How to Implement MEDDICC in the sales force

In this article, you will get valuable methods for implementing MEDDICC? in your sales force. You will get to see examples of successful and unsuccessful implementations and what you should think about. You will receive 5 concrete tips to quickly get your sales force to use MEDDICC. The chapter contains a guide for what to do in the first 30-120 days, with activities and goals. In addition, I will give you tips on how to get your CRM; system to fully support MEDDICC? without having to replace it or spend big money on developing new features. After you have read this article, you have received the tools to make MEDDICC? a natural part of your sales force's way of selling and reporting in a few months. With MEDDICC? in both thought, action and CRM system, you will be able to both accelerate your sales and gain full control over the pipeline and create reliable sales forecasts.

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Why it is difficult to implement a new sales method

When one of my MEDDICC? courses ended, I collected empty coffee cups, forgotten course manuals and scribbled notepads. On one of them it was written in squiggly letters: "MEDDICC, another sales method we will not use". I remained standing with the block in my hand. What if the seller was right? That today's MEDDICC? was just another one of all the sales courses the salespeople took, which will soon be forgotten? In fact, 70-80% of the knowledge is forgotten as soon as the course is over. It doesn't matter which course it is, how dynamic the course leader is or how good the course is. When the course is over, reality takes over, all the emails, phone calls and customer meetings literally flood the participants. They are jerked back to reality. Starting to use new sales methods on important deals can feel like taking a chance. Therefore, the sellers wait for less important business - but there is no need for advanced methods such as MEDDICC?. The method is forgotten. The knowledge must therefore be used as soon as possible, preferably within 24-48 hours (13) for it to become a habit.

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The magnitude of the change is equal to the magnitude of the resistance

I have learned that all change is resisted by our habits, our comfort zone. In the previous chapters I talked about how the nervous system's most important function was to protect us from danger. When we change habits and try new sales techniques, there is always a risk that things will go wrong. Just the thought of failure makes us not dare to try something new. I don't know how many salespeople told me on the follow-up course that they waited to use MEDDICC because this particular customer was so important, that they would wait until a less important deal came up, to try it then. It may sound logical and wise, but the truth is that these sellers will never cross the threshold, they will never try - there is always something to lose. Their nervous system has set up an effective protection against failure and thus eliminated the possibility of succeeding at something new. We must therefore dare to fail in order to succeed. But here it is important to be smart, to remember the law and forces and counterforces. If you want to make a big change in the way you sell, you will first face massive resistance, because it means that many things have to change at the same time. The risk that you will fall back into the same rut is close to 100%. If, however, you introduce small changes, step by step and without interruption, you will get used to being in change, like traveling around a foreign country. After an initial culture shock, you will become increasingly used to meeting new people, tastes and places. You should think in exactly the same way when you start using MEDDICC. MEDDICC is designed to insert letter by letter. If you have the opportunity, you should start with M, metrics, on the Monday after the course, E, economic buyer, on Tuesday, etc. After 7 working days, you will have the entire MEDDICC in place. A fantastic tool is the MEDDICC Dealsheet, a notepad where you can write down everything the customer says, sorted into MEDDICC? different parts, a box for each letter. You can easily see which letter is missing information - this makes it easier to remember and complete.

Another useful tool is the MEDDICC? Salescompass. When you want to scale up MEDDICC? for your entire sales team, you will benefit greatly from MEDDICC? Salescompass, a simple graph that shows how far the deal has come in each part of MEDDICC? and what the estimated hit rate is. You get a clear picture of the business's strengths and weaknesses - the picture makes it easy for everyone who participates in the business to get the same picture of the situation. Everyone on the team will see what is needed to take the deal to the finish line or qualify it out of the pipeline.

An example of how a consistent and sustained use of MEDDICC? Salescompass helped a sales team beat their budget 3 years in a row was when a MEDDICC trained sales manager, ?ke, decided that all deals above a certain size should be approved by a sales council. In the sales council sat the sales manager, a lawyer, CFO, a solution architectand a bid manager. In order to proceed with the deal, the seller presented his sales case with MEDDICC Dealsheet? and MEDDICC Salescompass?. The team did an overall assessment based on the score shown by the MEDDICC Salescompass?, where the score was above 25% the salesperson was given access to the solution architect and when the score was above 50% to the entire bid team. The sales manager's strategy was simple, by focusing all resources on deals where the score was above 50%, the chance of winning the deals was increased. But it required the sellers to also opt out of the deals where they had a low score, a weak business position. The first half of the year was tough, the sellers were used to getting the resources they wanted. But the sales manager was adamant and even though the salespeople were struggling to find new business, he stood his ground. Pretty quickly, the salespeople noticed that when they were able to present deals with better and better business situations, which showed up on the MEDDICC Salescompass?, they got the sales council's pull to win the deals. The aggregate value of the pipeline went down, but the hit rate went up and the sellers' sales increased steadily. Step by step, the quality of the deals in the pipeline was raised. ?ke said: "At first I couldn't understand why the salespeople didn't come to the sales council better prepared, that they couldn't answer the MEDDICC? questions. Finally, I was struck by an unpleasant realization, we had never made any demands on the salespeople, except that they should reach their sales targets. That they would have to defend their businesses was something completely new.”

