Sound like a Value Based Seller
Value Based Selling Artifacts
MEDDIC/MEDDICC/MEDDPICC
Sales Playbook Execution
Leadership Coaching
What is Value Based Selling?
Vendors compete for customer business in various ways. Some vendors deliver commodity solutions, where their product is indistinguishable to their competitors. In such situations, price and local support are typically key to success. The company who can manufacturer more efficiently can charge a slightly lower price and thus maintain a competitive advantage. Price based selling does not yield high margins and leaves vendors vulnerable to Procurement and Competitive pressure.
Companies that invest heavily in Research and Development, or have a disruptive offering often take a different approach. Because their solution is unique, and has capabilities no other competitor offers, they can maintain higher prices. But this higher price is dependent on their differentiated solution addressing customer challenges in a meaningful way to deliver a business outcome no vendor can. And for the GTM team to be able to articulate this differentiation to the customer in a way they understand and embrace.
Fundamentally, Value Based Selling means focusing on the customer and helping them drive meaningful business impact, unlocked through capability only your solution offers. This is as much a mentality as it is a sales methodology. Your sales team needs to first understand and believe their solution has value before they can help customers realize this themselves.
Value Based Selling is a more complex and time consuming GTM because it requires sellers to invest time understanding their potential customers business, challenges, objectives and invested stakeholders. Sellers must also build closer, more trusting relationships in order to educate and influence customer thinking and help them reach an internal consensus to buy, even when the preferred solution is more expensive than the allocated budget, or when competitors are pricing similar solutions for less.
Takeaway:
Value Based Selling requires a customer centric focus and a deeper understanding of how this customer makes money or delivers services. No every vendor has a differentiated solution, and not every customer will engage in a Value Based sales motion. Likewise not every rep possesses the attributes to be a Value Based Seller.
Taking a customer who has a big business problem, on a journey to help them understand how best to fix their challenges and the business benefit once they have, will result in higher avg deal values, greater customer retention and expansion opportunities, whilst removing competitive vendors from the procurement conversation.
What is a Sales Playbook?
A Sales Playbook defines how a company goes to market. It aims to deliver consistency within the sales teams and arm sellers with all the information required to win business. It often determines the sales culture of an organization,
A Sales Playbook typically addresses the following elements
The problems you solve for you ICP, and who within the customer cares about solving that problem
Your Sales Process that helps Sellers progress from opportunity identification (PG) through discovery and qualification in order to develop, differentiate and negotiate the deal
How you qualify, de-risk and forecast opportunities using a framework such as MEDDICC or BANT
Leading Indicators (KPIs) that define how a seller or team is executing in order to build a repeatably successful business quarter on quarter
The tools and resources available for your GTM teams to effectively message throughout the sales process (including First Meeting Decks and Competitive Intel/Battle Cards)
How you hire, ramp and develop your GTM team to execute your Sales Playbook consistently (Onboarding, Bootcamp, Everboarding and supporting learning platforms such as Highspot, Docebo, Gong etc)
Takeaway:
The Sales Playbook encapsulates other elements of sales execution such as your Sales Methodology, your Sales Process and how you differentiate and compete against your competition.
What is a Sales Process?
A Process is a series of steps, that when executed consistently in order, deliver a predictable result. For a Sales Process, the desired result is to win the deal from a position of value allowing the seller to maximize the deal size in the shortest time possible. The Sales Process is designed to build upon itself, ensuring sellers only move the deal forward when they are ready and steps are not skipped that will later impact the ability to close the deal on time.
In Playbook companies, a Sales Process typically has a number of stages, which could be broken out as below. Different companies will refer to stages using different names, but the intent is the same; to satisfy the requirements of that stage in order to move the opportunity forward towards closing the deal.
Sales Process Stages Goals and Gates.
Stage 0 - Goal: Identification of an opportunity. Gate: Discovery meeting secured
Stage 1 - Goal: Qualification of an opportunity. Gate: New Business Meeting to confirm Pain is real and a stakeholder with power/authority cares about fixing it
Stage 2 - Goal: Develop the opportunity. Gate: Influence relevant stakeholders (Tech, Champion, EB) to value your differentiation to fix their challenge.
Stage 3 - Goal: Elevate visibility and access. Gate: Meet the EB, ensure alignment on problem and stakeholders. Secure their sponsorship and success measures.
Stage 4 - Goal: Demonstrate solution fit. Gate: Successfully execute POV and BVA, playback to EB and secure their sign off as preferred vendor.
Stage 5 - Goal: Finalize deal. Gate: Navigate Procurement, Legal, Security requirements to secure agreement and finalize terms. Post Sale Handover commences
Stage 6 - Goal: Deal Closed/won: Gate: Receive PO, Book deal. Complete handover to post sales.
Stage 7 - Deal lost (Deal can proceed to Stage 7 at any point prior to Stage 6)
Takeaway:
A well defined Sales Process should specific the objective for each stage in the process, along with the gates that must be satisfied before the opportunity is ready to progress to the next stage. Poorly defined gates and objectives, or poor execution can result in opportunities bouncing between sales stages. Opportunities that take a step or steps backward are an indication of a lack of skill or will executing the Sales Playbook, and can result in deals slipping or being lost.
What is a Value Pyramid?
The Value Pyramid is an essential tool for Value Based Selling, but one that is frequently misunderstood and misused. The goal of a Value Pyramid is to understand the business objectives your target customer is hoping to achieve, how they expect to deliver those outcomes and the likely challenges that are stopping those outcomes from being realized today.
By understanding this, sellers can target companies who have a business problem and are likely to engage with our messaging. This makes Pipeline Generation far more efficient and is why many Playbook companies build Value Pyramids as part of their sales campaigns.
Once you have identified a good prospect, the Value Pyramid continues to deliver impact by helping you identify new stakeholders, align different technical challenges to a common business goal and level set stakeholders each time you meet. This elevates your conversations and allows you to ultimately associate your technical capabilities to how the customer makes money or delivers services.
Breaking down a Value Pyramid, there are usually 6 main questions we need to answer.
Question 1. What Corporate initiative can I align to that ensures focus and budget? This would typically be an all of company goal, set by the CEO, such as a revenue target.
Question 2. What business objectives are aligned to this initiative? These are typically associated with top line growth in revenue and market share or overcoming risk.
Question 3. How will they use technology (Technical Initiatives) to drive those outcomes. This might be upleveling security controls, moving workloads to Public Cloud or consolidating solutions onto a few vendors platforms.
Question 4. What is stopping them from achieving this today? If they can accomplish their goals using existing systems, they will not need to invest in new capabilities so there must be something preventing this business outcome from being achieved. Typically this is because their existing systems lack the critical capabilities to support the required transformation. It is this lack of capability, once provided by a new solution, that will unlock business outcomes.
Question 5. What is the impact to the business if they are unable to drive this change and is this an acceptable consequence? If a company cannot manage cyber risk, meet regulatory requirements or deliver top line growth inline with market expectations, does this matter?
Question 6. Who cares about solving this problem? Typically the answer will be several people will be involved in owning and resolving these challenges. The CFO might for example have ultimate responsibility for OPEX, but various stakeholders such as the CIO or CISO might need to reduce vendors, renegotiate contracts or otherwise reduce cost.
When building a Value Pyramid, the best practice is to have 1 top level Corporate Initiative. You will typically find 3 - 5 Business Objectives. Each of those Business Objectives should have at least 1 Technical Initiatives that is delivering that outcomes and at least 1 issue that is currently preventing a successful conclusion. Because there are likely to be numerous interdependent challenges, we should be considering numerous stakeholders from across IT and lines of Business when reflecting on "Who Cares?"
Takeaway:
Ultimately the Value Pyramid forces both seller and buyer to focus on the business problem you are fixing together. This drives urgency, access to resource including Senior Executives and prevents your solution from being de-prioritized or commoditization by Procurement. The objective is Business Alignment and without that, your solution will risk being a nice to have, not a must have.
Your competition is also likely to either build Value Pyramids themselves, or try to convince your customer they are "just a sales tool" to undermine them. Don't fall into that trap by doing a mediocre job. A great Value Pyramid sets the context, shows your understanding and is an investment in your customers success. A bad Value Pyramid is a waste of every ones time, especially your own.
What is a Pain Hypothesis?
For a customer to invest time, resources and money, there needs to be a Pain big enough to be worth fixing. Sometimes a customer will identify this problem themselves, conduct research, select their vendor and merely engage in order to procure. This is more common in B2C software sales or freeware, but in Enterprise sales it is not typical.
The Pain hypothesis serves two purposes. Firstly it helps proactively identify prospects with big business pains allowing us to focus our resources on them (targeted PG). The second purpose is to protect sellers time from attempting to fix issues that are not important/low priority. Low priority problems are a trap that can consume many hours and typically result in no deal.
A Pain hypothesis addresses the key elements of WHY, and WHY NOW
What Business Objective does this customer have?
What technical issues (that your solution can address) are preventing this business outcome?
What is the impact if that technical issue cannot be overcome?
Who cares about this issue?
Knowing who cares, allows us to invest time with the stakeholders that matter. Knowing the business impact allows us to qualify what level of priority this pain is likely to have and therefore is it likely to have budget allocated. Low priority pain, with low level stakeholders should be disqualified in favour of high priority pains with big business impact and senior stakeholder investment.
Like any Hypothesis, you must test it in order to understand if it is correct. Testing a Pain Hypothesis might involve using that Hypothesis for Pipeline Generation, working with a Partner or when talking to that stakeholder about the problem you believe you can solve for them. If the Hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, refine it based on feedback or new information and test again.
Takeaway:
Pain needs to be personal. Talking to the wrong stakeholder about a big Pain will result in inaction and ultimately no deal. Targeting senior stakeholders with the right messaging, related to their own biggest challenges allows a more effective campaign to be run.
