SellingSherpa

B2B Sales Best Practices

MEDDICC (Book Summary)

MEDDICC: The ultimate guide to staying one step ahead in the complex sale by Andy Whyte

FOREWORD by Dick Dunkel

  • in Enterprise Sales, nobody cares what kind of year you are going to have. It’s all about your Quarter.

INTRODUCTION

  • What is MEDDPICCR?  Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition, and Risks
  • I have seen a P be used for Partners, and a C used for Compelling Event.
  • M is for Metrics: The Metrics are the quantifiable measures of value that your solution can provide.
  • E is for Economic Buyer: The Economic Buyer is the person with the overall authority in the buying decision.
  • D is for Decision Criteria: The Decision Criteria are the various criteria in which a decision to process your solution will be judged.
  • D is for Decision Process: The Decision Process is the series of steps that form a process of which the buyer will follow to make a decision.
  • P is for Paper Process: The Paper Process is the series of steps that follow the Decision Process in how you will go from Decision to signed contract.
  • I is for Implicate the Pain: Implicating the Pain means you have both Identified, Indicated, and Implicated the Pain your solution solves upon your customer.
  • C is for Champion: The Champion is a person who has power, influence, and credibility within the customer’s organization.
  • C is for Competition: The Competition is any person, vendor, or initiative competing for the same funds or resources you are.
  • R is for Risks: The Risks are the specific Risks that you have identified within your deal that will either remain and need to be monitored or overcome.

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

  • Customer-Sided Stakeholders:
    • Coach(es)
    • Champion(s): A Champion is a person who has power, influence, and credibility within the customer’s organization.
    • Economic Buyer
    • Technical Buyers, Procurement, Legal/Lawyers
    • Users

IS MEDDICC A METHODOLOGY?

  • A sales methodology is a set of guiding principles that an organization uses to define how they go to market with their solution.
  • MEDDICC provides a methodology in which the organization can correctly and thoroughly qualify deals to ensure efficient and effective selling. Therefore, MEDDICC is a Qualification Methodology.
  • The sales methodology will lead on how your organization goes to market, the style of messaging, who you talk to, and how you speak to them.
  • For a sales methodology to be effective, it must be rigorously implemented in your organization.

MEDDICC VERSUS OTHER QUALIFICATION METHODOLOGIES

  • MEDDICC sees qualification as a process that occurs throughout your deal’s lifecycle.

QUALIFICATION

  • If there is one thing I guarantee will make you a more successful Seller, it is improving your ability to qualify.
  • The most common indicators that an opportunity is not qualified include:
    • No Pain/Willingness to Change
    • Your Solution Doesn’t Fit
    • Your Contacts Have No Influence
    • If the Customer Refuses to Allow You to do Discovery
    • If You are in Doubt, Qualify Out: Qualifying out because of doubt will commonly have one of two effects: Your customer will accept your position and rationale for not pursuing the opportunity with them further. Your customer will disagree with your position and try to convince you why you should pursue the opportunity with them.
  • Approach any uncovered Risk head-on.
  • Three I’s transition:
    • Identify pain
    • Indicate pain
    • Implicate pain
  • Your customers won’t necessarily have a black and white Decision Criteria

WHAT DEFINES ELITE?

  • All Elite Sellers are accurate forecaster and relentless qualifiers
  • Five performance-related attributes of Elite Sellers:
    • Hard Working
    • Always Learning
    • Practice and Preparation
    • Process
  • Intelligence: Intelligence comes down to ICE:
    • IQ
    • Curiosity
    • EQ (Emotional Intelligence)
  • You can enhance your perceived IQ by learning more about business, your industry, and your solution.
  • A critical component of being curious is listening, which also relates to how your EQ will be perceived.

