meddic_qualification v1.0.0

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name: meddic_qualification description: "Qualify complex B2B deals with MEDDIC and MEDDPICC: score Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, and Competition on evidence, build a real champion, and forecast honestly. Use when running a deal review, scoring an opportunity, preparing discovery or an economic buyer meeting, mapping a decision or paper process, or deciding whether a deal belongs in Commit, Best Case, or Pipeline."

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MEDDIC Qualification

Purpose

MEDDIC is an evidence check for a complex deal, not a sales process and not a form to fill in after a good call. It answers one question: what do we actually know, in the buyer's words and actions, and what are we only assuming?

MEDDIC was created at PTC in 1996, credited to Dick Dunkel with Jack Napoli, under sales leader John McMahon. The original six letters are Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. Practitioners later added Competition (MEDDICC, seven letters) and Paper Process (MEDDPICC, eight letters) as buying committees, procurement, and vendor competition got heavier.

Use MEDDIC for the core six. Use MEDDPICC when legal, security, or procurement can slip the close, or when a named rival, an internal build, or doing nothing can take the deal. Skip the full framework on small, fast deals with one decision maker. A light check fits those better, and forcing eight letters on a two week deal teaches reps to fake the fields.

This skill ships the working tools: an evidence scoring rubric, a scorer script, call scripts for each letter, champion tests, and two worked examples. Detail lives in references/.

Workflow

1. Pick the variant and write the deal in one paragraph

Before scoring, write five lines: account, problem in the buyer's words, amount and close date claimed, current stage, and who you have actually met. If you cannot write the problem in the buyer's words, Identify Pain is a 0 or 1 by definition.

Pick the variant out loud in the review:

• MEDDIC (6, max 18): competition is light, contracting is simple, one buying group.
• MEDDICC (7, max 21): a real rival or status quo fight, contracting is simple.
• MEDDPICC (8, max 24): default for enterprise deals with security, legal, or procurement steps.

2. Score on evidence, never on confidence

Score each letter 0 to 3. The score is about proof, not effort or optimism.

| Score | Meaning | Test | |---|---|---| | 0 | Unknown | No buyer input. The field is a guess or blank. | | 1 | Hypothesis | You or one friendly contact claims it. The buyer who owns it has not confirmed it. | | 2 | Buyer validated | The relevant buyer said it in a call or email. Not yet documented with an artifact. | | 3 | Validated and documented | Buyer said it and the proof is filed: a quote, a written criteria list, a process map, a dated email, a mutual plan. |

Run the scorer instead of doing the math in your head:

bash
python3 bin/score_meddic.py --variant meddpicc \
  --metrics 2 --economic-buyer 1 --decision-criteria 2 \
  --decision-process 1 --paper-process 0 --pain 3 \
  --champion 2 --competition 1
python3 bin/score_meddic.py --deal-file assets/example-deal.json
python3 bin/score_meddic.py --variant meddic --self-test

The scorer prints the total, the forecast bucket, every gate failure, and the lowest letters first. Gates beat totals:

• Any letter at 0 blocks Commit, whatever the total says.
• Economic Buyer below 2 blocks Commit. No access to the person who can release the money means no commit.
• Champion below 2 blocks Commit. A coach is not a champion (step 5).
• On MEDDPICC, Paper Process below 2 blocks Commit in the final stage. Verbal yes plus untouched legal is a slip waiting to happen.

Default buckets, tune them once as a team and then hold the line:

| Variant | Commit eligible | Best Case | Pipeline only | |---|---|---|---| | MEDDIC, max 18 | 14 to 18, no gate failure | 10 to 13 | Below 10 | | MEDDICC, max 21 | 17 to 21, no gate failure | 12 to 16 | Below 12 | | MEDDPICC, max 24 | 19 to 24, no gate failure | 14 to 18 | Below 14 |

Commit eligible is not Commit. The manager still checks that the close date is backed by the Decision Process and Paper Process maps, with dates that fit inside the period.

Full rubric, letter by letter, is in references/scoring-rubric.md. The fill in worksheet is assets/meddpicc-worksheet.md.

