MEDDPICC

Metrics: the number the whole deal rests on

Every business case, every ROI model and every argument you will make in procurement is built on a number that has to come from this call.

Lesson 2 of 6

Metrics are the quantified business outcome the customer expects. Not what your product does, and not what you think the impact will be. What they expect, in their units.

Why it comes first

Everything downstream depends on it. The ROI model, the priority ranking against other projects, the answer to "why now", and the case your champion will make when you are not in the room, all reduce to a number. If you do not have it, you will be arguing about price, because price is the only number in the conversation.

What a real metric looks like

Weak: "It would improve efficiency." Better: "It would save time for the support team." Real: "We handle three thousand tickets a week, about forty percent are the same five questions, and each one takes a coordinator about six minutes."

The third one is a metric because you can do arithmetic with it. The first two are sentiments.

Getting it

The question that works is not "what are your metrics?" — nobody talks like that. It is a series of ordinary questions whose answers happen to be numbers:

• "How many of those come in, roughly, in a week?"
• "How long does one take, start to finish?"
• "How many people are doing that today?"
• "What does good look like — what number would you want it to be?"

The moment reps lose it

The prospect says "a lot" or "it varies" and the rep accepts it and moves on. That is the entire failure, and it happens because pressing feels rude.

It is not rude. "Roughly how many, in a normal week?" is a question anyone can answer, and it is the one question the rest of the deal depends on. If they genuinely do not know, that is itself a finding: a problem nobody has measured is a problem nobody has priced, and your first job may be helping them measure it.

Sanity-checking

A metric that cannot survive their CFO is not a metric. Before you build a business case on it, ask "is that a number you would be comfortable putting in front of finance?" You would much rather find out now than in week six.

Check yourself

Answers are shown as soon as you open each one. The explanation is the point, not the score.

1. A prospect says "handling these takes up a lot of the team’s week". What should the rep do next?

• Present the product’s efficiency benefits
• Record it as the metric and move on
• Ask roughly how many come in and how long one takes

"A lot" cannot be used in arithmetic. The follow-up is ordinary and easy to answer, and the rest of the deal depends on it.

2. Whose number is a metric?

• The customer’s, in their own units
• The vendor’s published benchmark
• The rep’s estimate based on similar customers

A metric you supplied is a claim. A metric they supplied is a business case, and it is the one their finance function will accept.

3. The prospect genuinely does not know the number. What does that tell you?

• The deal is dead
• A problem nobody has measured is a problem nobody has priced, and helping them measure it may be the first step
• You should estimate it for them and proceed

It is a finding, not a dead end. But proceeding as though the number exists, or inventing one for them, builds the deal on something neither of you can defend.

All lessons

1. 1What MEDDPICC is for, and what it is not
2. 2Metrics: the number the whole deal rests on
3. 3Economic buyer and Champion: who decides, and who sells for you
4. 4Decision criteria and process: the two letters that set your close date
5. 5Identified pain and Competition: why they would move, and what stops them
6. 6Paper process: the least interesting letter, and the one that moves your close date