In complex accounts, there might be multiple Pains meaning multiple different stakeholder Pain Hypothesis. Even if solving a single pain, different stakeholders might be impacted in different ways meaning a unique pain hypothesis for each stakeholder.
The Pain Hypothesis will help find and qualify into the right opportunities, identify and build champions and build urgency throughout the sale.
What is a Value Hypothesis?
There can be no Business Value without Pain and a differentiated solution to address that Pain.
Understanding a prospects potential Pain allows us to identify our fit to help solve and in turn whether we should be investing time on this deal. If a prospect has a pain that can be solved by any competing vendors solution, there is no differentiation and therefore no additional value in our solution. This means the solution becomes a commodity and will most likely be purchased based on price.
An example would be the replacement of broken roof tiles. The urgency is high, but the solution is generic meaning the homeowner is likely to choose the cheapest roofer they believe will do a good job.
However if the weather forecast is predicting heavy rain and your roofing service is the only company available to do the work today, your availability becomes Value and your price no longer needs to be the lowest to secure the business.
Like any Hypothesis, you must test it in order to understand if it is correct. If the Hypothesis turns out to be incorrect, refine it based on feedback or new information and test again.
Takeaway:
Value Based Sellers need to understand what your solution does differently to the competition and how that differentiation drives business outcomes. If there is no obvious differentiation, the value is no greater than your competitions. The Pain may still drive the case for action, but that action does not necessarily require your solution.
Finding big Business Problems that only your solution can likely address, and your value proposition increases significantly. This understanding will allow you to message more effectively to your prospect, build stronger champions and gain C level access due to your differentiated offering.
Building Pain and Value Hypotheses require time and effort, and frequently need to be refined and evolved. However when done well, you will have confidence you are investing your time solving the right problems, for the right stakeholders and you have the best solution to do so.
What is a Proof of Value?
In most software sales, at some point the customers evaluation team will want to see the solution running in their environment. This will typically form part of the Decision Process. The team evaluating competing solutions will often draw up a list of use cases and test cases, or down load them from the Internet, and ask Vendors to demonstrate their capabilities against these requirements. This is commonly known as a Proof of Concept (POC). POCs frequently overrun due to scope creep ("we want to test one more thing...") tying up both customer and vendor teams for extended periods of time, often without helping the decision process move forward. At the end of the POC it is not uncommon for multiple vendors to have successfully demonstrated all of the use cases, or for none to have.
A Proof of Value however focuses on the specific problem being solved and the capabilities required to solve it. POVs typically have fewer use cases and test cases, and are written to showcase the required differentiation to assist in reaching a vendor selection.
The objective of a POV is to demonstrate the specific capabilities claimed by the vendor, are actually mature and work. If these agreed upon capabilities, required to actually solve this problem, can be demonstrated, the vendor will achieve a technical win.
Takeaway:
Not every customer requires a POV. Technical capabilities can be successfully proven through a demo, or customer reference call. If a POV is part of the Decision Process, it is important to agree on the scope and use / test cases before committing engineering resources. Evaluation teams that insist on long lists of use cases, unrelated to addressing the specific problem, are unlikely to engage in Value Based conversations and consideration should be given whether to qualify out or not.
What is a 3 Whys?
Problem Solving fundamentally comes down to answering three questions
Do I really need to do anything? If I do not need to fix a problem, I won't. Why spend time or money unless I have to?
If I do need to fix a problem, what is the right solution to fix this issue? This solution is specific to my problem and my specific circumstances.
Why do I need to fix this problem with urgency? Is there a bigger problem to fix first? If I can only spend my money on one thing, is this the right thing to fix first?
The 3 Whys are essentially this process, formalized to help you and your customer align on the problem, the solution and the urgency by answering WHY ANYTHING, WHY <YOUR SOLUTION> and WHY NOW?
A 3 Whys can be thought of as a Problem Alignment document you are building with the person who cares about fixing this challenge (Your Champion). By helping them quantify the business impact and determine the critical capabilities required to fix this specific issue, you are arming them to fight for your solution internally. The 3 Whys should therefore be seen as a great champion building tool as well as a great champion leveraging tool.
Takeaway:
A 3 Whys is a business justification for a problem. If you have multiple problems and multiple stakeholders, you should consider building a 3 Whys for each so you can be targeted and clear with your messaging to each stakeholder. Investing the time to build the 3 Whys with your champion will assist with many elements of MEDDICC including Implicated Pain, Metrics, Decision Criteria, Competition and Champion.
What is a Business Value Assessment?
Unlocking funding, even if the budget is allocated, typically requires an internal business case. Customers who create these business justifications in isolation of the vendor usually focus only on anticipated ROI by switching from the incumbent solution to the new solution. The limitation of this approach is customers are busy with day to day responsibilities, and also do not fully appreciate the potential benefit of implementing a new solution meaning their internal justifications rarely articulate the true business value and frequently understate the actual problem and benefit.
Sales Playbooks often involve a Business Value Assessment within the sales process to address these challenges and help both the account team, and our sales champions effectively articulate the full value of the proposed solution in order to defend the decision against procurement and competitive headwinds.
A BVA provides the business validation to justify the decision to select a vendor, by giving a projection of anticipated future benefit once the solution has been successfully implemented. A strong BVA should be developed with the customer, using the customers data in order to accurately reflect the current state challenges, and the likely future state benefit of change. To accomplish this, the BVA must be seen as valuable by the Champion so they want to facilitate a conversation with the Economic Buyer in order for them to sponsor it. EB sponsorship allows us to access the right people and information to create a business case that accurately reflects their challenges and business outcomes.
The Business Value Assessment should form the basis of any future Value Realization, providing the baseline situation and allowing progress to be measured against the desired future state.
The BVA will typically model the overall benefit of the solution being proposed, but should account for the impact each individual product or capability delivers towards that outcome. A single product should deliver less impact to the customer than a multi-product platform solution which compounds benefit. If the model is too simplistic, it will lack credibility and not carry any weight in negotiations.
Business Cases will typically look at hard (tangible) benefits and soft (intangible) benefits;
Hard Benefits articulate costs out of the business such as Total Cost of Ownership (people, product and infrastructure required to maintain the status quo vs the new solution), risk management such as the ability to prevent security breaches and associated financial penalties or ransomware and cost avoidance such as the ability to avoid upcoming renewals by turning tools off.
Soft Benefits look at less tangible factors such as reputation and people, e.g the damage to Net Promoter Score if a customer facing website goes down, or the likely morale and attrition issues a team might face if they are constantly forced to work overtime to fix faults. Productivity can be a large soft benefit, when by removing performance degradation or unproductive work, employees can focus on value adding work and potentially avoid the need to hire additional staff to meet workloads.
Takeaway:
Customers realize they need a business case to justify expenditure, but many will not trust a Vendor business case, especially if that business case is used to maintain a higher price. Successfully positioning a BVA must include addressing the "Whats in it for me?" question to our champions and Economic Buyer. Ultimately the BVA will help the customer justify the solution that will give them the best business outcome, and create a baseline against which to measure progress and impact as the solution is implemented. This keeps everyone accountable and allows the customer to know when they have fixed their issue and achieved their definition of success.
The BVA is a vital ingredient in effective story telling to build trust and showcase differentiation. A strong BVA forms one of the key proof points when mastering your message.
What is Differentiation?
As a buyer, it can be very challenging to select which Vendor to partner with. Messaging is typically very similar, capabilities near indistinguishable. The same is true for Vendors. Helping a customer understand what sets your solution apart from the competition can be very difficult, but your ability to do so will determine how effectively you can showcase business value.
Differentiation can be anything within your solution that is unique. However differentiation must be relevant to the customers problem and desired outcome in order for that differentiation to hold value. In Playbook companies, differentiation is typically derived from functionality that no other vendor can offer, usually because that vendor is a disrupter who is approaching solving the problem in a different and better way. Differentiation might also be tied to a companies ability to execute in a specific market, or how their GTM works with customers.
The first step to showcasing differentiation is to understand what is unique about your solution, and why that unique capability is important to solving a specific customer problem. The second step is understanding your competitors GTM and how they will attempt to minimize this differentiation or misdirect the customer towards areas they feel are differentiated for their offering. The final step is influencing the customers evaluation to recognize the importance of this differentiated capability in fixing their challenge so subsequent technical and business validation must demonstrate this capability in order to meet. the solution requirements.
Takeaway:
Most Vendors believe their solutions have differentiation, but that differentiation must align to the specific problem being solved for it to drive value. Showcasing that differentiation and proving the desired business outcome is predicated on this critical capability is key to Value Based selling.
What is a Sales Methodology?
A sales methodology seeks to provide guard rails that help drive a consistent, structured approach when selling to customers and prospects.
There are numerous Sales Methodologies, sharing a common objective and similar attributes intended to help sales teams find, develop and close opportunities. Common Sales Methodologies include SPIN, Challenger, NEAT and Sandler. MEDDICC if frequently referred to as a Sales Methodology, and can be used as such in some implementations. Often it is used solely as a Qualification Framework.
Sales Methodologies are intended to be repeatable, scalable approaches to selling that remove inconsistencies and allow leaders to coach and course correct when needed. Value Based sales methodologies require customer centricity, and the ability to take the customer on a journey from current state challenges to future state benefit using your solution.
Takeaway:
Sales methodologies define the sales culture of an organization by providing a structured approach that guides how sales team engages with prospects and customers as they navigate their own buying journey. It provides guard rails which determine the principles, tactics, and steps that salespeople follow to move opportunities through the sales stages for identification to negotiation, close deals how WE WANT to win them, and manage stakeholder relationships.
What is MEDD(P)ICC?
Fundamentally, MEDD(P)ICC Is your deal. If you have all of the elements of MEDD(P)ICC, you have control and understand how to win. For this reason, MEDD(P)ICC is defined as a Qualification Framework which ensures you invest time in winnable opportunities and take proactive actions that reduce the risk of deals not closing as forecast.
