Glossary

Every term, defined plainly.

The letters of MEDDPICC, the words of qualification and the vocabulary of sales leadership. One sentence to quote, a page to understand.

The eight letters

MEDDPICC, one letter at a time.

MMetrics: Metrics are the quantifiable measures of the value your solution delivers to a customer, expressed in numbers the Economic Buyer would recognise and sign off against.
EEconomic Buyer: The Economic Buyer is the person with final authority over the budget for your deal, who can say yes when everyone else says no.
DDecision Criteria: Decision Criteria are the standards a customer uses to judge which solution to buy, split into technical, business and often legal or commercial requirements.
DDecision Process: The Decision Process is the series of steps, people and approvals a customer goes through to arrive at a buying decision, with dates attached.
PPaper Process: The Paper Process is every legal, procurement, security and compliance step between the customer saying yes and a signed contract landing in your inbox.
IImplicate the Pain: Implicating the Pain means going beyond naming a customer's problem to the point where they feel its cost, own its consequences and connect your solution to the cure.
CChampion: A Champion is someone inside the customer with power and influence, a vested interest in your success, and who actively sells for you when you are absent.
CCompetition: Competition is anyone or anything competing for the same budget, attention or decision as your deal, including rival vendors, an internal build and doing nothing at all.

Qualification

The words that decide whether a deal is real.

MEDDIC: MEDDIC is the original six letters of the common language created at PTC in the 1990s: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain and Champion.
MEDDICC: MEDDICC is MEDDIC with a second C added for Competition, so sellers qualify who and what they are really up against.
MEDDPICC: MEDDPICC is the eight-letter version of MEDDIC, adding Paper Process and Competition: a common language for qualification, methodology and value selling that follows a deal all the way to signature.
Coach: A Coach is a contact inside the customer who gives you information and guidance but lacks the power, vested interest or will to sell your deal internally.
Compelling Event: A Compelling Event is a dated reason, with real consequences, why the customer must act now, built from implicated pain and agreed Metrics rather than the seller's quarter end.
Qualifying Out: Qualifying out is the deliberate decision to stop pursuing an opportunity that fails qualification, so your time goes to deals you can actually win.
Champion Test: The Champion Test checks whether a contact has power and influence, a vested interest in your success, and will act on your behalf when asked.
Discovery: Discovery is the ongoing work of finding out a customer's pain, Metrics, people and process, carried on through the whole deal rather than finished in one call.
Mutual Action Plan: A Mutual Action Plan is a shared, dated document agreed with the customer that lists every step, owner and milestone from today to signature and go-live.

Leadership

How the best sales leaders inspect, forecast and coach.

Deal Inspection: Deal inspection is a leader examining a single opportunity against MEDDPICC to find what is proven, what is assumed and what action changes it.
Deal Review: A deal review is the regular meeting where a seller and their leader inspect live opportunities, agree what is real and decide the next actions.
Forecast Categories: Forecast categories sort open deals by confidence, typically commit, best case and pipeline, so a leader can roll up a number they will stand behind.
Leading and Lagging Indicators: Leading indicators are the behaviours and deal conditions that predict a result, while lagging indicators such as revenue and quota attainment report a result that has already happened.
A, B and C Players: A Players are accountable to outcomes, B Players are busy and focused on optics, and a C Player is a label that should not exist on any serious team.
Sales Kickoff: A sales kickoff, or SKO, is the annual event where a sales organisation aligns on strategy, targets, product and methodology for the year ahead.