3. Work the letters in risk order

Do not work M to C in order. Work the lowest score with the highest blast radius first. The usual order in a stuck deal is Pain, Economic Buyer, Champion, Decision Process, Paper Process, Metrics, Decision Criteria, Competition. Scripts for every letter are in references/call-scripts.md.

Metrics. A number the buyer owns, in their unit, with a time period. Revenue gained, cost cut, hours saved, risk reduced, incidents avoided. "Improve efficiency" is not a metric. Ask what happens in the finance review if the number is missing. If nobody can state the cost of the current state per month or per incident, Metrics stays at 1.

Economic Buyer. The one person with discretionary authority to approve or kill this spend. Name, title, and either a meeting held or a dated meeting booked. Identified but never met is a 1. Met once with no alignment on Metrics and Pain is a 2 at best. Watch for false buyers: a senior title with no budget for this line, or a sponsor who still needs approval from someone they will not name.

Decision Criteria. The technical, business, and vendor standards the committee will judge on, in the buyer's words and ranked. Formal criteria live in an RFP, a scorecard, or a written list. Informal criteria matter just as much: incumbent trust, internal politics, risk appetite. If your criteria list reads exactly like your feature list in your order, you are scoring your own pitch. That is a 1.

Decision Process. The sequence from today to a yes: evaluation steps, who owns each step, approvals, and dates. A close date with no steps behind it is a guess. Map it with the champion, then confirm the map with a second person in the account. One source for the process is a 2 at most.

Paper Process (MEDDPICC). Everything between verbal yes and signature: legal review and redlines, security questionnaire or review, data processing terms, procurement portal and vendor onboarding, purchase order steps, budget release timing. Start it in parallel with the evaluation, not after it. Ask early who signs, in what system, and what usually takes longest. Paper Process surprises are almost always process you never asked about.

Identify Pain. The specific business problem, who feels it, and what it costs if nothing changes, tied to a date, a target, or an event. Pain the Economic Buyer has not heard or does not feel is not yet deal pain. Separate three layers: the surface symptom, the business impact, and the personal impact on the people in the room. A deal needs the second layer, in numbers where possible, and it helps to know the third.

Champion. See step 5. This is the letter reps inflate most, so it gets its own tests.

Competition (MEDDICC and MEDDPICC). Every alternative, not just named vendors: the incumbent, an internal build, a manual workaround, a different project competing for the same budget, and doing nothing. Doing nothing wins a large share of enterprise deals, so score it as a rival with strengths: no cost, no risk, no change. For each alternative write where it beats you on the buyer's own criteria and what would have to be true for it to win.

4. Run discovery and buyer meetings from the scripts

Use references/call-scripts.md. It covers:

• A 30 minute discovery call that surfaces Pain, Metrics, and a route to the Economic Buyer without interrogating the contact.
• An Economic Buyer meeting: open on their metric, confirm pain in their terms, agree criteria and process, leave with dates.
• A process mapping call with a champion or procurement contact.
• A champion building conversation: give them the internal case, not a product pitch.
• Short question banks per letter, phrased the way a person talks, plus the follow up that turns an answer into documented evidence.

Rule for every script: one letter per question, then stop talking. An answer only raises a score when you file the proof the same day: the quote in the CRM field, the criteria doc, the process map, the dated next step.

5. Build and test a champion, do not label one

A coach gives you information, is friendly, and wants you to do well. A champion does more, and the difference is observable:

| Test | What proves it | What fails it | |---|---|---| | Power and access | They can get you a meeting with the Economic Buyer and other decision makers, and have done it or booked it | They describe the Economic Buyer but cannot or will not arrange access | | Personal win | They can state, in their own words, what they gain if this lands and what it costs them if it stalls | Their only stake is that the team likes the tool | | Articulation | They can state the Pain, the Metrics, and why you, unprompted, in a room you are not in | They repeat your pitch phrases but cannot explain the business case alone | | Selling action | They have already acted: sent an internal email, convened a meeting, carried a business case, defended the deal against a rival or a budget cut | They attend your demos, answer your questions, and do nothing between your calls |

Score Champion 3 only when at least three tests pass with filed evidence. Score 2 when power and articulation pass and one selling action is booked. Anything else is a coach: useful, welcome, and a 1.