MEDD(P)ICC originated nearly 30 years ago when a company called PTC (Parametric Technology Corporation) started analyzing why deals closed, slipped or were lost. That analysis identified the critical elements of a deal and from there, MEDDIC was born. In the following years, MEDDIC has evolved as other organizations added their own "enhancements" by breaking out certain elements. Whether you encounter MEDDIC, MEDDICC or MEDDPICC, they are all fundamentally the same. A framework that allows you to qualify your opportunity, identify gaps (which represent risk) and helps you understand next steps to progress and win the deal.
MEDDPICC is an acronym for the elements of your opportunity. They are NOT listed in a particular order, and in-fact you should not think of MEDD(P)ICC as a check list.
M = Metrics
E = Economic Buyer
D = Decision Process
D = Decision Criteria
P = Paper Process (addressed within Decision Process when implemented as MEDDIC or MEDDICC)
I = Identified > Indicated > Implicated Pain (Pain evolves throughout the deal as your understanding develops)
C = Champion
C = Competition (addressed within Decision Criteria when implemented as MEDDIC)
Takeaway:
Many Organizations attempt to implement MEDD(P)ICC, but few fully realize the benefits. MEDD(P)ICC works well as a forecasting tool, "Do I have answers to why this deal may not close on time?", but that is backward looking and does not prevent deals from slipping or being lost. Great Sales teams embrace MEDD(P)ICC as a fundamental part of how they sell. MEDD(P)ICC acts as a sales compass, helping account teams understand their gaps and what to next so those gaps can be addressed and filled.
Obtaining MEDD(P)ICC is a process. Sellers will typically start by identifying a Pain, determining some Metrics that demonstrate why this pain needs to be solved, and a stakeholder that likely cares about fixing it, a potential Champion. As the deal progresses, sellers earn trust, meet new stakeholders and get deeper into the customers challenges, allowing them to uncover new elements of MEDD(P)ICC and enhance those they already have. There is always more information to discover, so MEDD(P)ICC is never "DONE". The objective is to have as much information as possible in order to maximize your deal control and give you the best chance to win the deal, how you want to win it.
What is a Metric?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, M stands for Metric.
A Metric is evidence of the need to fix a problem, or proof that there will be a significant business impact once that problem has been resolved. Metrics are used to quantify pain or support benefit statements. Pain without supporting evidence is easy to ignore or prioritize.
For example the statement "I live too far from my new job to walk to work everyday" is currently subjective. What one person thinks is too far might not be an issue for someone else.
Adding Metrics (distance and time) help quantify the problem. "I live 20 miles from my new job and it would take me 5 hours to walk to work and back home, every day." now clearly articulates the issue and why maintaining the status quo is not an option.
There are different types of Metric, depending on how well you understand the problem you are looking to solve and how mature your opportunity is.
M1 Metrics represent an estimate based on research or the experience of other companies sourced through a customer case study. This M1 Metric can be used to help quantify potential pain with your prospect and encourage them to share more about their own environment. eg. Company A had 10 different vendor solutions running on their employees laptops which cased the machine to run slowly. Do you have a similar challenge based on the number of agents running on your employees laptops?
M2 Metrics represent the actual situation in your prospects current environment and is used to articulate the immediate Pain. For example, your prospect might state they are not as complex a business as others, but they do have 6 products that require agents to be installed on every laptop. 6 becomes the Metric and you have now upgraded from your M1 (someone else's data) to an M2 (a defensible number that represents this specific customers environment)
M3 Metrics represent the benefit of action and quantify the future impact of successfully solving. the problem using your solution. For example, if your solution allows the customer to remove 5 other products from their employees laptops and replace it with just 1 agent from your solution (resulting in 2 agents in total), an M3 would be 2 agents. If each agent uses 3% CPU and 3% RAM, that would result in a 12% reduction in CPU and RAM utilization across their entire environment.
Takeaway:
Metrics make a problem, or a benefit quantifiable allowing your customer to understand and articulate why they need to spend money and act with urgency. Metrics are used to form the basis of the Business and Technical Justification and underpin every Business Value conversation. They are the evidence a problem is big enough to require action, and proof that once that action is taken, it will deliver positive business impact. This helps drive urgency and prioritization.
What is an Economic Buyer?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, EB stands for Economic Buyer.
The Economic Buyer is the ultimate decision maker who owns the budget and accountability to fix this problem. They will typically be senior executives such as the CIO, CISO or CFO although they may even be the CEO. The likely EB for any opportunity will be influenced by the Org size and structure along with the deal value. Larger deal value = higher signing authority = more senior EB.
The EB is unlikely to play a major role in your deal due them being senior, busy executives. More commonly they will delegate the fixing a problem and selecting a solution to a trusted team who will run the evaluation and make recommendations on the preferred solution. They could however have the final say in decisions, and exert significant power in the business meaning their sponsorship will unlock access to information and resources to accelerate the deal.
Depending on the size of the deal, the Economic Buyer may still need executive or board approval to spend their budget. Meeting with, aligning to and helping arm the Economic Buyer with a robust business justification therefore become crucial steps in a large opportunity.
Takeaway:
The Economic Buyer holds the budget, or has the ability to secure new budget. Because of this it is important to be closely aligned to their priorities and understand their success criteria. Accessing the EB should be the goal in every deal, but in reality many deals will be closed without securing that meeting.
Gaining access to the EB reduces friction in the later stages of the deal, unlocking access to people, information and other resources to showcase technical and business value.
NOTE there is no such role/title in a customer. The EB is sales terminology and should not be used when speaking with the customer. Consider using terminology such as decision maker, budget holder or executive sponsor to describe this stakeholder until you have confirmed the actual tile and person.
What is the Decision Process?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, the first D stands for Decision Process.
The Decision Process captures how a customer evaluates problems and solutions makes a decision to purchase a solution. There are 3 components of a decision, Technical, Financial and Paper Process.
The Technical evaluation looks all of the aspects required in selecting the right solution. This will involve defining the problem being solved, specifying the required capabilities and how vendors will be assessed for product/solution fit (such as the need to run a POV / customer reference calls). The evaluation component of the Decision Process is addressed in more detail within the Decision Criteria.
The Financial evaluation defines the available budget allocated, or how to unlock/reallocate budget. It also considers the needs of the business, and any considerations regarding budget spend such as ROI or payback period. The financial aspect should also consider who the budget holder is and signing authority, which is subsequently captured within the Paper Process
The Paper Process includes the steps to move from quote to purchase order covering the legal, procurement and admin workflow.
Takeaway:
The Decision Process is a key consideration for sellers. Being proactive, asking and re-validating information throughout the sale helps the account team plan for and navigate around potential challenges or gates that could otherwise prevent the deal from closing.
What is the Decision Criteria?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, the second D stands for Decision Criteria.
The Decision Criteria breaks down the evaluation of the problem being solved and the critical capabilities required to do so in order to make a decision. This can involve technical factors, cultural factors, operational factors and resourcing factors.
Technical Factors - Specific features and functionality, usability, interoperability, time and cost of professional services to implement,
Operational Factors - Team skills and headcount required, onboarding training, ongoing maintenance, data sovereignty and other regulation etc
Cultural Factors - Local language support, in region capabilities, trusted local partners
When assessing the Decision Criteria for an opportunity, it is important that the account team works together to determine the problem and how your solution solves this challenge.
Does the customer understand how best to solve?
Does your competition solve it better, or in a different way?
Does your solution have any differentiation that the customer requires to solve this specific problem?
Does the customer agree that this functionality is important to solving their challenge?
Decision Criteria is where you will win or lose a deal. If the Decision Criteria is poorly defined and does not fully address the capabilities required to fix a problem, there may be insufficient opportunity to showcase technical fit and differentiation. If Decision Criteria are merely long lists of nice to have functionality, they can become an SE's graveyard trying to demonstrate endless use cases that are not really helping to overcome a pain.
Being late to the opportunity also risks missing the ability to influence the Decision Criteria. Every Vendor will be attempting to tailor the requirements to their strengths even if those strengths are not relevant to the customers desired outcome. Where DC are obviously heavily influenced by the competition and you cannot challenge their inclusion, account teams should strongly consider qualifying out of the opportunity.
Takeaway:
Every factor that allows a customer to evaluate competing solutions and determine the right choice should be considered in the Decision Criteria. Understanding the DC and ensuring your solutions capabilities are reflected in the requirements will allow you differentiate and showcase value. Customers often do not fully understand how best to fix an issue themselves (especially when fixing an issue for the first time) so may rely on a partner, consulting company, another Vendor or merely download information from the internet. As such the Decision Criteria may not be aligned to their own needs and should not be accepted without attempting to qualify and refine. Doing so risks extending the technical evaluation phase without resulting in a clear winner. It also limits your ability to showcase differentiation meaning price and relationship are likely to be the deciding factors, not business outcomes.
What is the Paper Process?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, P stands for Paper Process.
The Paper Process is an aspect of the Decision Process, but is often overlooked or underestimated leading to one of the main reasons why deals slip.
The Paper Process seeks to document the steps a customer, partner and vendor need to navigate in order to receive a signed PO. Because the Paper Process is often linear and has dependencies on specific stakeholders, it is important to understand and manage potential obstacles such as signatory annual leave, board meetings and signing ceremony dates. Miss time a key milestone and your deal cannot close as forecast.
The Paper Process can vary depending on the deal value, or due to business change due to varying factors including the current economic situation and investment cycles. Even if you have navigated the Paper Process before, it is important to re-validate each time to avoid unexpected surprises.
