MEDDIC for Presales - Identified Pain
In the world of Presales, the MEDDIC framework is a valuable tool for addressing customer pain points. It's crucial to understand that all pain expressed may not be the same.
Those of use in presales love to hear about pain. We’re not sadists. We don’t take pleasure in the pain of others. But we do have a taste, an appetite, for it. Pain is often the first thing expressed. It’s the reason the prospect reached-out.
As presales, we are often hunting a different type of pain, technical pain. The pain we’ve been speaking about earlier is the business pain. Technical pain relates to specific issues within a customer's technical setup, such as software glitches or hardware limitations. Business pain, on the other hand, encompasses the broader consequences of these technical issues, like lost revenue or increased operational costs. Bridging the gap, connecting the dots, between these two dimensions is key to a successful presales strategy.
When it comes to technical pain, we presales play a unique role. We can help avoid “happy ears” and keep our sales colleagues from leaping at the first expression of pain. It’s important to keep the sales cycle focused on that critical business pain, avoiding “the weeds”. If we collect those technical pains, properly address them, and connect them to the business pain, we create a better opportunity for success. Ignore the technical pain and we potentially lose a Champion, a technical win is not obtained, and fail to close. This piece deserves a separate chapter in future articles and is part of our training classes.
Identifying technical pain does have its pitfalls. Some technical pain is outside the scope of your solution. Choosing the right technical pain to address is important here. That means identifying those technical pain points your solution can address directly or indirectly. Be careful of the severity. Make sure you distinguish between the nuisance versus the critical stoppers. Last, try to find that chronic pain felt by the broader organization, not just the acute pain of a single individual.
Once properly identified, it's vital to show how your solution can address technical pain. Explain how your product or service resolves the technical challenges the customer faces. If your solution doesn't entirely solve the issue, propose a roadmap for addressing it in conjunction with your solution. There are many ways to approach these technical challenges that we can discuss in other articles that are soon to come.
Here are some tips.
But, wait! There’s more. Address a collection of potentially related technical pain, not just what was expressed.
“Yes. But we don’t just connect to Snowflake. We connect seamlessly to this entire range of databases. Let me understand better on what you are trying to achieve.”
Contextualize. At a minimum, show how your solution contributes to alleviating the technical pain, even if your solution doesn’t directly address it. Emphasize how your solution fits seamlessly into the customer's architecture, showing how it contributes to resolving technical issues.
“Let me show you how our users typically overcome that challenge with our solution.”
Connect the Dots. This is so often overlooked. Articulate a thread from solution capability to the business pain and objectives. Arm your customer with how success will be accomplished.
“Your DBAs will no longer have to do this manually and they will be able to monitor from here. This makes scheduling of key data processes easier and improves your processing frequency. This is an important element in achieving your near real-time reporting.”
MEDDIC offers a structured approach to identifying and addressing technical and business pain points. Understanding the difference and connecting these pains empowers presales professionals to offer compelling solutions and drive successful sales engagements.
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