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After more than 35 years of experience, I have learned a lot about the mistakes sales managers make when implementing a new sales method

1. It is not enough to send the salespeople on a course to get them to sell in a new way, however logical it may be. New knowledge does not replace established routines.

2. Customers' buying behavior can slow down the new way of selling, esp

buyers who are used to buying products and services by asking

quotes and pressure the prices. It takes enormous strength to resist.

3. The first steps of change are fun but to change one's whole way of

work is extremely hard and demanding. It's easy to fall back into old routines

4. Salespeople who perform well enough have the hardest time changing their way of selling. They usually do not have the winning instinct required to dare to fail a few times, their motivation is hindered by the risk of not reaching their budget. The reason why they perform mediocre lies in this fear, they do not dare to try something new.

5. Management can sometimes be the biggest obstacle of all for MEDDICC? to be implemented. The management's routines for sales reports, sales forecasts and how the salespeople get resources must also be changed. The CRM system must be adapted. But the biggest problem occurs when the management team demands that the salespeople perform at the same level as before, even though they have to try a new method. It prevents the sellers from having time to find new deals to replace those that were disqualified, deals that were already lost, stalled or where the chances of winning were small. Normally, such deals make up 50-70% of the pipeline. The sellers get stressed and start looking for easy deals to at least show their managers that they can sell. Soon the entire investment in MEDDICC is lost.

If you want to develop yourself and your entire sales team, a lot of motivation is required.

You need to set challenging goals, it may be about your survival. The new goals force everyone to rethink and to find new ways: bigger deals, new customers, a different pricing strategy and faster sales processes. Perhaps your market has changed, new competitors have appeared, customers have become more accustomed buyers and your product has become less unique. Then it is necessary that the way of selling changes in order for sales to be maintained. MEDDICC? is a simple and straightforward approach to selling but it will take a lot of courage to ask the customer challenging questions about their Metrics, Economic buyer and pain.

FIVE TIPS TO QUICKLY TRANSFORM THE SALES FORCE TO SELL SOLUTIONS

Five things are required to successfully introduce a solution-driven sales methodology.

1. First, you need to find the decision makers at your customers who are ready to shift their focus from talking about products and price to discussing with you how they can solve their business problems.

Those decision makers sit in the management team. For them, the business goals are the most important, not which suppliers they use or products & services they buy. If you can arouse their interest, show them how to solve their business problems, there are good conditions for success. The easiest way is to collect reference stories from other successful projects. You can use them to book meetings with the right people.

2. You need to put in place a sales process that helps the customer to buy.

Then your sales activities, the decision criteria and decision process in MEDDICC? that you coach the customer to use, can help the customer buy a solution to their problems. Your way of selling will show that you are different. The sellers need to create their GO-LIVE Plan together with the customers and explain why this plan is ultimately about the quality assured solution and maximizing the chances of success.

3. You need someone to coach you and your team.

Everyone needs a good coach, not someone who does the work for you, but a coach who helps you see what is going well and what you need to develop. The coach's most important job is to get you to keep fighting when it's tough.

4. Training in MEDDICC? is needed for a long time

The training will provide the answers and skills in how to use the MEDDICC? questions correctly, how to get the customer to open up and tell about their pain, how to ask questions to find the causes of the problems, how to build ideas together with the customer and identify the Metrics which means the most to the customer and thus gets the Economic buyer to set aside money for your business.?

5. Your CRM system must supports MEDDICC?

The CRM system must be the center point, the hub, in the salespeople's work. All answers to the MEDDICC? questions must be found there, data on the deal's size, content and closing date, information about contact persons at the customer, MEDDICC Salescompass and where the deal is in the sales process. Then the sales manager and CFO can themselves create sales forecasts and analyze the salespeople's performance. The reports become excellent coaching tools, they are freed from emotions, the numbers speak for themselves. From the CRM system, you can the activity level, the current pipeline, the size of the average deal, hit rate and how long the sales cycle is. These are the most important data points you need to make a reliable sales forecast. Documents such as GO-LIVE Plan and MEDDICC? Salescompass should also be able to be created directly in the CRM system.

