Sales Qualification
Qualification determines whether a deal deserves time and resources. Unqualified pipeline is worse than no pipeline — it creates false confidence in forecasts and wastes capacity on deals that will never close.
MEDDIC
Developed at PTC in the 1990s. The industry standard for complex B2B sales. Each letter is a question the seller must be able to answer:
M — Metrics
What measurable business outcome does the buyer need to achieve?
- Quantify the impact in the buyer's terms: revenue increase, cost reduction, time saved, risk reduced
- Example: "Reducing invoice processing time by 60% saves £180k/year in staff time"
- Without metrics, you cannot build a business case or justify price
E — Economic Buyer
Who has P&L authority to approve this purchase?
- Not the champion, not the committee — the person who can say yes when everyone else says no, and vice versa
- Economic buyers care about: ROI, strategic fit, risk, and organisational impact
- If you haven't met the economic buyer, you don't have a real deal
D — Decision Criteria
What formal and informal criteria will be used to evaluate vendors?
- Formal: RFP requirements, technical specs, compliance requirements
- Informal: relationships, risk aversion, preference for incumbents
- Your job: understand all criteria and either meet them or reframe them
D — Decision Process
What are the steps, stakeholders, and timeline to reach a decision?
- Who is involved at each stage?
- What approvals are required (legal, security, finance, IT)?
- What is the realistic timeline from verbal agreement to signed contract?
- Deals die in process gaps — map it explicitly
I — Identify Pain
What is the compelling business problem driving this purchase?
- Pain must be real, quantified, and linked to a business outcome
- Pain with a deadline creates urgency; pain without a deadline creates stalled deals
- Distinguish: explicit pain (they've articulated it) vs latent pain (they feel it but haven't named it)
C — Champion
Who inside the buying organisation is selling on your behalf?
- A champion has: influence with the economic buyer, access to information, and genuine belief in your solution
- Champions are made, not found — invest in giving them the tools, language, and confidence to sell internally
- No champion = no deal in complex sales
MEDDPICC (Extended)
Adds two elements for highly competitive enterprise deals:
P — Paper Process: Legal, procurement, and contract negotiation path. Who owns it? What are the blockers? How long does it typically take?
C — Competition: Who else are they evaluating? What are the competitor's strengths? What is your differentiated position? Have you identified their weakness and confirmed the buyer sees it?
BANT (Simplified Qualification)
Developed by IBM. More appropriate for transactional or SMB sales with shorter cycles.
| Letter | Question |
|---|
| Budget | Is there budget allocated or identifiable for this? |
| Authority | Are we speaking with the decision maker? |
| Need | Is there a clear, acknowledged business need? |
| Timeline | When do they need to have a solution in place? |
BANT is a starting filter, not a full qualification. A deal can pass BANT and still be lost due to poor champion, wrong decision criteria, or a buried competitor relationship.
Disqualification
Strong qualification means being willing to disqualify. A deal should be disqualified when:
- No economic buyer access and champion won't create it
- Pain is not quantified and buyer resists quantification
- Timeline is indefinite and no compelling event exists
- Decision criteria cannot be met and cannot be reframed
- No budget pathway and no creative commercial option
Disqualifying a bad deal early is a win. It frees capacity for deals that can be won.
Qualification in Practice
Run MEDDIC as a deal review framework, not an interrogation of the buyer:
- Gaps in your MEDDIC map = gaps in your deal strategy
- Every gap is a question to resolve in the next conversation
- Update after every material buyer interaction
- Use in pipeline reviews: "What's your M? Have you met the E? Who's your C?"