DISCOVERY

  • Discovery is not something that starts and finishes on your first call, nor is it a stage in your sales process. Discovery is a mindset.
  • “The greatest problem with communication is that we don’t listen to understand. We listen to reply. When we listen with curiosity, we don’t listen with the intent to reply. We listen for what’s behind the words.” – Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart
  • There are seven types of big questions that are super starting points for uncovering valuable information early in your deal cycle:
    • What is working?
    • What is not working?
    • When it works, what good things happen?
    • When it does not work, what bad things happen?
    • Whom does that affect?
    • How much does that cost?
    • Why haven’t you tried to solve it yet?
  • Research First
    • The Organization
    • The Industry
    • The People
  • At least nine out of every ten of your discovery questions should be open-ended versus closed.
  • Only use a close-ended question if you want an affirmative “Yes “or “No “answer.
  • An excellent hack to keep your questions open-ended is to use the TED Acronym: Could you please:
    • Tell me about it
    • Explain to me
    • Describe how…
  • A proven method to open up the discussion on the right path in the first call is to ask the customer what it was that made them take the meeting or what they are hoping to get from it.
  • Implicating the pain means you make your customer feel the severity of the pain they have. We do this by asking more specific and deeper questions relating to their pain.
  • In the early stages, your customer will be keenly trying to establish their Decision Criteria and determine if your solution can help them solve their problems.
  • As you move into the mid-stages of your deal, discovery shifts to take a focus on qualifying your position against the MEDDICC of the deal. This entails qualifying your Champion, the Economic Buyer, the Decision Criteria, and the process.
  • Towards the latter part of the mid-stages, you should be using discovery to uncover any unknown parts of the Decision Process and Paper Process.
  • Stages: In the late stages, your discovery is likely to be focused on ensuring you are on top of the Decision Process and Paper Process, and that there aren’t going to be any surprises such as new stakeholders, new criteria or processes that were unexpected.
  • Link the Implicated Pain to an existing initiative

DON’T KNOCK THE COMPETITION

  • Take the high road
  • Identify differentiators, quantify the pain they solve, and then get them inserted into the Decision Criteria.

PRICE CONDITIONING

  • Your customer’s perception of cost is often left wide open, just waiting for someone to set expectations.
  • Give your customer information leading towards setting an expectation whereby the price is likely to be higher than it will be.

THE GO-LIVE PLAN

  • The Go-Live Plan:
    • Is customer-focused: It is written in the language of the customer, not the Seller.
    • Inspires Urgency:
    • Is the best place to add information as well as links to any useful documents such as the proposal or business case
    • Is Collaborative
    • Is the Home for Questions & Answers
  • Structure
    • Add the customer’s logo next to yours at the top
    • The Information Header
    • The Brief Summary
    • The Teams This is the section where you can identify who the stakeholders are on both sides. I advise highlighting as early as you can who the post-sales team will be that will be supporting the customer towards going live, as well as any more senior executives that could act as a sponsor for the project.
    • Planned Steps and Key Events with columns for: Stage; Action; Owner; By When; Status
    • The Compelling/Important Events and Risks Section
    • The Q & A Section
  • Tempting as it will be to highlight your Champion’s role as’ Champion’ within this document, it is actually likely to have a negative effect as the Champion may be seen as biased.

METRICS

  • Metrics are the quantifiable measures of value that your solution can provide.
  • Split Metrics into two kinds:
    • Metrics 1 (M1’ s) – Metrics Proof Points: These are the business outcomes you have delivered for your existing customers. The best way to introduce M1’ s is to reference existing customers who benefit from them.
    • Metrics 2 (M2’ s) – Return on Investment: These are the business outcomes your customer cares about improving
  • Metrics aren’t simply KPIs of your solution’s success; they exist to help the Seller and customer build the business case for investment into the solution.
  • Another way to work out the Metrics is to work backwards from the customer’s goals, establishing what it is they are focused on improving.
  • To find Pain, and if you aren’t being given a chance to do that, go and work with a customer who deserves your expertise.
  • Be sure to check the language of your Metrics to ensure they are applicable and understandable to the relevant stakeholders.
  • The Three Whys:
    • Why should you buy [this type of solution]?
    • Why should you buy from [us]?
    • Why should you buy now?
  • By the time you engage with Procurement, you should have your Metrics wholly locked down and validated by your customer.
  • In your first engagement with Procurement, you should ensure that an agenda item focuses on briefing them on your engagement so far.
  • Early in your sales process, Metrics can help you build credibility with your customers.
  • At the earliest opportunity, you want to get a consensus on the Metrics with your Champion.
  • Elite Sellers keep the proposal up to date and go to the effort to create a summary proposal for more senior executives that covers the main selling points in a clear, easy-to-digest format regardless of who the stakeholder is.

