What's not taught in any sales training: You are not selling software. You are aligning your solution to a project. What defines a project? • A strategic business initiative it ladders up to • An owner(s) responsible for outcomes • A project timeline • End users • Key metrics for success • Defined outcomes and projected ROI • And also, technology (or multiple pieces of it) Sellers are hammered with MEDDPICC to “qualify deals”, but are never taught WHY each of the letters in the acronym are important from a buyer’s POV - only from a lens of getting a deal done. The natural consequence is buyers don’t want to talk to salespeople before they’ve made up their mind. And who could blame them? If sellers’ incentives were tied to the success of their customers once the deal was closed, extra care would be taken to understand why said purchases were being made in the first place and what’s needed to make them successful. (Hint: It’s not just “a CSM and onboarding support”.) And yes, this means being willing to walk away from “bad” deals, i.e. ones that don’t have a properly defined and scoped project to even make use of the technology. Sales leaders: If you wanted to make one single change to your enablement program, it would be to help your sellers very viscerally understand their buyers world. • What conditions need to be true to lead to a tech evaluation? • What is needed (beyond features) needed to make it successful? • How can a seller effectively guide a buyer through the process? You cannot be ever truly be “consultative” without this baseline knowledge. Done right, buyers would be far more amenable to engaging with sellers earlier in the process. They would also be open to sharing the truth of what’s going on in their business, trusting the seller will advise in their best interest. #sales
E xactly right. Most sellers are busy pitching technology when what they’re actually doing is stepping into a business project that already has politics, deadlines, and defined success metrics. The ones who win know how to map the deal to a living project, not just a product demo. They think like operators who are accountable for results, not vendors trying to close a quarter.
This is something Rob Snyder also preaches. People buy things because they have blocked projects and you can help unblock them. You’re not selling software. You’re selling necessary tools for them to do the project, like a hammer to someone whose project is hanging a painting
THANK YOU for saying this. So critical yet so often overlooked. In my experience, customers will open up completely and share their roadmap for how they define success and value, but you have to ask the right questions the right way at the right time to create a conversation. (Not an interrogation!) start by asking about their company and their job which is what they are experts in. They are not and will never be experts in your solution!
Exactly. Too many reps sell "tools" instead of transformation. Real enterprise selling is project leadership disguised as sales -aligning tech to strategic pain, ownership and ROI. The best sellers think like internal sponsors, not vendors chasing signatures
One of the best sales posts this week! Spot on
If all sellers followed this there would be more hitting quota.
Exactly, selling isn’t about pushing a product. It’s about mapping your solution to a real, scoped project with accountable owners and measurable outcomes. Without understanding the buyer’s world, MEDDPICC becomes a checklist, not a strategy. True consultative selling starts with empathy and context, not features.
I always start with the MEDDPICC value pyramid to help sellers understand the buyers world and their strategic objectives.
Agree with this entirely. If commission was tied into the success of the deal, post-signature, that would revolutionalise the marketplace.
CEO @ Champify | I help Mid Market and Enterprise GTM teams unlock millions in pipeline trapped in existing systems
2dThis is a great post -- exactly why AppDynamics hired a former IT buyer to run enablement -- Rick Kickert goes deep on it in this episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zCRARnnywsFL7ttDZwoXX?si=32b335b9f0ce4b5f