Following our prior post, "MEDDIC is Not a Checklist," we received lots of questions about AI. Most important, what should sales orgs be doing today to best take advantage of this AI emergence, some say revolution?
In short, there are a lot of things needing to be done. AI requires data. And, we all know the common phrase about data and analytics, “garbage in, garbage out.” You need to start treating your MEDDIC less like notes and more like data. And for some, that’s not necessarily easy. This will take a combined effort from your entire revenue org. They will want to be involved and benefit.
Where's the Value?
Before we dive into the “hard part,” let’s talk benefits. Preparing your MEDDIC for AI will improve current insights and functions, provide signals that wouldn’t normally be detected, and make capturing MEDDIC easier.
Better scoring. There are platforms that will include your MEDDIC in deal scoring and complex forecasting algorithms. Finance will love the result as well as the analytic visibility behind it.
What’s working? Start treating and using MEDDIC as data and feedback on what is working and what is not. For example, MEDDIC can tell you what sales plays and messaging are hitting the mark and for whom.
Pivoting. Subtle changes in customer use cases, buying processes, and buyer personas start to emerge. As previously mentioned, MEDDIC can be feedback indicating new trends that may otherwise have been considered anomalies. The sooner you detect those changes the sooner the business is able to take advantage of them.
AI Tools. Pay it back to AEs with new productivity tools. There is a fine line between using AI and getting real value from AI. The sooner you start structuring your MEDDIC for AI consumption and training, the sooner your sales org extracts real productivity value from AI. Conversational intelligence (CI) is a great example. Providing keywords to listen for isn’t nearly as effective as training the AI on context and meaning.
Simple Steps
All great benefits, right? But, there are a few steps you should start executing on to treat your MEDDIC as data. WARNING: Please don’t overthink the steps below. Keep this simple and limit it to the obvious.
Expected Language. This means creating a set of unified language that’s tailored to the use cases your solution addresses, the challenges typically observed, the industry and domain discussed, and the personas normally engaging. We all like to think that today’s AI has all this context baked in. And it does! Along with 50 million other subjects. You need to train and focus your AI. The words, context, and manner articulated matter greatly. This doesn’t have to be exhaustive. In fact, you will probably already have plenty of product documentation, marketing materials, and sales collateral to help seed the discussion and set the right expectations. Think of this as what language should I expect and absolutely not expect.
Create Structure. Despite what others may tell you, all data requires structure. Start providing structure to the manner in recording your MEDDIC. This can be as simple as six free-text fields in your Opportunity record. Make sure each component is individually called out. Make sure it sits within the technology commonly used to track your deal progress. Don’t get too prescriptive here. No list of values is required.
Quality Control. Review your MEDDIC on a regular basis. Scrutinize it. Judge it. If too weak and unclear, boost it up. Quality is the focus here. And, because we are treating it as data, data quality is of importance as well. Put data quality checks on your MEDDIC. Make sure fields are filled in. Check for key words and phrases. You won’t hit everything, but at least you may trigger a reminder and rethink what has been written.
Correlate & Classify. Make sure documented MEDDIC can be correlated and attributed properly to sales activities. Track it directly to a specific opportunity. Know when information was first entered and updated. Know what MEDDIC is associated with successfully won deals and those deals closed early reflecting proper qualification. This will help you classify what good looks like when you go to train your AI on the MEDDIC you want and expect to see and target.
Use It. Start leveraging existing AI tools to assist with MEDDIC. Using these tools in the simplest and untrained fashions will help you get to more effective utility. Recognize there is an AI maturity journey that can be started today.
Getting the most out of AI in your sales process starts with treating MEDDIC as data. Start employing the simple steps above. Start your journey to productive utility and greater value from AI today.
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.
Get in touch. Let us show you how to implement MEDDIC more effectively and ensure the greatest value beyond simple qualification.
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