I wrote the book on developer marketing. Literally. Picks and Shovels hit #1 on Amazon.

Get your copy
Sales and revenueMEDDIC

MEDDIC

MED-ik

A sales qualification framework: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion.

MEDDIC is a deal qualification framework that forces sales teams to answer six questions about every opportunity:

  • Metrics: What quantifiable business outcome will the customer achieve?
  • Economic buyer: Who has authority to approve the purchase?
  • Decision criteria: What factors will the customer use to evaluate options?
  • Decision process: What are the steps from evaluation to signed contract?
  • Identify pain: What specific business pain does the customer need to solve?
  • Champion: Who inside the organization will advocate for your solution?

If you cannot answer all six questions, the deal is not qualified. That does not mean you abandon it. It means you have specific gaps to fill. No champion? Find one. Do not know the decision process? Ask. Cannot articulate the customer's metrics? You are guessing, and guessing is how deals slip.

MEDDIC works because it is diagnostic, not prescriptive. It does not tell you how to sell. It tells you what you need to know. A fully MEDDIC-qualified deal closes at 2-3x the rate of an unqualified one.

Examples

A sales manager reviews a deal in pipeline.

The rep says the deal is solid. The manager runs through MEDDIC. Metrics: 'They want to reduce deployment time.' Decision process: 'Not sure yet.' Champion: 'The team lead likes us.' The manager identifies two gaps: undefined decision process and a weak champion. The deal stays but gets a lower probability.

A rep fully qualifies a deal.

Metrics: reduce incident response time from 45 to 15 minutes (saving $2M/year). Economic buyer: CTO, confirmed. Decision criteria: integration with existing stack, time to deploy, price. Decision process: technical eval, security review, procurement, CTO approval. Pain: two major outages last quarter cost $1.5M. Champion: VP of Engineering, actively sponsoring internally. This deal is real.

A forecast review uses MEDDIC to grade pipeline.

The CRO requires every deal above $100k to have a completed MEDDIC scorecard. Deals missing two or more elements get downgraded in the forecast. Deals with all six get weighted at a higher probability. Forecast accuracy improves from 60% to 85%.

In practice

Read more on the blog

Frequently asked questions

What does MEDDIC stand for?

Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion. Some organizations use MEDDPICC, adding Paper process (legal and procurement) and Competition.

When should you use MEDDIC versus BANT?

BANT is simpler and works for faster, smaller deals. MEDDIC is more thorough and better suited for complex enterprise sales with long cycles and multiple stakeholders. Many organizations use BANT for initial qualification and MEDDIC for deals above a certain threshold.

Related terms

Picks and Shovels: Marketing to Developers During the AI Gold Rush

Want the complete playbook?

Picks and Shovels is the definitive guide to developer marketing. Amazon #1 bestseller with practical strategies from 30 years of marketing to developers.