ECONOMIC BUYER

  • The Economic Buyer is the person with the overall authority in the buying decision.
  • The criteria of an Economic Buyer is that they
    • Have access to discretionary funds or the power to shift existing budgets to obtain new funds.
    • Have veto power to push the project forward or to stop it regardless of other stakeholders’ positions such as your Champion/Counter Champion
    • Are focuses on the strategic objectives of the organization (generally outlined in their annual report, if public)
    • Are likely to have profit and loss responsibility
    • Will sign your contract or be a part of the approval process leading to a signature
  • Your Champion should help you identify your Economic Buyer early in the sales cycle.
  • You should raise the importance of engagement with the Economic Buyer often to your Champion.
  • Questions to ask your Champion about the Economic Buyer:
    • How do they like to be engaged? E.g. Phone? Email? Letter?
    • What do they care about? E.g. Making Money? Saving Money? Reducing Risk?
    • What are some things that you know they like?
    • What are some things that you know they dislike?
  • The Champion Letter: This is a letter written to the Economic Buyer that introduces yourself and your solution whilst, at the same time, praising your Champion for what an outstanding job they are doing on the project.
  • Elite Sellers engage their senior execs at the earliest point, which can even be before the first meeting. One of the secrets to the success of organizations like Salesforce.com is their ability to engage senior executives on a consistent basis.
  • The best way to make the right first impression is by talking in the language of the Economic Buyer, and to do this, you need to have a good understanding of their business objectives
  • With an Economic Buyer, share reference points from your existing customers:
    • What have you helped them solve?
    • What results did they see?
    • Which mutual connections do you have?
    • Who can you introduce them to?
  • The fastest way to get an Economic Buyer to forget your solution is to talk about its bells and whistles.
  • When Economic Buyers make decisions, they focus on three Cs:
    • Cost-How much will it cost?
    • Completion-How long until we can realize the value?
    • Confidence-How confident is everyone around your solution?
  • Economic Buyers are not just thinking about the bottom line cost of your solution to their business, they will be evaluating the full business which includes the cost of resources to implement and maintain the solution as well as the potential opportunity cost of prioritizing your solution over others.
  • An Economic Buyer is most likely looking at results at a quarterly and annual level
  • If the deal is qualified, then the Economic Buyer should be aware of the project.
  • Sales leaders should attend Economic Buyer meetings

DECISION CRITERIA

  • The Decision Criteria is the sets of principles, guidelines, and requirements that an organization uses to make a decision.
  • You could even call this section the Economic Buyer Decision Criteria.
  • Understand whether formal Decision Criteria exists.
  • You can define the Decision Criteria into three different types:
    • Technical (Infrastructure, Integrations, Ease of Use)
    • Economic (ROI, Risks, Time, Commercial Terms)
    • Relationship (Executive Alignment/Sponsorship, Reputation, Open and Collaborative, Fair and Reasonable, Skin in the Game)
  • Understand how your customer is scoring you against their Decision Criteria.
  • When suggesting decision criteria, use generic terms that are not related to you or your solution.
  • The Sales Engineer should own the Technical Decision Criteria

DECISION PROCESS

  • The Decision Process is a series of steps that dictates how your customer will make a decision.
  • The Decision Process that will decide whether your deal closes on time or slips.
  • Once you feel you have passed a step, you need to obtain validation that you have done so from your customer.
  • While it is likely that there will be more steps added to the Decision Process, it is rarely the case that you will have to go through fewer steps than what an official or validated version of the Decision Process states.
  • The Decision Process breaks into two parts:
    • Technical Validation
    • Business Approval
  • Paper Process is often incorporated into the Decision Process.
  • Ask yourself:
    • Who needs to approve this deal?
    • What is their role?
    • Are there any committees or formal boards?
    • How long does each person take?
    • Who or what can slow this down?
    • Who can help me speed it up?
  • Elite Sellers know that to ace the Decision Process, they need to be able to have visibility of every step: who are the stakeholders involved and what are the dependencies of each step?
  • The Go-Live Plan can (and will) change, often frequently.
  • If the customer is closed about their Decision Process or is unable to offer any useful information, this should be classed as a major red flag for the qualification of your deal and you should consider qualifying out.

PAPER PROCESS

  • The Paper Process is the steps or actions that lie in place ahead of contracts being agreed and signed.
  • No Seller can tackle the Paper Process alone; they need the support of their Champion to map out each step and go into bat for the Seller if any unexpected issues arise or your deal needs prioritizing with other stakeholders.
  • Have you built reasonable contingency plans in case anyone should be delayed or unavailable at any time?
  • If you get an NDA agreed upon as early as possible, it will give you a good indication of how your customer’s legal department works.