An example of how important it is to be able to measure the pipeline was when I worked with a construction company that wanted to increase its hit rate on quotes. They only had 2 percent when we started the project, it was too low as it cost a lot of money to offer. They identified a new type of business they called early projects, where clients hadn't started their planning process yet. In order to reach these customers, the salesmen went out with some ideas under their arms, they had concept sketches in A1 size. The sketches made the customers think and many wanted to start a new building project but lacked ideas. It could be a new kindergarten, retirement home or a fire station. After two years, they achieved a 68 percent hit rate on these trades and made the margin increase to 7 percent, which was more than doubling! An important success factor for the new sales process, MEDDICC?, to take hold was to evaluate each business every week for 2 years with the MEDDICC? Salescompass.

5-30-180 Day MEDDICC? Implementation Plan

Run fast and speed up

My experience is that it facilitates an implementation of MEDDICC? if you have a plan with activities and measurable milestones. Your team sees what they need to do, you can show them and your management how the plan is being followed, which will give you plenty of opportunities to praise progress and address areas where you're stumbling. The first week after training is the most important: using MEDDICC on all trades. Then you can celebrate that you have reached the first milestone already after five days.

The first 5 days after MEDDICC? sales training

Now your salespeople have plenty of motivation, inspiration and knowledge. Take action immediately: Go through all the deals you have in the pipeline. Ignore small orders and upsells. Ask salespeople to use the MEDDICC? dealsheet to summarize the answers to the MEDDICC questions and complete the MEDDICC? Salescompass. Set aside time with each salesperson and put the deals into three piles: Qualified with MEDDICC?, lost or stalled deals, and deals that have no answers to the MEDDICC? questions but have made progress. Probably 50% of the trades disappear in the second pile, lost or stalled trades. Ask the sales people to schedule meetings with the customers where they need to dig deeper to find the answers to the MEDDICC questions. On the fifth day, you can summarize the group's pipeline and update your sales forecast, now based on facts.

6- 30 days after MEDDICC? sales training

Now that you have a handle on your pipeline and your CRM is up to date, you've come a long way. Continue to coach the sellers using MEDDICC on all new deals above a certain size, focus your time on the new deals the sellers manage to find. During this period, you and your team must concentrate on the MEDDICC? questions. Book a few workshops where you take each letter and create 3-5 relevant questions, so they fit what you sell and feel right to ask. The goal is for you to create a question battery of 21-35 questions. Now, salespeople can use this library to select the right questions for each business opportunity. If you have a CRM system that has a Playbook function, you can enter the questions there - they will be visible and help the salespeople remember them.. A simpler solution is to print out the questions, laminate them in A4 size and take them with youat customer meetings. The milestone is that you have relevant MEDDICC? questions. Role-play the MEDDICC? questions with your salespeople twice each week. With each role play, the salesperson's confidence will increase.

31- 180 days after MEDDICC? sales training

The resistance will now begin to be felt. Your salespeople will start to be careless, they will forget to ask difficult questions and to update the CRM system. Even if the salespeople notice how MEDDICC? leads to business, that the hit rate increases and that the sales process becomes more efficient, it can be difficult. You will notice the most resistance from the sellers who before MEDDICC? sales training sold well - they already have a winning recipe, why change their mind? If your MEDDICC? investment is to survive 180 days, discipline is required on your part: All deals must have answers to the MEDDICC questions, otherwise they will be disqualified. All deals must be registered in your CRM system. One of our customers, IBM, even changed the bonus system, it was only the deals that were in the CRM system before the customer signed the contract that were bonus-based.

181 – 360 days after MEDDICC? sales training

Now the worst is over – MEDDICC? is in the sellers' behavior, CRM system and routines. Now you can introduce more tools like storytelling, GO-LIVE Plan and competitive strategies, depending on what you see as needed. Your salespeople will have different needs. Your most important mission is to maintain discipline, that all business must pass the MEDDICC? test: all MEDDICC? questions must be able to be answered.

Summary

An enormous number of books have been written about change management. Feel free to delve deeper. I have learned the hard way that MEDDICC? must be supported by the CRM system in order for the training to lead to a change in sales behavior. My tip; start using MEDDICC? Salescompass on all your deals immediately after completing MEDDICC? sales training. Then you will see where you are strong and what in MEDDICC? you need to focus more on. The increase in your sales will happen almost automatically. Now you have received another key to how you and your sales colleagues can increase your sales. Now you can act as a team and coach each other to always use MEDDICC? in all sales processes, at all meetings.

Jens Edgren, Master MEDDICC Instructor, CEO

[email protected] www.meddicc.se