Build a champion by making them good at the internal job: a one page case in their words (pain, metric, criteria, cost of delay), answers to the objections their peers will raise, and a small first ask (introduce you to one person, react to a draft criteria list) before a big one. Never ask a new contact to spend credibility they have not yet agreed to spend. Worked builds are in references/worked-examples.md.

If you have no champion after repeated calls, that is the finding. Downgrade the forecast, widen the contact map, or walk away. Do not promote the friendliest contact to champion to fill the field.

6. Run the deal review on the gaps

A MEDDPICC review is 10 minutes per deal and follows the scores, not a story:

1. One minute: deal in one paragraph (step 1), amount, close date, bucket claimed.
2. Three minutes: walk the scores lowest first. For each, the rep states the proof, not the activity. "We ran a demo" is activity. "The operations lead said rework costs them two days a week, email filed Tuesday" is proof.
3. Three minutes: name the top two gaps and why each one can kill or slip the deal.
4. Two minutes: one action per gap, with an owner, a buyer side counterpart, and a date. "Get to the Economic Buyer" is not an action. "Champion to book 30 minutes with the VP Operations by Friday, fallback is a written brief she forwards" is.
5. One minute: agree the bucket. If a gate fails, the bucket drops in the room, not after the call.

Close every review by updating the worksheet and the CRM fields in the same sitting. A score that lives only in the meeting is a 1 by the rubric, because it is not documented.

7. Put it in the CRM without turning it into admin

• One field per letter: a score picklist (0 to 3) plus a short evidence field that requires a quote, a link, or a date. A score with an empty evidence field does not save past stage two.
• Contact lookups, not text, for Economic Buyer and Champion, so reporting can count deals with no named buyer.
• Required by stage, lightly: Pain and Metrics before proposal, Economic Buyer met and Decision Process mapped before negotiation, Paper Process started before Commit.
• A weekly report that lists Commit deals with any gate failure. That one report does more for forecast honesty than any training session.
• Review the fields quarterly and cut any field nobody uses in a review. Checkbox volume is not qualification.

Output Contract

A finished job delivers:

1. A completed worksheet (assets/meddpicc-worksheet.md) for the deal: variant, one paragraph summary, score and evidence line per letter, gate results, and the bucket.
2. Scorer output from bin/score_meddic.py pasted or saved with the worksheet, so the math and gates can be checked.
3. A gap plan: the top two gaps, one concrete action per gap with owner, buyer counterpart, and date.
4. A champion verdict: champion, coach, or none yet, with the four test results and the evidence for each.
5. For a process mapping job, a dated Decision Process and Paper Process map: steps, owners, and durations from today to signature.
6. CRM updates listed field by field, when the job includes updating the record.

Operating Rules

• No evidence, no score above 1. Seniority of the person who told you, and how good the call felt, do not raise a score.
• Never invent buyer facts: no metrics, criteria, dates, quotes, or process steps that a buyer did not state. Unverified items go in as hypotheses at 1 and are labelled as such.
• Separate the framework from the sales process. MEDDPICC tells you what to confirm. Stage tells you where the deal is. Never advance a stage just because a letter scored well, and never raise a score just because a stage advanced.
• Forecast the bucket the gates allow, not the bucket the quarter needs. A downgrade found in a review is the system working.
• Treat doing nothing as a competitor in every scoring pass.
• Disqualify cleanly when the evidence says so: no Economic Buyer access after repeated attempts, no quantified pain the buyer will own, or a paper process that cannot finish inside any date the buyer cares about. A fast no protects the pipeline better than a slow hope.
• Keep buyer quotes in the buyer's words in evidence fields. Cleaned up paraphrase hides weak qualification.
• One deal, one worksheet. Do not copy scores across opportunities in the same account. Access and pain differ by deal, and copied scores are how Commit fills with fiction.