IMPLICATE THE PAIN

  • Implicating the Pain means you have Identified, Indicated, and Implicated the Pain your solution solves upon your customer.
  • Pain is a problem the customer has with their business that is serious enough that there is a need for a solution.
  • 3 Types of Pain
    • Financial Pain: This relates to where the organization is either missing out on revenue or has higher costs relating to the pain.
    • Efficiency Pain: This relates to a Pain that is occurring because something prohibits the organization from being efficient or effective.
    • People Pain: This relates to pain that impacts the People in the organization either by productivity, morale, skill, or ability.
  • Elite Sellers build influence maps of the stakeholders within the organization they are selling to. Mapping the types of pain to stakeholders keeps you focused on what kinds of conversation you need to have and with whom.
  • Identified Pain
  • Indicate (the cost of the) Pain:  By quantifying it into a document that illustrates their return on investment. Indicating the pain relates to the’ Problem’ in SPIN Selling and the’ Negative Consequences’ in Command of the Message.
  • Implicate Pain:  By making customers feel the negative impact the pain is having on their business.
  • Pain Creates Urgency

CHAMPION

  • The Champion is a person who is assisting us and has power, influence, and credibility within the customer’s organization.
  • Champion or Champions? Always Champions! That said, generally, most deals tend to have one primary Champion.
  • The definition of a Coach is someone who is friendly and gives useful information about your deal.
  • To Evolve a Coach to a Champion, they require the following explicit criteria:
    • A Champion has power and influence
    • A Champion acts as an internal Seller for you
    • A Champion has a vested interest in your success (because your success means their success)
  • The most critical selling your Champion can do for you is when you are not there.
  • The best way to enable your Champion to be credible in selling for you is to arm them with the I and the M from MEDDICC – pain and metrics.
  • This Competitor is likely to do three things to attack your solution:
    • They will talk about the unique value that only they can offer
    • They will attack you or your solution outright with FUD
    • They will lay traps for your solution to fall into
  • While enthusiastic Champions are great, they mustn’t be too enthusiastic towards your solution internally as it may cause them to lose credibility internally as they may seem biased.
  • Introducing your Champion to other people in your network is an excellent way of creating some social proofing around yourself.
  • Elevate their Career by:
    • Invite your Champion to speak at an event you are hosting
    • Invite your Champion onto a Podcast
    • Interview your Champion for a or blog post
  • Do you have mutual connections to your Champion? Has anyone in your network worked with them before? Or have they been involved in selling to them?
  • Ask them the following question: “In the conversations you’ve been having about my solution internally, has anyone raised any concerns or negative opinions?”
  • Useful areas of information they can share is how you are scoring against the Decision Criteria, and critically how you compare to your competitors.
  • Champion Red Flags
    • No Buying Experience
    • Not run any similar deals in their current company
    • They won’t leave their lane (take risks – Real Champions get it done!)
    • They Don’t Tell you Anything you Don’t Already Know
  • Procurement deals with Sellers all day every day. You are unlikely to be able to outplay them at their own game.
  • Your Champion can help you decipher between which redlines are real show stoppers and which can be negotiated.
  • Your Champion will help you kick start any internal processes that may slow the deal down at later stages. Processes such as: Reference Process; Technical Validation Process; Security Process; Legal Process; Procurement Process
  • No Champion is better than having a faux Champion

COMPETITION

  • The Competition is any person, vendor, or initiative competing for the same funds or resources you are.
  • Possible Competition could be:
    • Rival solutions-Your natural competitors
    • Other projects/initiatives that require the same funds or resources
    • The organization’s internal team building their own solution
    • Inertia-The organization opting to do nothing
  • The Build versus Buy debate is often as much a political one as it is technical.
  • Signs your Deal is Heading for Inertia
    • The customer is seemingly unwilling or unenthusiastic to build out the Metrics
    • You are unable to engage with the Economic Buyer
    • The Decision Criteria is undefined and/or there is no Decision Process
    • You haven’t been able to Identify Pain strong enough to make an impact upon the organization
    • You are single-threaded and/or are failing at finding other stakeholders interested in sponsoring your deal
    • There is no compelling event
  • If you hear directly or get the sense that your Competition has been knocking you, don’t panic. Do not lower yourself to their level by participating in a tit for tat counter-argument. Instead, take the high road.
  • There are three areas of your Competition to consider:
    • Political: Who internally within the customer is aligned towards or is favorable to the Competition?
    • Technical: How does our solution match up against the technical elements of the Decision Criteria?
    • Commercial: How are we articulating our solution’s unique value and/or the lost value of not selecting our solution?
  • By the time your Paper Process is fully underway, your Competition should have been eradicated from your deal.
  • The Strongest Champion Wins, not Vendor

RISKS

  • The Risks are the specific Risks that you have identified within your deal that will either remain and need to be monitored or overcome.
  • There are three levels of Risk in which we measure the severity in the form of a RAG Status (Red, Amber, or Green).