Elements of the Paper Process include
Vendor Approval / Onboarding
Legal and Security review
Procurement
Signature process
PO Creation
Takeaway:
Understanding the Paper Process is key to accurately forecasting your deal close date so it is important to understand the process and key dates early in the deal. Your Champion, the Economic Buyer and your Partner should all be able to assist with mapping and navigating the customers Paper Process. This knowledge is also important to align Vendor resources such as legal at the right time. End of Quarter is a busy time for many supporting teams such as deal desk and legal so an unexpected demand from a customers legal department may exceed capacity.
What is the Identified/Indicated/Implicated Pain?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, I stands for the evolving Pain.
Pain is the single biggest factor driving your opportunity. Without a big business impacting Pain, there is no need to spend money with urgency. There will be no access to senior stakeholders and there will be no Champions. A Big Pain = a Compelling Event.
Pain usually falls into two categories, Immediate Pain and Imminent Pain.
Immediate Pain, such as a company has fallen victim to a ransomware attack demands action today. This could be a compelling event for your solution, but customers may not have the luxury of time to evaluate alternative solutions, They may choose a solution they are aware of, or one recommended by a trusted partner without evaluating alternatives even if those alternatives may be better.
Imminent Pain is one that the customer is not yet dealing with the consequences of, but will be soon. This might be impending regulation, or limitations in a specific capability that will only become apparent once something else changes in their business. e.g a Cloud Transformation project goes live, or they complete a Merger&Acquisition.
Both Immediate and Imminent Pain are transient. If you are not engaging with your prospect at the right time, the opportunity will be lost and another Vendor will seize the initiative.
Not every Pain is big enough on its own to warrant action, but frequently that annoying Pain is actually a symptom of a far bigger, underlying issue. This is why it is important to ask "So What?". If the Pain is not sufficient to warrant action, if there is no obvious answer to "So What", you need to keep digging. Find the root cause and the answer should become obvious. Big Pains cause Business Impact. Risk, loss of revenue, increased costs and a lack of agility.
Pain also evolves. You will first Identify a potential Pain. This might be from your own research, a SDR sourced lead, a partner Deal Registration or even a customer inbound request. The Pain is as yet unqualified, but based on your experience or that of your Partner, it is deemed worth investigating further. Many top of funnel Pains do not result in an opportunity as the Pain is quickly discounted.
ln order to qualify the Pain and determine if it is worth investing time, we need to identify likely stakeholders. Leveraging what we know about a prospect from our Value Pyramid, we can create an initial Pain Hypothesis and determine likely stakeholder titles invested in this problem. Now we have potential owner, the Pain is Indicated. This allows us to reach out to only those person relevant to the Pain, with a targeted message in order to better develop and qualify this opportunity and confirm who actually cares.
Once we have validated the Pain is real, and significant, and we know who is invested in fixing this problem, we can say the Pain is now Implicated. We know the problem needs solving, and we now understand who needs to solve it and the impact to them personally. We have now identified a potential Champion, if we can convince them they will get the best outcome by working with us.
Takeaway:
Finding and aligning to the right pain is key to success. A renewal date or product end of life is almost never a compelling event. Identifying a Pain is only the start. We need to qualify this pain is significant and uncover who cares about fixing it. Once we know we are solving the right problem and have identified potential Champions, we can be confident this opportunity is worth investing further time in.
What is a Champion?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, the first C stands for Champion.
The definition of a potential Champion is someone with power and influence in the customer who also is heavily invested in solving the problem. If you are able to convince them that the problem is best solved using your solution, and they in turn become an advocate for you, they will become a true Champion.
Not everyone can be, or wants to be a Champion. Many people will be involved in the opportunity who either lack power or influence. Whilst it is always useful to have these people wanting to work with you, they lack the ability to meaningfully influence or sell on your behalf. These stakeholders are referred to as Coaches.
True Champions are busy, skeptical and not easily impressed. But they also focus on the big picture and care about fixing problems that are hindering their company and their teams from achieving objectives.
A robust Champion relationship requires an investment of time, and must be built with sincerity and a focus on mutual benefit. Champions can become enemies very fast so commitments made to your Champions should be honored. Champion relationships should extend beyond the deal and can result in repeated deals spanning multiple companies when nurtured.
There are 4 distinct stages of Champions
Identification. Determining likely stakeholders based off the pain you have identified. Navigate the Org Chart, look for a history of high achievement and success. Find the Incumbents Champion.
Build. Understand the Champions personality and what they are hoping to accomplish, Align with that goal and help them understand how they achieve it with your solution. Invest time educating them on your solution, share case studies, follow up on actions, be prepared, invest in their WHY.
Test. Like any relationship, you will only know how strong it is, when you ask for something. Maintaining a healthy relationship also requires balance for both parties to hold mutual respect. Testing your Champion allows you to confirm their power, influence and desire for you to win. Tests should start small, and over time build up to something only a true advocate would do. The Ultimate Champion test is sponsoring. the EB Go/No Go meeting.
Leverage. Any Champion plan should include how you think the Champion can help you win the deal. The ultimate leverage is having the Champion present your BVA and POV results to the Economic Buyer in the EB Playback, and defend the results when challenged, even if this means a reduction of budget or headcount for your Champion if they get the solution they want.
Takeaway:
The Champion will sell for us when we are not there, and can help us navigate the sale. They understand who else has power and influence, the paper process, where to get metrics and can influence the technical evaluation criteria (DC). It is possible to win a deal without a Champion, but if your competition has a Champion and you do not, you will almost certainly lose. Your Competition will also have identified these stakeholders as important and will be trying to make them Champions as well. Your Champion Plan needs to detail how you will build, test and leverage each individual, along with a plan in case they become someone else's Champion instead.
Building Champions is a account team role. You cannot have too many Champions, but different members of your team should own Champion building for their function. Your Sales Engineer should build technical champions, your Sales VP can build Executive Champions etc. In the battle of Champions, you need to ensure your Champions have the most power and influence over the EB.
What is the Competition?
Within MEDD(P)ICC, the second C stands for Competition.
Competition is often seen as the other Vendors being evaluated by the customer to solve this specific problem, but Competition in actually anything fighting for the resources you want. This could be a rival project that is trying to repurpose your assigned budget, the incumbent vendor who is unlikely to surrender their customer with out a fight, or simply the customer deciding that budget would be better not being spent on anything - maintaining the status quo, often referred to as No Decision.
Any of these scenarios could result in your deal being lost.
Understanding your Competition is therefore key. It is very rare that no competition exists for budget, so understanding who you are competing against, their strengths and weaknesses, and their likely messaging to your stakeholders is important. Just as your are attempting to influence the evaluation to enable differentiation within the Decision Criteria, so are your competitors.
Takeaway:
The old adage that People buy from People is still true today. Having better functionality alone will not determine your success. You also need to be better sellers, proactively managing your opportunities, educating, influencing and developing advocates in order to showcase you are the best option. Competition are running similar sales playbooks, targeting the same stakeholders with very similar messaging. Your differentiation sometimes comes down to your professionalism, your authenticity and your customer-centric approach. Being proactive and getting to your prospects before the Competition makes your job far easier and is another reason why Pipeline Generation is so important for Value Base Selling
What is a Qualification Framework?
A Qualification Framework allows a sales team to focus, de-risk, develop and accelerate opportunities in a consistent way with the goal of increasing forecast accuracy.
MEDD(P)ICC is arguably the most famous qualification framework, and breaks out opportunities based on the elements known to influence deal control. If there are elements of MEDD(P)ICC missing, or poorly understood, the deal control will be reduced and forecasting accuracy will decrease. Using a Qualification Framework through out the deal cycle will not only align the account team, but provide the ability to course correct and address gaps before they become risks to the deal.
Using a framework like MEDD(P)ICC also allows sales leaders to assess complex deals in a consistent way. This affords the opportunity to deliver coaching in a scalable and effective way across their teams.
Takeaway:
A qualification framework like MEDDPICC is fundamental to building a repeatable, scalable, and predictable sales engine. It’s not just a checklist. It’s how high-performing teams align around value, drive execution, and win consistently.
What is Pipeline Generation?
Pipeline Generation is the lifeblood of your business. It is a fundamental element in the Sales Culture of a Playbook company and most of the leading MEDDICC/Value Framework CRO's have a maniacal focus on PG.
Pipeline Generation refers to top of funnel lead generation ensuring your sales team is always working on quality opportunities. In Value Based selling, there are very few problems that PG excellence cannot help with. Low quality leads with insufficient deal value is the enemy of Value Based Sellers and can be the root cause of many Playbook execution, morale and attrition issues.
Pipeline can come from numerous sources; your prospect might request information via your corporate website, a partner might register a deal registration (DR), your Customer Success Manager could identify an up-sell opportunity in an existing customer etc, but typically the responsibility for a healthy pipeline is the RSMs.
Consistent, quality Pipeline Generation does not happen by accident. It requires an investment in time, leading to some Playbook companies dedicating an entire day to generating pipeline each week, PG Monday. Additional effort should be invested building a PG Plan, doing research and aligning with your SDR ahead of "PG Monday" (or whichever day is dedicated to lead generation). As you can see, PG is so important that some companies will dedicate more than 20% of a sellers time to mastering it.
The objective for Pipeline Generation is to guarantee you always have high quality leads to work on. A general rule of thumb is you need to generate 3x your quota each qtr to reliably hit it. A strong top of funnel means you can invest your time in opportunities where there is a big pain, the customer believes it is a priority and has budget to fix, and you have a differentiated solution they recognize as delivering value.
Takeaway:
PG is hard. It is one of the least favourite tasks a seller has to do, but the impact is instrumental to long term success. You can get lucky once, but to be successful Qtr on Qtr (the measure of genuine sales excellence) requires planning and consistent execution. PG is a sellers superpower.
