What MEDDIC is
MEDDIC is a sales qualification framework: six things you find out about a deal so you know whether it's real, and what's missing if it isn't. Each letter is one of them.
- M: Metrics
- E: Economic buyer
- D: Decision criteria
- D: Decision process
- I: Identify pain
- C: Champion
Allego's history of the framework traces it to Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli at Parametric Technology Corporation (PTC) in the early 1990s. It was built for large B2B deals with several people involved and months between first call and signature, and that's still where it fits best.
The point of MEDDIC is the gaps. A deal where you can fill in all six is one you can put in a forecast. A deal where you can't name the economic buyer, three weeks before it's meant to close, is a deal to worry about now.
The six letters, and the question each one asks
| Letter | What you need to know | A question to ask the buyer |
|---|---|---|
| Metrics | The result they want, in numbers: time saved, cost cut, revenue added | "If this works, what number changes, and by how much?" |
| Economic buyer | The person who can say yes to the money, and can say no when everyone else says yes | "Who signs off on a spend like this?" |
| Decision criteria | What they'll judge options on: price, features, support, fit with what they use | "What will you compare the options on?" |
| Decision process | The steps from here to a signed contract, who's involved in each and the dates | "What happens between now and a signed agreement?" |
| Identify pain | The problem costing them enough to act on, and what happens if they don't | "What happens if you leave this as it is for another year?" |
| Champion | Someone inside who wants you to win and will sell for you when you're not in the room | "Who else would want this fixed as much as you?" |
Ask them in a conversation, never as a list read out in one go. Most come up naturally in a good discovery call; MEDDIC is how you notice the ones that didn't.
A deal worked through
Made-up example: a rep is selling scheduling software to a group of eight physio clinics. The deal is in the pipeline at $48,000 a year, with a close date next month. Here are her MEDDIC notes after two calls:
- Metrics: front desk staff spend about 10 hours a week on rebooking at each clinic. Their operations manager wants that halved.
- Economic buyer: unknown. The operations manager "will take it to the owners".
- Decision criteria: works with their current booking system, sends text reminders, price under their budget.
- Decision process: unclear. Operations manager recommends; after that, "the owners decide".
- Identify pain: no-shows at two clinics went up this year and patients complain about waiting on hold to rebook.
- Champion: the operations manager, who asked for the demo and is keen.
Two letters are thin, and they're the two that decide whether this closes next month. The next call isn't another demo. It's asking the operations manager to set up 20 minutes with one of the owners, and to walk through what happens after she recommends it.
Without MEDDIC, that deal looks healthy: a keen contact, a good demo and a date. With it, the rep can see the deal hasn't met the person who signs.
How to use MEDDIC without slowing your reps down
The complaint about MEDDIC is that it turns into 30 required fields nobody fills in honestly. It doesn't have to:
- Use it on the deals that need it. Set a size or a length of sales cycle above which a deal gets MEDDIC notes. A one-call sale doesn't need six letters.
- One line per letter. If a rep can't write the economic buyer in one line, that's the finding.
- Update it after each meeting with the buyer, not once a week from memory.
- Mark each letter known, partly known or unknown. A deal with two unknowns a month before close is a conversation for the 1:1.
- Talk about it in the 1:1, not in a form. Pick one open deal, walk the six letters, and agree the single next thing to find out.
The manager's job is to ask "how do you know?", not to fill the gaps in for the rep. "The champion is keen" and "the champion booked me a meeting with the owner" are different answers.
MEDDIC works best as a 1:1 habit: walk one open deal letter by letter and agree what to find out next. ActivityTracker keeps each session's notes on the rep's page and sends the action items to their task list.
MEDDIC, MEDDICC and MEDDPICC
You'll see longer versions. Each adds a letter for something teams kept getting caught out by:
- MEDDICC adds a second C for Competition: who else they're looking at, and whether "do nothing" is one of the options.
- MEDDPICC adds P for Paper process: legal review, procurement and signatures, the steps that push deals past the quarter end.
Allego suggests the longer version if your deals often stall in legal review or you face a lot of competitors. If your deals rarely stall there, stay with six letters.
When MEDDIC is too much
MEDDIC earns its time on deals with several people involved and a cycle of weeks or months. It's too much for:
- Sales closed on the first or second call, where one person decides.
- Small, repeat purchases where the price is fixed.
- A rep's first week, when they're still learning the product.
For those, three questions cover it: do they have the problem, can they pay, and will they decide soon? Save the six letters for the deals that make or break your quarter.