MEDDIC
Why it matters
Warm conversations are easy to mistake for deals. A prospect who replies quickly and says the product looks interesting can still have no budget, no measurable goal and nobody who will push internally. The deal then stalls, and the founder finds out after weeks of follow-up.
MEDDIC forces those gaps into the open early. If the seller cannot name the economic buyer or the decision process, that is a task for the next call, not a detail to hope for. Effort goes to deals that can close, and the forecast rests on facts instead of on how friendly the calls felt.
It also gives a team one language for deal reviews. "Who is the economic buyer?" is a better question than "how does it feel?", and it can be checked.
How to apply it
- Add the six fields to the deal record in the CRM and review them in every deal check.
- Write answers as specific facts with a source, such as "Finance director confirmed a budget of X", not "seems keen".
- Use it on deals large enough to justify the questions. For a short, low-value sale, the lighter BANT is usually enough. The page on BANT vs MEDDIC compares them.
- Coach the champion with material they can use when the seller is not in the room.
What it is
MEDDIC is a qualification framework for deals that are large, slow and involve several people. It came out of the software company PTC in the 1990s and has since become a standard in enterprise sales. Each letter is a question the seller must be able to answer with facts.
- Metrics: the measurable result the buyer wants, such as cutting support cost or shortening onboarding.
- Economic buyer: the person who can approve the spend and say no to everyone else.
- Decision criteria: what the buyer will judge the options on.
- Decision process: the steps, people and sign-offs between "interested" and "signed".
- Identify pain: the problem that is costing them enough to act on now.
- Champion: someone inside the buyer's company who wants the deal to happen and has influence.
Some teams add a second C for competition, giving MEDDICC.
Common mistakes
Treating the first contact as the economic buyer. Counting a friendly user as a champion when they have no influence. Filling the fields in once and never updating them.