Executing great PG typically means aligning with urgent business challenges and the stakeholders that matter. It also means breaking through the noise so the audience cannot ignore your message. Customers and Prospects are bombarded with vendors competing for attention. Effective PG needs to be highly personalized to the organization and individual starting with the email subject or first 5 seconds of your phone call. It needs to have a clear purpose explaining the problem they have and a path to resolve their challenge. It needs to be credible, including proof of how you have previously helped other customers overcome similar challenges. And there needs to be a clear next step, which is typically securing a meeting to discuss further.
What is an Ideal Customer Profile?
As the name suggests, the ICP describes the characteristics of your perfect prospect and enables your sellers to align with companies most likely to engage with your messaging and be a fit for your solution. These are the companies that need your solution, so should be where your selling effort is focused.
The ICP for your company may consist of varying attributes including the Industry segment, number of employees, theaters of operation, regulatory bodies and technology stack.
Understanding your ICP allows your GTM to more effectively target high value prospects and avoid investing time with companies that do not have a need or budget.
An example ICP might be as follows
Industry: Fintech startups
Company Size: 50–250 employees
Location: Australia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan
Tech Stack: Uses Salesforce, Slack, and AWS
Pain Points: Struggles with manual onboarding processes
Revenue: $10M–$100M ARR
Ideal Outcome: Wants to reduce onboarding time by 40% and improve CSAT
Using information from your CRM, external platforms such as ZoomInfo or Lusha and internet research (including annual reports / financial statements etc), you will then be able to assess companies in your own territory against your ICP to develop your Quarterly Territory Plan and build an effective PG plan to target and generate quality pipeline.
Takeaway:
The ICP describes the perfect fit for your solution. As your capabilities develop (such as through acquisition or in-house development of new capabilities), your ICP will also evolve. Training your sellers and partners on your ICP will increase pipeline generation and conversion rates significantly.
What is a Territory Plan?
Many sellers will argue that the more accounts they have, the better they will perform against plan. It is a common misconception that more always equals better. In Value Based selling, quality is frequently more important than quantity. This means investing your time, of which you only have a finite amount, in a subset of accounts that have the highest propensity to buy during any given time. The challenge is knowing where and when to invest that time so it yields the biggest ROI in the form of deals and revenue.
Pain and need are transient and often hard to predict. A customer who has an urgent issue today, may not have had a challenge 3 months ago and may not continue have that pain in future. As sellers we must proactively identify and solve problems as they become apparent, otherwise another Vendor will. Big business problems have to be solved with urgency.
In other accounts, predictable events such as contract expiry and other commercial conversations may present opportunities to secure renewal, replacement and/or up sell revenue. The effort associated with these conversations need to be accurately reflected in the periodic plan along with the anticipated revenue.
A territory plan aims to focus attention on accounts that have the highest propensity to deliver revenue and require quota. Out of any territory, only a small subset of accounts are likely to have a pain and budget at any point. Invest time with a prospect who has no need, and you are wasting your resources that might be better invested with a prospect who does has a compelling event.
A territory plan showcases where you intend to invest your time and why you believe the biggest opportunity lies there. It helps you focus, allows your leader to understand your strategy, and for ecosystem resources such as your SDR to align most effectively.
Elements of a Territory Plan might include
Summary of accounts, their employee count, revenue, industry vertical, tech stack etc
Account Status - Customer or Prospect
Alignment to ICP - What factors have influenced the tiering score.
Tiering - Is this a Tier 1, 2 or 3 for the current planning period?
Strategy and Ownership - What is the plan for this account and who is responsible for executing it?
Potential Value - What problems are you hoping to address and what is the likely ACV?
Status - Did they engage, were they receptive?
The segment you sell in will determine how many accounts are classified as Tier 1, 2 or 3, but for Enterprise you might consider 4 or 5 accounts to be sufficient to meet or exceed plan based on likely ACV (annual contract value). Those 5 accounts would be tier 1 and the majority of your time would be spent there (~80%). You might assign a tier 2 status to a few additional accounts and the remainder of your activities would be spent there. Tier 3 accounts would indicate no immediate opportunity, so you would likely assign responsibility to Marketing to maintain regular contact (inviting to events, sharing updates etc) in the hope they reach out themselves if something changes in their business or they have a need you were unaware of.
Takeaway:
Because the need within the accounts in your territory will change throughout the year, it is important to keep revisiting and refreshing your Territory Plan. The correct frequency will be driven by the average deal duration and how often compelling events appear within accounts in your territory. You need to be proactive, but you also need to be prescriptive so ensure your plan is flexible and timely but not entirely dependent on getting lucky at the expense of your prospects misfortune.
A robust plan is a far more dependable pathway to success than relying on luck alone.
What is an Account Plan?
An Account Plan is your strategy for a specific customer and determines the engagement, ecosystem support and roadmap you wish to pursue. An Account Plan should not be opportunity or problem specific and addresses both immediate priorities and future opportunities to assist in delivering business transformation.
The Account Plan is an granular extension of your Territory Plan and looks at how to implement a strategy against prospects/customers who meet, or could meet your ICP. It explains why you are investing time in this account, justifies and surfaces the support you need, and aligns those efforts towards a common goal.
Elements of an Account Plan might include
Account Overview
Account Status - Customer or Prospect
The customers strategic objectives and likely challenges (Business Alignment and Stakeholder Pain Hypothesis)
Org Chart addressing key stakeholders, your current engagement and future plan (including ownership, timeline, objectives)
Solution to Pain timeline. Which Pains are immediate and which are roadmap. What is the buying journey from today to deal X
Opportunity details for each phase. Problem, Solution, key Stakeholders, likely deal size, target close date
Ecosystem Support
Engagement - Current interactions and Future engagement, time bound with assigned ownership for accountability
Takeaway:
A great Account Plan is essential for driving strategic deal execution, stakeholder engagement, and predictable pipeline generation. It provides confidence to Sales Leadership, clarity to ecosystem resources and predictability to a sellers business by answering WHO, WHY, WHEN and WHAT. A strong account plan allows a seller to define a pathway to achieving quota and an early warning system if the pipeline is insufficient to hit plan.
In highly complex, platform based sales environments, it allows both the buyer and the seller to see the bigger picture and align at a strategic level whist still delivering incremental success targeting the highest priority problems in a manageable way. Land and then expand.
What is a PG Plan?
Pipeline Generation is the lifeblood of your business, but when poorly executed or unstructured, it can do more harm than good. Time spent on PG is time that cannot be invested elsewhere so it needs to yield high quality, targeted leads that can develop into qualified opportunities. This does not consistently happen by accident or luck. Building a plan removes the element of luck and allows you to invest your time with the right prospects, targeting the right stakeholders with the right message.
PG is hard and persistence is key. Even if you have researched your target audience and they are a good fit for your ICP, it is likely you will need multiple touches to secure your objective - to book a meeting. For this reason, a good PG Plan will document your campaign at a company, pain, stakeholder, message, sequence and ecosystem level.
Company and Initiatives - What is currently happening in this account that means they they meet my ICP and are likely to be receptive to my message?
Pain & Value Hypothesis - What challenges do I anticipate this company having, that my solution can assist with, based on what Initiatives they are undertaking and how existing customers have overcome similar pain.
Stakeholders and targeted message - Who is likely involved in resolving these issues and what might their personal / professional wins be? How can I align to their challenge and showcase I can help them overcome it?
Sequence / Ecosystem - How will I deliver this message (email, LI, phone etc) in a structured way and what ecosystem support can I leverage to maximize the chance of securing the meeting? Can a reseller or distributor introduce me? Do I need my SDR to run a campaign etc?
A PG Plan should target a small number of your tier 1 accounts at any given time based on specific triggers to buy / compelling events you have identified. Consistently execute your plan against each stakeholder for between 8 - 12 touches to maximize your likelihood of success before re-evaluating your target prospect, persona or message.
Takeaway:
The objective of a PG Plan is to book meetings. The number of meetings you need to book each week will be dependent on your business / segment but a good rule of thumb for SaaS Enterprise is to secure 1 - 2 meetings per week in a new prospect / potential new opportunity in an existing customer.
Consistently executing a well structured PG Plan using your Territory Plan (to effectively tier accounts) and Pain Hypothesis (to identify business initiatives, potential challenges and key stakeholders) allows a targeted message to be communicated, increasing your likelihood of successfully securing a meeting. Creating a PG Plan also increases visibility of how your ecosystem such as Channel Partners, Marketing and SDRs can support your efforts.
What is a Reconciliation Plan?
Do you know what steps are required to meet your quarterly or annual objectives? Do you know how to rectify a shortfall in quota attainment? Are you busy enough to ensure long term success? A reconciliation plan can help you with all of these questions.
A reconciliation plan is a tailored view of your business, designed to help you meet your objectives. At the beginning of the financial year, you might set a target of 150% attainment vs plan, with the reconciliation plan breaking out where you anticipate these deals to come from (renewal, up-sell, net new acquisition). In order to subsequently hit that target, you need to break down your business in a way that guarantees the plan is achievable and progress can be measured.
Elements that are usually considered when building a reconciliation plan include
Annual Quota (including quota retirement rate table)
Your personal Target for year (such as 150% and Presidents Club)
Average deal size (for your deals)
Number of deals you need to hit plan
Opportunity Value Conversion (What % of initial deal value do you typically convert to Closed/Won)
Opportunity Win rate (How many Visible Opportunities are won vs lost)
Avg Effort per deal (number of meetings, avg duration etc)
Pipeline to Visible Opportunity Conversion (How many potential opportunities (New Business Meetings) convert to Stage 1 Visible Opportunities)
Activities required to secure New Business Meeting (NBM)
Takeaway:
By working out your individual sales performance, you can create Leading Indicators for future success. Those Leading Indicators can then be used to calculate the required activity in your territory to hit your target. If your sales performance is inefficient, it will expose the weaknesses in your target and give you an opportunity to address areas of improvement, such as how to find bigger avg deal value, improve your NBM to VO and VO to Closed/won rates or increase your pipeline conversion.
