MEDDIC: qualifying complex B2B deals

• Metrics. What measurable result does the buyer expect, such as hours saved or revenue added?
• Economic buyer. Who controls the budget and can say yes?
• Decision criteria. What will they judge options on?
• Decision process. What steps, people and dates stand between now and a signed deal?
• Identify pain. What problem is costing them enough to act?
• Champion. Who inside the company wants this to happen and will sell it when you're not in the room?

BANT asks whether a buyer can buy. MEDDIC asks how they will buy, which matters when a deal involves several departments and months of review. Its biggest strength is that it forces honest forecasts. A deal with no named economic buyer and no champion is still a hope and shouldn't be called a commit.

Pain sits at the centre. Metrics quantify it, the champion feels it, and the economic buyer pays to remove it. If you can't name the pain in the buyer's own words, the rest of the framework has nothing to hang on.

The pain and metrics letters often show up in public before any sales call. Here are sample sentences, scored 0 to 100 for buying intent the way HearBuyers scores posts:

• Sample, score 89. "Month-end close takes my team eight days and the CFO wants it under four. We're evaluating tools now." This has pain, a metric, an implied economic buyer and an active process.
• Sample, score 62. "Our close process is a mess of spreadsheets. Anyone else?" The pain is real, but there's no sign of an evaluation.
• Sample, score 14. "What does MEDDIC stand for again?" This is curiosity about the framework, with no purchase behind it.

• Filling the fields from guesswork. A champion you've never tested isn't a champion. Ask them to do something, like book the next meeting.
• Using it on small deals. For a quick purchase made by one person, the full framework slows you down.
• Confusing a fan with a champion. A friendly user with no influence can't move the deal.
• Skipping the pain. Teams jump to the economic buyer and forget to confirm the problem is big enough to fund.

• BANT: a shorter qualification checklist.
• Pain points: the problems behind the "I" in MEDDIC.
• Win-loss analysis: checking which MEDDIC gaps cost you deals.
• Consultative selling: the selling style MEDDIC supports.

To hear pain in the buyer's own words before the first call, start with Reddit monitoring for the problems your product solves.