LESSONS LEARNT WHILE IMPLEMENTING MEDDICC

  1. You need to go all-in on MEDDICC: MEDDICC has to become part of the universal language in which your organization uses to talk about deals.
  2. Front Line Managers are THE Most Important Adopters
  3. You Need the Full Support of the Executive Team
  4. Celebrate and Showcase the Quick Wins
  5. Training Never Stops
  6. 6 Run Mandatory MEDDICC Reviews: I recommend implementing mandatory weekly MEDDICC deal review sessions. Within the hour-long session, the Seller gives an overview of the background of their deal and a brief introduction of the organization they are selling to before going into each part of MEDDICC. The idea is for the team to review the deal and brainstorm strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities. Invite Sales Development Reps to the sessions
  7.  
    1. Use MEDDICC Confidence Scoring to Focus on Progression
    1. Watch out for Happy Ears and the Pessimists
    1. Build MEDDICC into the sales stages. For instance, you may want to ensure that a deal can only pass to a late if it has a seven or higher Decision Process.
  8. Marketing and MEDDICC: Marketing can help drive progress on MEDDICC by running initiatives aimed at stakeholders like the Champion and Economic Buyer. Good examples of this are events such as Champion Building events or Round Tables designed at Economic Buyers. Another great initiative I have seen marketing do with MEDDICC in mind is to create content aimed at Economic Buyer personas such as the CFO.
  9. Don’t Forget the Value” While MEDDICC is an outstanding qualification framework, it is not a replacement for a value selling framework. To sell your solution using the Metrics you have built, and against the Pain you have Implicated, you will need to translate your approach into value.
  10. Always be Coaching

MEDDICC CHECKLIST

  • Do I have a Champion? Have I qualified that they have power and influence? Have they shown that they are selling internally for me? Do they have a personal win relating to our success?
  • The first is a checklist to ensure we utilize the full strength of our go-to-market teams on deals we are engaged in. The checklist includes questions such as: Have we built a customized proposal? Have we engaged a potential reference to endorse us pro-actively? Have we engaged a co-founder or senior executive to contact the customer? Have we briefed our partner team?
  • The second checklist is focused squarely on qualification and how to put yourself into a position to be able to qualify.
  • have you: Read the customer’s annual report and other public publications to reveal the customer’s goals, challenges, and strategies? Have you mapped the customer’s organization?
  • examples of potential Pause Points are: Before naming someone as your Champion, pause to check that you have qualified them as being a Champion Before sending over any pricing information for your solution, pause to check whether you have consensus of the value of your solution with your customer and have the appropriate engagement with the Economic Buyer.
  • The checklist should incorporate checks on this point, such as: Have we confirmed our privacy policy meets the levels of privacy illustrated in their Decision Criteria?

MEDDICC SCORING

The scoring definitions of each part of MEDDICC are below:

  • Metrics:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of the Metrics based on outside information or initial conversations.
    • 4-6: We have a reasonably good understanding of the Metrics based on specific conversations with the customer regarding the Metrics.
    • 7-8: We strongly understand the Metrics driving the project, and we have communicated and confirmed these Metrics with at least two people within the customer’s business. We have aligned ourselves to the Metrics.
    • 9-10: The customer openly uses our Metrics/the same Metrics in line with the objectives of the project, and they are the KPIs that will dictate the success of the project.
  • Economic Buyer:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of who the Economic Buyer may be but we haven’t had access to them yet.
    • 4-6: We have confirmation of who the Economic Buyer is from our Champion/Coach, and they are aware of Our organization and our core value propositions. Or we have access to someone we think is the Economic Buyer but haven’t had any confirmation.
    • 7-8: We have had direct engagement with the Economic Buyer, and they are favorable to our solution.
    • 9-10: We have a direct line of engagement to the Economic Buyer, and they are actively helping us to drive the progress of our deal.
  • Decision Criteria:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of the Decision Criteria for the project based on outside information or initial conversations.
    • 4-6: We have a reasonably good understanding of the Decision Criteria based on specific conversations with the customer in regards to the Decision Criteria.
    • 7-8: We strongly understand the Decision Criteria driving the project, and we have communicated and confirmed the Decision Criteria with at least two customers. We have aligned ourselves perfectly to the Decision Criteria.
    • 9-10: We have confirmed, influenced, and documented the Decision Criteria with at least two major stakeholders (i.e., Economic Buyer & Champion), and they are completely aligned to it.
  • Decision Process:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of the Decision Process based on outside information or initial conversations.
    • 4-6: We have a reasonably good understanding of the Decision Process based on specific conversations with the customer in regards to the Decision Process. We haven’t been able to test the accuracy of the process against what we have been told.
    • 7-8: We strongly understand the Decision Process the deal has to undergo and have qualified with our Champion that there are no other factors except those identified. We are exceptionally close to the Decision Process. We have tested the accuracy of what we have been told through each stage and found it to be mostly accurate.
    • 9-10: We have written confirmation of the Decision Process from a senior stakeholder and are aligned perfectly with the process. We have been proactively introduced to parties relevant to each stage of the process (i.e., Technical, Legal, Procurement). We tested the accuracy of what we’ve been told through each stage and found it accurate.
  • Paper Process:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of the Paper Process based on outside information or initial conversations.
    • 4-6: We have a reasonably good understanding of the Paper Process based upon specific conversations with the customer in regards to the Paper Process. We haven’t been able to test the accuracy of the process against what we have been told.
    • 7-8: We have fully vetted and confirmed the Paper Process with a major stakeholder within the organization and have been through a checklist of what needs to be completed and who is required for each step. We have been through all eventualities, including who is responsible for what, when, and where.
    • 9-10: We have full commitment from our Champion and fully understand the critical path of how, where, and when each step will be completed. We will have tested this commitment and have had confirmation from the Economic Buyer to confirm what the Champion is telling us.
  • Implicate Pain:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of the pain based on outside information or initial conversations.
    • 4-6: We have Identified a reasonably good understanding of the pain based upon a thorough discovery process with the prospect. We haven’t been able to Indicate and confirm the severity or costs of the pain with other major stakeholders. We have aligned our values against the pain and have a good indication that they are understood.
    • 7-8: The pain is well documented and has been Implicated throughout the customer’s organization. They understand the cost of the pain and how progressing with our platform will eradicate that pain and the value that will be driven from it.
    • 9-10: The Economic Buyer and Champion are actively aware of the pain and how we solve it. They have communicated this back to us and are actively talking about the pain and our solution internally to other stakeholders.
  • Champion:
    • 1-3: We have a proposed Coach who has shown clear signs that they are favorable to us and is helping us to understand the lay of the land and progress the opportunity. We haven’t tested whether they have power and influence, a vested interest in our success, or whether they are willing to sell internally.
    • 4-6: We are confident that our Champion has power and influence and that they are pro-actively selling on our behalf, and we have tested them in doing so. We have tangible evidence that they are working as our Champion, and we can get time with them within a reasonable timeframe should we need it. Our Champion has come through when we’ve asked them for something (i.e., introduction to Economic Buyer, information about competitors or processes).
    • 7-8: Our Champion is fast to update us on everything — good and bad ! If the update isn’t positive, they are working with us to counter any issues. They have shown a clear vested interest in our success.
    • 9-10: Our Champion is actively campaigning for the success of our deal internally. They trust our advice on how to progress the opportunity and are proactive with helping us progress through each stage of the Decision Process and Paper Process.
  • Competition:
    • 1-3: We have an assumption of who the Competition might be by outside information or initial conversations. We do not know where we stand against the Competition.
    • 4-6: We have a reasonably good understanding of the Competition based on a thorough discovery process with the customer/accessing our network/information from our Coach/Champion. We haven’t been able to confirm the Competition’s proposition’s strength, but we have laid some initial traps against them. We feel as though the customer favors our proposition.
    • 7-8: We know precisely who the Competition is and what their proposition is. We have laid effective traps that we know have resonated via feedback from the customer. We do not feel exposed by their relationships, proposition, or commercials and have confirmation that we are the vendor of choice or are at least preferred.
    • 9-10: We have eliminated the Competition from the deal. Except for a big change of circumstances, the customer is no longer considering any Competitors.

Comments

Privacy Policy