What is Discovery?
At its most fundamental, discovery is the process of uncovering information relevant to your deal and how you will win. Discovery starts when you construct your territory plan, assessing accounts in your territory against your ICP in order to determine likely prospects based on their internal and external business drivers, and continues until you have closed your deal and start looking for the next up-sell.
In stage 0 Discovery is a continuation of account research in order to build your Value Pyramid (Business Alignment) and Pain Hypothesis and continues as you use that information to research likely personas who own the pain. Early stage discovery should result in more targeted PG and a higher likelihood of booking a meeting with the prospect.
In stage 1, many Playbook companies would mandate significant discovery meetings (4) prior to booking an NBM. This ensures relevant stakeholders have been met, and sufficient information about initial challenges, ownership and resource prioritization to create a well qualified Visible Opportunity with early elements of Pain, potential Champion(s) and initial Metrics (M1 and potentially M2)
Once there is a Visible Opportunity, Discovery continues throughout the remaining stages of the opportunity in order to build out a better understanding of Metrics, find additional Pain, Identify other Champions, uncover Competition and how the evaluation will be conducted in order for the customer to make a decision and purchase their preferred solution.
Then the process continues to Post Sale discovery in order to discover how the customer is successfully implementing your solution to fix their pains, and what other pains you can now help them address in phase 2 / account expansion
Takeaway:
Discovery is an ongoing process. There is always more information to find as your goal is not only to maximize your control of your existing deal, but to expand the scope and hopefully identify new paths to money. Experienced sellers know not to rush discovery. Slowing down and gathering information early in your opportunity will help accelerate the back end of your deal. Your goal is finding the right opportunities, and then minimizing deal risk by gathering all the information you can about how you will win and anything that could derail you. Discovery is knowledge and knowledge is control.
What is Qualification?
Discovery and Qualification are often combined and frequently seen as one and the same by many people, but they serve very different purposes. If Discovery is defined as uncovering information, Qualification should be perceived as searching for the hard information that you might not want to hear, but need to know regardless. If there is bad news, you need to know about it as early as possible, even if that bad news is hard to hear.
Qualification is therefore the process by which you assess the information you uncover, and the hard questions you ask yourself, your prospect and your Champions throughout the opportunity to ensure you are not missing or ignoring bad news. You can only spend your time in one place at a time, and an unwinnable deal will still be unwinnable even if you ignore the warning signs. Qualify hard, early and often to keep verifying you are not allowing yourself to proceed with a sellers worst enemy, "happy ears".
Why wouldn't you just renew with your existing vendor considering you do not seem to have any real challenges at this point?
If the decision was yours alone, have we given you the confidence that our solution is the right one for your company?
Where does this initiative sit in your priorities?
Who else are you talking to about this problem? And is there any real differentiation between what our solution can do and the competitions?
How long have you been living with this issue, and why have you not previously addressed it?
If your executive challenges you when we present the business case and informs you the projected savings will partially come from your own budget, what will you say?
The only pain I have uncovered seems to be very minor and does not impact this companies ability to make money/deliver services. If I was to ask my champion "So What?", could they justify the required budget spend themselves?
Qualification starts with Territory Planning, asking whether the account is likely to spend money with you this Qtr. It continues with your Pain Hypothesis and the ability for you to find stakeholders who engage with your message. In stage 1 the New Business Meeting is a qualification gate to determine is there enough pain and engagement to create a Visible opportunity? Your ability to influence Decision Criteria, identify and build Champions, meet the EB and position business and technical justification are all critical Qualification gates. Skipping steps in the Sales Process remove the protections these gates offer and increase the risk that bad news is missed, or avoided resulting in late stage deal loss and a loss of credibility and quota retirement.
Takeaway:
Asking the hard questions might result in bad news, but it is better to know that bad news than proceed in blissful ignorance. Challenging yourself and your customer throughout the deal will help you surface risk, and allow you to either mange that risk by finding ways to overcome it, or give you the confidence to qualify out of a bad deal and find a good one to invest your time in instead. A good sales leader will always support a seller who has run proper discovery, qualified hard and determined the opportunity is unwinnable.
What is a New Business Meeting (NBM)?
In many Sales Playbook companies, the New Business Meeting is a specific meeting that acts as the exit criteria from Stage 1. The goal of the meeting is to qualify into the opportunity and the customer using the NBM to validate that the pain is big enough and we have identified the right people who are invested in fixing it. Until the NBM has been successfully executed, the opportunity is unqualified. Once the NBM has been executed, the opportunity will either become qualified and progress to Stage 2, or the decision will be made that more information/stakeholders are required and a subsequent NBM is scheduled, or the opportunity is deemed low quality/unsuitable and the decision is to qualify out (move to Stage 7).
As such, there might be multiple NBMs for a single Visible Opportunity (VO), especially if the seller has not performed sufficient discovery before booking the NBM, but once the opportunity is deemed qualified, no additional NBMs should be logged. All subsequent meetings would be VO progression.
Because the NBM is a key meeting in the Sales Process and frequently features within the Leading Indicators, it is important to ensure that the objective and definition is well understood by the sales team.
Definition - First meeting where a new path to money is validated by stakeholders with power and investment to solve that problem.
Objective - Validate pain hypothesis and confirm this opportunity is worth investing time and resources in.
Best Practice
Discovery Performed (3 - 4 meetings)
Prep Meeting beforehand
Customer Stakeholders are sufficiently senior enough to influence this deal
Value Pyramid Presented
Regional Director (RD) in attendance
Debrief Post Meeting and follow up on actions
It is likely the NBM will also feature a corporate pitch, sometimes known as the First Meeting Deck which provides an overview of the solution, differentiation and proof points (case studies etc). A short structured demo may also feature depending on the Sales team although this should only happen if you have the performed sufficient discovery and the right technical stakeholders are in the room)
Takeaway:
Depending on your reconciliation plan and Leading Indicators, the goal should be to book between 1 - 2 NBMs per week for SaaS Enterprise providing between 10 and 20 well qualified opportunities to progress per Quarter. This should guarantee you sufficient pipeline to meet or exceed your quota consistently. If you fall behind, you will know that you need to prioritize PG to catch up. Once you hit your target, you will have the confidence that your pipeline is sufficient allowing you to prioritize Opportunity Progression activities later in the Qtr.
If executed well, with sufficient Discovery and prep beforehand, world class sales teams should expect a 50% conversion from NBM to VO.
What is a Visible Opportunity (VO)?
For an opportunity to become visible, it needs to be qualified. Once qualified, you are now comfortable that it is real and for it to feature in your sales leaders pipeline. Because many early opportunities never proceed past initial discussions, sales leaders do not want to have these deals polluting their pipeline. They only want to see them once you have confidence it is winnable. Once it is visible to the business, you will be subject to more scrutiny but also more support to help you win the deal.
Early stage pain becomes a Visible Opportunity once it has passed through a qualification gate. In Playbook companies, this would typically occur once the NBM has been successfully completed and the deal moved to stage 2. Because the majority of resources are invested in Stage 2 - 4, it is important that opportunities do not progress until basic information is known. In MEDDICC, that would mean Implicated Pain, Metrics supporting that Pain and Potential Champions invested in fixing the problem. It is also important at this stage to have confirmed this problem can be solved by your solution and that there is sufficient differentiation to have the potential of demonstrating Business Value as the opportunity progresses.
Visible Opportunity is your pipeline to meet plan, so it is important that you always have sufficient pipeline based on your reconciliation plan and Companies Leading Indicators. The majority of your time should be invested closing the biggest VO's for the current quarter, and developing the biggest VO's for next next quarter, meaning as an Enterprise Seller, you will run most of your VO progression activities in approx 2 - 4 opportunities forecast to close in this qtr, and approx 2 - 4 opportunities forecast to close in next qtr. By focusing on current and next qtr, your business should be predictable and linear.
Takeaway:
The number of VO's, avg VO size and VO progression meetings per quarter are Leading Indicators of the health of your business and your future success. Qualifying hard allows you to have confidence that your VO's are winnable and that you have sufficient pipeline to meet/exceed plan. Having a quality pipeline instills confidence from sales leadership, helps with forecast accuracy and provides the ability to potentially bring forward deals if needed by yourself or to help your RD/RVP.
What is a Meeting Plan?
A meeting should always have an objective. Meeting "just to get back in front of the prospect" is a waste of everyone's time. As such it is important to have a clear understanding of why you are meeting, what you want to accomplish in the meeting and what the next steps should be if successful. If you are attending the meeting with your account team (Sales Engineer, Regional Director or other ecosystem member) it is also important to define what each attendees role is ahead of time. And because your audience is busy, it is important to add value and make the meeting useful for both sides.
Taking the time to plan and prep for every meeting is good practice, but it is a necessity for important meetings such as the New Business Meeting and any meeting involving the Economic Buyer. You may only get one opportunity to meet certain stakeholders, so you need to maximize that time by knowing what you want to accomplish and how you will do so. Gaining executive alignment, gathering metrics and learning how the customer buys are all vital to gaining control of your deal and knowing what steps are remaining to win so having a plan increases your ability to reduce risk and avoid the need to gain repeated access to these stakeholders.
Things to consider when building your meeting plan include:
Our current understanding of the Customer and Opportunity
Do we have a Value Pyramid (Business Alignment)?
Have we built a 3 Whys (Problem Alignment)?
Objective for this meeting
Addressing any outstanding actions from previous meetings.
What do we need to accomplish for this to be a good meeting?
What do we believe the customer wants to accomplish?
What are the right next steps if we achieve our objective?
What do we do if we fail to meet our objectives?
Customer attendees (consider for each individual)
Their role, their involvement in this decision, their familiarity with your solution and whether this is the first time you have met them
Their specific pain hypothesis. What does this person care about? Why are they in this meeting?
