salespeople, there’s also challenge of buyers. It should be called The Challenger Buyer. They should bring me up. They can have that one for free. But that’s it. What they talk about is the different types of buyer. And actually, the one that’s like, your friend is actually not as good as the person that the persona that is actually just wants the best for their company.
Andy Whyte:
They don’t care if it’s you, they don’t care if your logo is blue or red or what you do, they just want to get the best and that’s that. Yeah, you almost actually just want… I’d rather have that champion because they definitely have more power and influence because people are like, “Well, it’s really hard to impress that person.” So if you’ve impressed that person, it’s worth more than the person that seems like everybody.
Which One is More Important: Customer Relationships or Understanding the Buyer and Delivering Value? · [43:15]
Will Barron:
Yeah. We’ll come on to a competition in a second but just to drill this home. How important are relationships versus how important is it to understand the buyer and just deliver value to them as a whole, across the whole like in the MEDDICC methodology?
“As a salesperson, you don’t necessarily have to be liked. In fact, sometimes it can be a bit of a hindrance.” – Andy Whyte · [43:55]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah. Well, here’s a probably an unpopular opinion. Everywhere I’ve worked, there’s always been a successful sales person who I thought, I won’t say what I thought, but you just think, “I don’t like that person. They don’t seem to…” I know it’s not me. I know they’re like that with their customers, but they’re still wildly successful. That, to me, proves that you don’t necessarily have to be liked. In fact, sometimes it can be a bit of a hindrance. If you just want people to like you… Earlier in my career, that was me. I was scared of asking the difficult questions and all that sort of stuff. So that the more outcome driven sellers, I think are the better ones. I have a really nice analogy for how I think salespeople should be. We should never be apologetic, we shouldn’t be, “Thank you so much for your time.” You, yourself as a great example of this, you were selling technology that literally helped save people’s lives.
“They should be calling you up and clearing their calendar to talk to you. If you don’t feel like that about the product you’re selling, then you’re probably in the wrong job.” – Andy Whyte · [44:27]
Andy Whyte:
They should be calling you up and clearing their calendar to talk to you. If you don’t feel like that about the product you’re selling, then you’re probably in the wrong job. And so this is the analogy, this is the mindset. There’s a film called Limitless, I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s got Bradley Cooper. It’s one of my favourite films. But for those that haven’t seen, it’s basically about a pill that says we use 6% of our brain. The pill unlocks 100% of our brain power. So you can learn a language in like an hour or something like that, learn Kung Fu in an hour.
Andy Whyte:
If you were a salesperson of an FDA approved pill that did that, how would you be as a salesperson? You would be so confident. You wouldn’t let anyone waste your time. If we take that mindset into sales, that’s how we should be. There’s two things that will happen. People won’t waste your time, but also people are like one, “This guy seems very busy. I better make the most of his time before he goes on to the next person.” And that’s kind of the mindset, I think we should have.
Will Barron:
For sure. That film, the NZT or B or whatever it’s called-
Andy Whyte:
NZT.
Will Barron:
Is based on a drug called modafinil.
Andy Whyte:
Let me write that down.
Will Barron:
We’re going off topic here. It’s a narcoleptic drug, but people do use it as a smart drug. I’ve experimented with it in the past and it’s not your… You barely notice it. What it does for me though, what it does in general, is why people use it as a smart drug, it removes that little bit of voice at the back your head when you go. “God, I was doing my accounting today. I’ve got to do this VAT return.” That little bit of voice doesn’t exist, and you literally just sit down and do the work.
Will Barron:
So it doesn’t turn you into an incredible author and a superstar kind of ladies man like it does in that film. I just thought it would be funny to mention, there are literally people selling that drug right now who are probably going… They’re probably on the drug as well. They’re probably going, “Yeah, I appreciate what you’re saying here, Andy.”
Andy Whyte:
I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that.
Competitors In and Out of an Organisation You’re Trying To Sell To · [46:22]
Will Barron:
Well, there we go. Final thing here, competition. So you touched on at the top of the show, the fact that this isn’t just our direct competitors, it’s anyone who can take a budget. Is there anything else that we need to add to that to make that clear in the audience’s minds?
“By the way, if a salesperson ever says, “There’s no competition here,” they’re either lying or they’re not close enough to the deal.” – Andy Whyte · [46:54]
Andy Whyte:
No, I think that’s it. It’s anyone that can take not just the budget, but the resource as well. If your solution requires expertise or people to help implement it, then that can be a thing as well. That’s a really, really important one. Because people just go… By the way, if a salesperson ever says, “There’s no competition here,” they’re either lying or they’re not close enough to the deal.
