MEDDPICC: Connecting The Dots – PART THREE

Continuing our MEDDPICC journey…

In connecting the dots of MEDDPICC part one and part two we talked about uncovering the pain, identifying and building a relationship with a potential champion and how to obtain metrics to establish a strong need to tackle the problem.

In this blog post we are going to elaborate on how you can supercharge your campaign by establishing access and relationship with the economic buyer and why this is important to you.

It is the sanity check or as we like to call it the GO/NO GO meeting allowing you to understand if you have a case or you need to go back to square one.

MEDDPICC: Who is the Economic Buyer?

The Economic Buyer (EB) is the individual with ultimate authority to make the purchase decision. Often responsible for a division with responsibility to the business top line initiatives. As they own or control the budget, their approval is often essential for closing the deal.

This person will in one way or another be involved in the decision making, so it would be more than beneficial to meet the EB. Discuss how you could help them with some of their issues. Get an agreement of the importance of your discovered pain, ideally identify their criteria for success and mutually plot on potential next steps!

Meeting the EB is easy, right?

Of course not. These are busy people, well protected by their organization so they can focus on the top level business issues. They avoid internal meetings if they don’t serve their priorities. They don’t take meetings with vendors lightly unless a trusted advisor recommends them to do so.

The good news is that you have all the ingredients on why your prospect should do anything  to make the EB interested enough to meet you.

How to leverage MEDDPICC to get an EB meeting?

If you followed the the qualification steps in connecting the dots of MEDDPICC in part 1 and 2  you have uncovered a pain with implications on business. In your meetings with the stakeholders you have collected metrics that quantify the business benefits and you have established a trusting relationship with your champion that believes in you and your offerings to solve the pain.

This is the perfect time to finally check if you have developed a solid champion or a talkative coach with no power and influence! HOW? By asking for a joint meeting with EB to jointly present the findings on pain and implication, getting agreement on the importance and their commitment to sponsor your “joint” campaign. 

If you are not comfortable asking for the meeting, check if you have really developed a solid champion. It is crucial that you have established an honest, transparent bi-directional relationship that has the power and influence to make things happen. 

If you have a strong champion but the person still feels that you are not ready to go for that meeting, take a step back elaborate on the “why do anything?”. The discoveries around pain and the impact on the business and stress the importance to challenge your case with the EB, to secure their support and extended power.

Why Meeting the Economic Buyer Is Key to Closing Deals

I like to compare the clarity on a sales campaign before and after the EB meeting with a hike in the mountains. Where you start in the valley full of fog, trees with no clear sight where the trail takes you until you reach the point where the mist settles like a carpet below you, above the forrest line and you have a crystal clear sight to the peak.When you start your campaign with your discovery calls there will be unclear, sometimes conflicting information and very rarely will you be able have a clear understanding on the business needs and the steps needed to obtain a decision. However, after you met the EB you will have a clear sight if and how you can get to close your deal. 

Here some reasons why is it important to meet the EB

What happens if you don’t?

We all have closed deals without getting a relationship with the Economic buyer, but here some things that could happen if you don’t meet the Economic Buyer in a B2B enterprise sales scenario, several potential complications can arise

In Summary…

Meeting the Economic buyer enables you to dive into the business impact of your discovered pain points, confirm the criteria for success from their point of view which will enrich your knowledge on how the client will be able to make decision and get into an agreement on the next steps upon proofing your ability to address the outlined business needs. This will establish trust with the person of true power and influence eventually developing into a Champion, helping you out when politics and processes slow you down.

Not meeting the Economic Buyer may still work, but may exposing you to risks due to misalignment of expectations, a lack of trust in your offering or simply slowing your deal down as you have to drive your deal through the mills of the clients decision process with lower ranked stakeholders or even by yourself. 

So, don’t underestimate the importance of meeting and building relationship with the Economic Buyer in your sales process. Some MEDDPICC veterans communicate a 80 to 90% win rate after a successful EB meeting. From my point of view I can say that 99% of the deals that slipped at the end of the quarter, we did not have a relationship established with the EB!  Click here to read more about the Economic Buyer (EB)

In Part 4 of our MEDDPICC series we will talk about the how you will be able prepare the client for a coordinated approach to a buying decision.

In the meantime, while eagerly awaiting Part 4, we invite you to request a demo to experience firsthand how our powerful tool integrates seamlessly with Salesforce, revolutionizing your sales process with the help of MEDDPICC. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to see it in action! Stay tuned and schedule your demo today.