What you can offer (Information and relevant case studies) and What you can get (New Pain, Metrics, potential Champions etc)
Account Team roles/responsibilities
Who is attending from your team?
Why is each person attending. What is their role?
Post meeting debrief
Did we achieve our objectives?
What actions came out of the meeting, who owns them and by when must they be completed?
What happens next? How do we maintain momentum and continue to drive urgency?
Takeaway:
Meetings are a great way to progress opportunities and develop understanding, if they are well planned and executed. They are also a great way to waste time and annoy your prospect if they are not well structured and fail to meet expectations. Having a clear agenda, shared at least 48 hours ahead, and knowing the objectives for both sides is key. Running great meetings will differentiate you from your competition, save you time and accelerate your opportunities.
What is a Prep Call?
You have secured the meeting and built a plan with clear objectives. Now you need to ensure that plan is executed. This is where the Prep call comes in. There can be two types of Prep Call, both are incredibly valuable and when done well should reduce the risk of the meeting missing the objectives or being derailed by unexpected questions/objections or a lack of clear direction.
Internal Prep Call
The first type of Prep Call is the account team alignment call. This meeting is scheduled prior to the customer meeting and shares the meeting plan and task ownership with the attendees (Vendor and Partner). Holding the Prep Call means everyone attending the meeting is clear on Why?, Who? and What?. It also acts as a quality gate by allowing your leader to review your objectives against the deal maturity and attendees to maximize the impact. If you are not ready to hold a prep call, you are not ready to meet your customer.
Champion Prep Call
A real champion wants you to win because if you win, they win. Running a Prep Call with your Champion prior to an important meeting such as the EB Go/No Go or EB Playback allows you to align on strategy, take on their coaching, and prepare them for their role (how you will leverage them to win the deal). Your Champion investing time in a Prep Call is both a great test and also another way to build them by showing your professionalism and desire to help them solve their challenges.
Takeaway:
Planning and Preparation increases your ability to drive value, alignment and outcomes in your meetings. Senior stakeholders might only give you time once. If you fail to fully maximize that opportunity it could be lost forever. Running Prep Calls is good practice and a great investment of your teams time.
What is a Champion Plan?
One of the most common mistakes when executing the Sales Playbook is to leave Champions to good luck, or to ignore their importance entirely. We know that having people with power and influence advocating for us and selling on our behalf is key to winning, and yet all too often we rely on Champions finding us or deceive ourselves to believe that the person we WANT as a Champion, also wants us to win. You can get lucky once in a while, but to really master Champion building, you need a plan.
A Champion Plan should address WHO, WHY, HOW and WHAT along with our progress towards that goal.
WHO - Identifying who is involved in this decision and where they sit in the decision making process? Do they have power, influence and investment in fixing this problem?
WHY - Why would they be our Champion? What is their pain hypothesis and how can we help them address this pain and deliver their win? How do we deliver a better personal or professional than our competition? And do we really understand what that win should be? What is our potential Champions WHY?
HOW - How will we build and test this Champion. What steps will we take? Who is responsible for building this relationship (RSM, SE, Exec, Partner etc)
WHAT - What is our plan to LEVERAGE this Champion? How will this stakeholder help us win the deal?
STATUS - Is this stakeholder actually a Champion? Do their actions match their words or are they demonstrating characteristics more aligned to a coach? Are they actually our competitions Champion? What tests have we used, what additional build options do we have and how will we mitigate if we cannot turn them into our Champion? When was the last time we invested time in this relationship?
Champion Plans should be a living document. As new Pains are uncovered, new Stakeholders identified and the deal evolves, the Champion Plan needs to do the same. Champions are people and people change. The fact they were a Champion yesterday cannot be relied upon tomorrow. We need to continually nurture the relationship for it to be strong enough when needed.
Takeaway:
Champion Building is a process. You need to start by identifying suitable stakeholders before investing time in building and testing them. The only way. you know they are truly a Champion is when you ask them to do something for you. A strong plan should de-risk this element of your deal by avoiding the "Champion of Convenience" mentality. It also makes Champion Building an account team responsibility, with multiple Champions across business, technical and Executive being identified and built. The more Champions, the lower the risk and the higher the deal control and internal advocacy.
What is an EB Go/No Go?
The Economic Buyer is the ultimate budget holder and has the power to say yes when everyone else says no, or no when everyone else says yes. As such, it is incredibly important to be aligned with the EB's priorities. The EB is also likely to be a senior executive, able to reassign or create budget and unlock access to resources and stakeholders such as procurement and legal. All of these will de-risk your deal and accelerate it towards a successful conclusion, if you can secure their support.
But being a senior executive, the Economic Buyer is very busy, with multiple competing demands for their time. Gaining access to this persona is not easy, and if we can secure that meeting we much maximize the impact as we are unlikely to secure a second if we do not appear prepared and professional. We must sound like business people who understand the EBs priorities and objectives, not a vendor trying to sell features and functionality.
The EB Go/No Go meeting itself is a gate typically positioned between the opportunity development stage and the financial & technical demonstration stage of the deal. It provides a qualification hurdle for sellers before investing further valuable time and technical resources. It is also a quality control for the work done up to this point. If we fail to secure the meeting, or the meeting goes badly, we should seriously consider whether we want to invest further time and effort in a deal that is potentially unwinnable. This is the definition of Go or No Go.
Objective:
Secure meeting with ultimate decision maker. This is a test for the Champion to prove they have power and influence, and you have built sufficient trust.
Gain alignment with their priorities. Are we actually solving the problem they care about the most? And are we working with the right stakeholders?
Understand their definition of success. How do they envision the future state looking and how will they measure this success?
Gain their sponsorship to demonstrate the financial (BVA) and technical (POV) alignment of your solution to showcase a pathway to their success
Lock in the EB Playback once the BVA and POV are complete to prove your solution is the right solution and earn the right to progress to procurement as the preferred vendor.
Questions:
What does success look like to you? If this evaluation goes well, what specific capabilities would that provide your team? What will it mean for your business?
How will you measure this success? Do you agree with the evaluation criteria your team has developed and will you sponsor the POV and BVA so we can demonstrate a pathway to this success? What do you need to see from the BVA in order to proceed?
What will you do if we can prove our alignment with your goals? Will you support us as the preferred vendor and introduce us to Procurement?
Takeaway:
It will not be possible to meet the EB in every deal, but it should always be the goal. Even if we cannot secure access to the EB, we must ensure we are aligned with their priorities and are working with the right stakeholders (with decision authority delegated to by the EB).
Meeting the EB allows us firstly to confirm they are in-fact the budget holder for this opportunity. It allows us to elevate our visibility with senior stakeholders, and validate we are solving a priority problem. If the executive doesn't care enough about solving this problem to meet the vendor, will it be a priority when budget needs to be allocated?
Securing the EB Go/No Go meeting is also a great test of our Champions. Can they secure the meeting, and do they want to? Have we explained how us meeting the Economic Buyer will help them accelerate the decision and increase the likelihood that their preferred solution is selected. If we have not explained how it will help our Champion, and built the required trust with them, we are unlikely to secure that meeting.
What is an EB Playback?
The EB Playback is a critical transition between demonstrating alignment and negotiating the deal, and is dependent on an effective EB Go/No Go occurring previously in this opportunity.
The objective of the EB Playback is to showcase the results of the BVA and POV the EB previously sponsored. By playing back the results, the seller is able to demonstrate a pathway to fixing the EBs problem by being the best technical and financial fit.
Best practice for the EB playback involves one or more champions presenting the business and technical validation to the EB and defending their decision to recommend your solution if challenged. Once the EB is confident you can meet their definition of success and have shown a path to get there, you should be able to ask for their sign off and permission to move forward to negotiation as the preferred vendor.
Takeaway:
The EB, as the ultimate decision maker, holds a lot of power. Ensure you revisit the earlier Go/No Go conversation and demonstrate a pathway to their desired future state. Once they are confident you are the right solution, they can help with next steps, navigating the paper process, and unlock access to procurement resources.
What is a Reverse Timeline?
Big Pain needs to be addressed with urgency. If the prospect cannot meet their timeline to rectify a big pain, there could be significant consequences. As such the customer should want to align on how they will reach their desired future state within the remaining time frame. To do so requires a Reverse Timeline.
A reverse timeline works backwards for the date a customer needs to be live with their new solution, and looks at the steps required to get there. This will include the implementation stage, testing, skills / knowledge, and the remaining steps to make the initial decision.
A reverse timeline is useful to drive urgency and mitigate the desire for procurement to slow the negotiation down to secure financial concessions. The reverse timeline also helps qualify the opportunity (Is it feasible for this deal to conclude and the implementation to complete successfully before the renewal date, or is the customer likely to renew with the incumbent solution for another 12 months?). Speed to implement may also feature as an element of the decision criteria if rapid implementation is a key factor.
Each step in the project plan should be documented, with an expected duration, deadline and ownership. Because the reverse timeline includes both pre and post sales elements, it should be seen as the "superset" of the close plan which only addresses remaining pre-sales steps
Takeaway:
Reverse timelines help document the steps to successful implementation to drive urgency, maintain momentum and hold everyone accountable. It helps expose and mitigate risk and aligns resources to a common goal.
"Paper" deadlines such as End of Life dates or Renewals are rarely compelling alone and should be treated with caution. The impact of missing such a deadline is rarely significant and the status quo option of doing nothing is likely to win out. A real business challenge, with a fixed deadline is a compelling case for action.
What is a Close Plan?
Much like a Reverse Timeline, the Mutually Agreed Close Plan is designed to align buyer and seller on the shared objective of fixing the problem once consensus to proceed has been reached. However unlike the Reverse Timeline, the Close Plan only focuses on the remaining steps to conclude the pre-sales element of this opportunity to secure the PO and win the deal.