Will Barron:
For sure. Okay. So just to wrap up then, I’ve got one final question that I ask everyone that comes on the how.
Andy Whyte:
Okay.
Andy Reveals the Steps Most People Get Wrong in the MEDDICC Methodology · [46:05]
Will Barron:
Well, before that, out of these one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight steps, if we include some of the extra ones, what do people get wrong the most? What’s the biggest hurdle for salespeople? What if you could wave a magic wand and fix one of them would solve kind of 60-80% of your clients’ issues?
“Stop calling coaches, stop calling the person that talks to you the most your champion. Test them, test them and test them. That’s the one. When you have a champion, you know very, very quickly how you’re going to win and if you’re going to win.” – Andy Whyte · [47:34]
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, the one that people get wrong the most is their definition of metrics. But the one that will have the biggest impact of getting right is the qualifying criteria of the champion. Stop calling coaches, stop calling the person that talks to you the most your champion. Test them, test them and test them. That’s the one. When you have a champion and you know very, very quickly how you’re going to win and if you’re going to win.
Will Barron:
Is that because people don’t have a champion or is that because there’s a champion there and we haven’t identified them?
“If you’re in the right deal and you’ve got the best value to offer, then the champion will be there. You just need to find them.” – Andy Whyte · [48:04]
Andy Whyte:
Well, I guess this comes back to qualification. If you’re in the right deal and you’ve got the best value to offer, then the champion will be there. You just need to find them.
Will Barron:
Sure.
Andy Whyte:
And you’ve got to look high, low and wide for them. That’s what salespeople are afraid to. It’s hard. You upset people when you go high and wide and you go around people and you need to be kind of really confident in what you’re doing. And here’s the thing, if somebody is blocking you from talking to someone else that’s going to progress your deal, they’re not a champion. They failed the qualification of your success is their success. Yeah, you’ve got to get high and wide.
Andy’s Advise to His Younger Self on How to Get Better at Selling · [48:40]
Will Barron:
Love it. That makes total sense. Okay, Andy. Well, with that, final question, mate, that is given to everyone who comes on the show. If you could go back in time and speak to your younger self, what would be the one piece of advice you’d give him to help him become better at selling?
Andy Whyte:
What a great one. Listen to the Salesman Podcast.
Will Barron:
Nothing to do with the podcast and nothing to do with MEDDICC either.
Andy Whyte:
Well, this is genuinely what I would say is I would tell myself to ensure that I qualify out of deals more quickly. This is what I’d say. I guarantee the audience listening to this right now, ask yourself, have you or anybody you know ever regretted qualifying out of a deal? Have you ever qualified out and walked away and gone, “You know what? I could have won that one.” It never happens and here’s the real goal of this.
Andy Whyte:
If you were to be qualifying out of a deal that you really should be winning, the customer will tell you. They’ll say, “No, Will. Will, Will, Will, Will, Will! Stick with me here mate. We’re onto something here. I know we’re difficult to work with or I know I made it seem like I wasn’t interested but I really am.” And so best case scenario, the customer starts paving because they’ve made you feel like you should qualify out or second best case scenario, it’s not even a bad scenario. You save yourself a load of time and heartache by chasing [inaudible 00:49:51].
Will Barron:
I love that. I’ve had customers come back to me and apologise and they were trying to get a discount, they were trying to do this, they’re trying to do that. Sometimes, they’re just buying time. You feel like they’re fobbing you off, but they’re just buy in time because they know the budget is coming in six months and they’re too nervous to tell you that they’re embarrassed about it for whatever reason.
Parting Thoughts: Andy’s Book and How to Contact Him · [50:10]
Will Barron:
I love that. No one’s ever said that on the show before, Andy. That’s really insightful. I appreciate that mate. With that, tell us where we can find out more about you and then where we can find the book as well.
Andy Whyte:
Yeah, thank you. Well, the book is on Amazon. It’s MEDDICC with two Cs, Andy Whyte is W-H-Y-T-E. The reason why I sort of laugh is because I found myself between two of the most unfortunate kind of ointments on the Amazon results page.
Andy Whyte:
Don’t buy those or you can if you need them, no judgement . It’s MEDDICC, it’s on Amazon. You can find me at meddicc.com, M-E-D-D-I-C-C.com. Actually just to be awkward, my social profiles are @meddpicc on Twitter and on Instagram.
Will Barron:
Perfect. Well, I’ll link to all of that in the show notes for this episode over at salesman.org. With that, Andy, I want to thank you for your time. I would love to have you back on to perhaps dive into two or three of these in more detail in the future. With that one, thank you again for joining us on Salesman Podcast.
Andy Whyte:
Thank you. It’s been great, Will.
