ALWAYS BE QUALIFYING: M.E.D.D.I.C.

In the past few years, companies both large and small, have been calling regularly on Darius Lahoutifard to get help with their non performing sales team. Described symptoms can be different from one company to another. Some suffer from shortage in revenue. Others complain about unreliable forecasts with deals slipping constantly from one quarter to another, before being even lost or abandoned a few quarters later. Some CEOs notice unproductive sales teams with an unusual high number of non-quota-carrying people in the sales force, reducing the profitability of the company. Darius observes that all these symptoms are related to the same illness: inability to qualify. Since most sales teams put in place organizations including SDR (Sales Development Representatives) or BDR (Business Development Representatives) who qualify leads for Account Managers, there is a wrong unstated assumption, widely spread, that once a lead is qualified, the inside sales or field sales will have to work on them until they are won or lost. Qualification is often missing or is considered as done. Qualification is not a binary step of the sales process. Qualification is a mindset and habit to apply all along the sales process from the first call all the way to the closing. The book covers both the Why and the How of sales qualification. The author who was an early sales leader at PTC where the MEDDIC methodology took shape, is also the founder of MEDDIC Academy, first to bring the qualification methodology online. The book describes the M.E.D.D.I.C. (also known as MEDDPICC) sales methodology in depth, . A chapter is dedicated to each element of MEDDPICC. This is not a book of theories, research or academic concepts, but pure execution techniques with practical recipes. At a high level, MEDDIC is a checklist helping sales professionals to execute. Although the context is B-to-B and high end sales, "Always Be Qualifying" is a must in any sales situation including B-to-C or retail.