The Close Plan is typically built once technical consensus exists, and therefore usually focuses on the financial and paper aspects of the decision process. Because Enterprise contracts can be complicated, including internal approvals, legal and security reviews and procurement negotiations, involving stakeholders from Vendor, Partner and Customer, it is important to properly document outstanding steps and build a plan to address each element as a project plan. This will ensure resources from every side are available when required, stakeholders are clear on their time-bound responsibilities, and any potential obstacles such as personal leave or milestones like signing ceremonies or board meetings can be successfully navigated.
Whilst a Close Plan can be created without input from the customer, a truly effective plan needs mutual agreement on the steps required to effect the shared goal of concluding the purchase within a specific time-frame.
Takeaway:
A close plan documents the steps, ownership and deadlines required to purchase the solution by the required date. It helps keep everyone aligned and moving forward by focusing on the objective and the remaining tasks that need to be completed.
"Paper" deadlines such as End of Life dates or Renewals are rarely compelling alone and should be treated with caution. The impact of missing such a deadline is rarely significant and the status quo option of doing nothing is likely to win out. A real business challenge, with a fixed deadline is a compelling case for action.
What is a Forecast?
SaaS companies typically operate on a Quarterly Forecast to the market aligned to their earnings. Each year is broken down into 4 quarters which set expectations for the business in terms of growth and most importantly revenue, subsequently assessed in the earnings call once the qtr closes. The ability for a sales org to meet or exceed expectations dramatically impacts how that business is perceived and how their share price performs. Forecasting also determines investment in the business including recruitment in sales and supporting functions and other business planning.
Forecasts cascade up from individual sellers based on their anticipated deals in the qtr. As such the accuracy of the entire GTM performance is influenced by how much control individual sellers and their leaders have of deals and as such forecasting accuracy at every level is fundamentally important to maintain credibility and avoid market reaction.
In each quarter, sellers will place opportunities with a close date within that quarter into 3 buckets - Pipeline, best case and commit. As the quarter progresses, sellers are expected to either move deals away from pipeline and into commit or best case, or push the deal into the following quarter if there is no confidence it can close as originally scheduled. By the end of the quarter, no opportunities with a close date in that quarter should remain in pipeline.
Forecast accuracy is one of the key metrics for Sales Leaders and Sales Ops, and is one of the biggest reasons why MEDDPICC is adopted in Sales Organizations when used as a qualification framework. Do we have control of this deal? Are there any known or unknown risks that could prevent this opportunity from closing on schedule?
Status for each classification
Commit - This deal will definitely come in on schedule and within this qtr
Best case - There are still elements that need to be addressed, but it is possible these might be accomplished in time. There is currently risk to this deal closing on schedule but steps are being taken to address them and it remains possible.
Pipeline - The opportunity still requires a significant amount of investment before it will be ready to close. There are known and/or unknown actions outstanding. As the quarter progresses, these remaining steps might become too significant to realistically accomplish in the time remaining meaning the close date needs to be updated and the deal pushed to a subsequent quarter.
Takeaway:
Forecasting accuracy is fundamentally important to sales organizations, especially those that are publicly traded and as such need to set accurate expectations to the market. As the quarter progresses and deals mature, the accuracy expectations also increase. By the second month, an accuracy of ~10% +/- is considered best practice, improving to 5% +/- in the 3rd month.
Some sellers are conservative and will only move deals to commit once they are certain the opportunity will close (they essentially have the PO in hand), however this is not the point of forecasting. Forecasting should represent the most likely outcome at the end of the month, and is thus a future looking prediction based off the known information at any given time. Sellers can also downplay the status and size of deals to avoid scrutiny only to suddenly close a deal "out of the blue". This may sound good, but unexpected wins can be viewed as a lack of seller control in the same way an unexpected loss can. A very large unexpected win can even impact company earnings and cause instability in future share price.
Forecasting happens at each level in a sales team from Seller > RD > RVP and all the way to the CRO. Accuracy below will influence the quality of the forecast at the level above. This is why deal inspection, CRM data hygiene and quality RD coaching using a qualification framework like MEDDPICC are so important to accurately reflect deals at all levels.
What are Leading Indicators?
Leading Indicators are future looking metrics that should accurately predict upcoming results. In Sales Playbook companies, Leading Indicators should reflect activities and behaviors historically known to drive healthy, sustainable sales results. Leveraging this past historical behaviors to determine sales activities acts as a way to ensure future success, and as an empirical measure by which to assess individual seller performance.
Meeting the Leading Indicators should guarantee success (with success defined as meeting or exceeding plan), and offers confidence to the individual seller. It also provides coaching opportunities to the RD who can measure seller output throughout the quarter and course correct early, rather than relying on opportunities and revenue booked as the only metrics.
If a seller is not delivering results, adherence to the Leading Indicators should be the first factor considered. From there, leaders can determine if there is an activity problem (not doing enough overall), a skill issue (cannot execute effectively) or a will issue (doesn't want to do the required tasks).
Sales Playbook companies will typically determine Leading Indicators for how pipeline is acquired, qualified, progressed and closed and will usually document critical touch points or artifacts that are known to increase conversion rates.
For a SaaS business, the Leading Indicators might look as follows.
20% of Sellers time dedicated to Pipeline Generation
3 Discovery Meetings per stage 0 Opportunity
10 New Business Meetings per Quarter
8 - 10 VO progression meetings per week (in commit & best case VO)
3 POVs per Quarter
1 Business Value Assessment per Quarter
2 - 3 Visible Opportunities > $200k USD in commit per Quarter
2 - 3 Visible Opportunities > $200k USD in best case per Quarter
Proper execution of the Leading Indicators, including prep calls and post meeting debriefs, maintaining data hygiene and ongoing enablement means there is very little time available each week for non productive tasks. This is why Value based Selling has to prioritize QUALITY over QUANTITY. There is no time to waste on unwinnable deals and why qualifying hard, early and often is so important.
Takeaway:
The right Leading Indicators for any business will be determined by its GTM and historical sales performance. They should accurately represent what a sustainable territory looks like in order to consistently meet or exceed quota. Companies that have a lower avg deal size will naturally require more opportunities in commit and best case, and are likely to need a higher volume of NBMs but fewer discovery and VO progression meetings per opportunity.
Defining and measuring Leading Indicators removes the element of luck and replaces it with a scientific formula for success. RD coaching moves from feelings and observation to data driven. The data doesn't lie.
What is ICCE?
Effective implementation of a complex Sales Playbook is hard. It becomes impossible if your sales team lacks the attributes to master the execution. ICCE is a framework by which Sales Leaders can assess their existing team and potential sales hires against consistent criteria known to influence future success. Not every seller wants to sell in a Playbook company, and not every seller has the ability to thrive in a Playbook company.
ICCE stands for the following attributes required to excel in a Playbook company
Intelligence - You cannot coach intelligence. Does this candidate have the ability to learn and master our GTM. And are they hungry to continue learning.
Character - Value Based Selling is hard. There will be frustration, losses and doubt. Are they resilient enough to push through or will they give up or complain?
Coachability - There is always something to learn. If this individual believes they know it all already, and do not embrace coaching to improve, they are not the right fit. The very best athletes are the most coachable as it allows them to refine and improve their natural ability to maximize their performance
Experience - Do they have a track record of success? Can they deliver results consistently over extended periods of time. Do they know how to win and are they credible in front of their customers?
ICCE is not a silver bullet. It depends on the hiring manager to implement it effectively and to really understand and test for these characteristics. Different leaders will prioritize different traits, however a common mistake when building high performance teams is to place too much emphasis on Experience. Being a successful Network Infrastructure seller does not alone guarantee they will be a great SaaS Observability seller. Intelligence, character and coachability are often far more indicative of future success
Takeaway:
ICCE is a well known hiring framework that all too often fails to deliver due to bias and poor execution. Sales Leaders often focus on hiring "the best" using past sales results in a different GTM / Industry / Segment as proof of their suitability without digging into their character and openness to learn new things. Misalignment of characters and a lack of coachability from "great reps" is one of the leading causes of attrition in Sales Playbook companies.
What are the 3R's?
The 3Rs defines the responsibilities of a sales leader, specifically a Regional Director - Recruit, Retain, Revenue. Mastering these three elements within a Sales GTM will dramatically increase effectiveness delivering revenue and growth to the business.
Recruit
How to build a bench of talent allowing you to hire candidates with the right ICCE characteristics when attrition or growth results in open reqs
How these individuals will ramp into your business to start delivering revenue rapidly
Retain
How you coach, deliver feedback and develop your team to help them grow professionally and achieve career / life goals
How you build trust, foster a sense of team and overall confidence that they in the best place personally and professionally to develop
Career conversations and how to manage expectations regarding professional growth
Revenue
How to consistently build quality pipeline that develops into qualified winnable opportunity
Fostering the skills to build and leverage value based selling artifacts such as Value Pyramids, 3Ys and BVAs to accelerate opportunities and maintain margin
Ensuring data hygiene in all opportunities to accurately reflect deal status
Delivering Forecasting Accuracy using 1:1's, deal reviews and implementing a qualification framework to drive predictable, linear results that build confidence and credibility.
Takeaway:
Sellers need support to sell. This is one of the biggest roles Sales Leaders perform. They also need to deliver predictable revenue to the business. To do this they need to hire and retain the right profile of seller. Mastering the 3Rs will create a stable environment capable of delivering consistent results and is the reason why RDs are so important to building high performing sales teams.
Promoting great sales people into leadership without enabling them to effectively deliver the 3Rs is a well trodden path to missed opportunity. First time leaders, and leaders who have not led teams in a similar GTM previously, need to shown how to do these things well. Investing in Leadership Enablement empowers your RDs to become a force multiplier, underpins the quality of your sales team and provides the stability your sales teams need to drive consistent results.