A MEDDPICC deal review is a weekly meeting in which a sales team inspects a few open deals letter by letter and leaves with one action per deal. The frontline manager runs it with the account executives, and sometimes a sales engineer or the manager's own leader. It takes 45 to 60 minutes for two or three deals, plus ten minutes of preparation per deal from the rep.
This piece covers the team meeting. For the one-on-one version, where a manager works a single deal with a single rep, see how to coach MEDDPICC on live deals. For where MEDDPICC sits among other methods, the sales methodology guide has the overview, and the deal coaching guide covers deal reviews in any method.
What a MEDDPICC deal review is
The review tests whether each letter in a deal holds buyer evidence, then agrees what the rep does next to close the gap that blocks the next stage. It is forward-looking. MEDDICC.com, a site about the method, calls deal reviews "the most powerful cadence to commit to, bridging the gap between knowing and doing," and recommends an hour a week.
- 01A one-page pre-readEach letter with the buyer's words
- 02The rep tells the dealThree minutes, as the buyer would
- 03Inspect the stage-gate letters"How do you know?" for each
- 04One question each from the room
- 05One action, one owner, one date
- 06Open next week with the actionsAsked or not, and what the buyer said
Two things make it work. The standard for a confirmed letter is written down before the first meeting. And the room is safe enough that a rep will say "I don't know" about a deal in the forecast. A manager who punishes "I don't know" gets confident answers and a forecast that slips anyway.
Stage gates by letter
A lot of review time goes on letters that do not matter yet. Decide which letters a deal must have confirmed to sit at each stage, and inspect those first.
| Stage | Letters that must be buyer-confirmed | First question in the review |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Identify the Pain | "What did they say is broken, and who is feeling it?" |
| Qualified | Pain, Metrics, Champion identified | "What number did the buyer give, and who is helping us inside?" |
| Evaluation | Decision Criteria, Competition, Economic Buyer named | "What are they judging on, and what else are they looking at?" |
| Proposal | Economic Buyer met, Decision Process dated | "Who signs, have we met them, and what are the dated steps?" |
| Commit | Paper Process with owners and durations, Champion tested | "What happens after they say yes, and how long did it take last time?" |
The letters are defined on our MEDDPICC page, and the MEDDPICC deal qualification template is a ready pre-read.
Running the meeting in seven steps
1. Choose the deals by rule
Set the rule once: every deal entering commit, every deal over the size threshold, and any deal that has not moved stage in four weeks. Two or three per meeting. Good looks like: the rep knows on Monday which deal is coming to this week's review.
2. Have the rep fill a one-page pre-read
For each letter, the rep writes buyer-confirmed, rep-inferred or unknown, with the buyer's words beside every confirmed letter. Good looks like: a page the room can read in two minutes, with quotes and dates on it.
3. Let the rep tell the deal in three minutes
Say: "Tell us this deal as the buyer would tell it to their boss." No slides, no CRM on screen. Good looks like: the buyer's problem, the buyer's number and the buyer's date, in the first minute.
4. Inspect the stage-gate letters first
Using the table above, go straight to the letters the deal needs for its current stage. Ask "how do you know?" for each. A letter the rep cannot quote the buyer on moves to rep-inferred, out loud. Good looks like: the stage either holds or moves back, and nobody argues about it, because the rule was written before the deal arrived.
5. Ask the room for one question each
Peers and the sales engineer each offer one question the rep could ask the buyer. Good looks like: two or three usable questions in four minutes, with the rep choosing one.
6. Agree one action, one owner, one date
The deal leaves the room with the single gap that most blocks its next stage, the question that closes it, who will ask it and by when. Update the forecast category now if the deal moved. Good looks like: one line in the CRM next step field that someone else could act on.
7. Open next week with last week's actions
Before any new deal, check each action from last week: asked or not, and what the buyer said. Good looks like: letters moving on buyer quotes, and a rep who did not ask explaining why in one sentence.
Two deals in one team review (illustrative)
This example is illustrative. A team of six reps meets on Thursday. Two deals are on the list.
Deal one: $120,000, a payments company, in commit. The rep tells it: the head of finance operations wants faster reconciliation, has given a target of closing the books two days sooner, and says a decision is due this month. Stage gate for commit: Paper Process and a tested Champion. The manager asks how long the payments company's vendor security review took last time. The rep does not know. The finance operations head has not been asked to do anything beyond attending demos. Both letters move to unknown, and the deal moves from commit to best case. Action: the rep asks the champion to walk through the last vendor approval and to introduce the head of security, by Tuesday.
Deal two: $45,000, a manufacturer, stuck in evaluation for six weeks. The rep says they are comparing two vendors. A peer asks: "What are they doing about it today?" The answer is a spreadsheet run by one analyst. Competition was marked confirmed with two vendors; the third option, keeping the spreadsheet, was never discussed. Action: the rep asks the buyer what it would take to keep the current process for another year, and what that would cost.
A week later, deal one has a seven-week security review on record and a new close date. Deal two's buyer said the analyst is leaving in the spring, which gives the deal a date it did not have.
Where it goes wrong
It turns into a status update. Reps read out stages and amounts. Nothing is inspected, and the forecast inherits the reps' hopes. Inspect letters, not activity.
The manager does all the talking. Reps learn to wait for the verdict. Ask, then let peers ask, then decide.
No written standard. Without one, the same deal is commit for one manager and best case for another. In our call scoring research, even trained experts marking the same calls disagreed with each other on 18% of scores. Write what confirmed means for each letter.
Too many deals. Six deals in an hour gives each one ten minutes, which is enough to read the fields and not enough to find the gap.
Actions nobody checks. If last week's actions are never opened, reps learn the review is a ritual.
Reviewing every deal, every week
A weekly meeting reaches two or three deals. The rest of the pipeline goes uninspected until it slips.
Our AI sales experts run the same review on every deal. Before the team meeting, each rep takes their deal through it on a call with Caty, our expert for MEDDPICC deals: Caty asks how they know, marks each letter on the buyer's evidence against the stage, and leaves the rep with the one question for the buyer. Typing is there for a rep who cannot talk. The manager walks into the team meeting with a read across the team from Bryce, so the meeting starts with the deals that need the room. What is MEDDPICC? has the short definition for new team members.
To hear what the pre-meeting call sounds like on one of your deals, talk to us.
FAQ
How long should a MEDDPICC deal review take?
A team MEDDPICC deal review takes 45 to 60 minutes for two or three deals, about 15 to 20 minutes each. Each rep spends ten minutes beforehand on a one-page pre-read. A one-on-one review of a single deal takes 20 to 30 minutes. Longer slots tend to drift into status updates.
Which deals should go into a MEDDPICC deal review?
Deals should go into a MEDDPICC deal review by rule: every deal entering commit, every deal above your size threshold, and any deal that has not changed stage in four weeks. A rule stops the review filling with the deals reps feel good about, which are seldom the ones that need it.
What is the difference between a deal review and a pipeline review?
A deal review inspects one deal in depth, letter by letter, and ends with an action on that deal. A pipeline review scans the whole pipeline for coverage, stage movement and risk, and ends with a list of deals that need a deal review. Many teams run the pipeline review first and pull deals from it.
Who should attend a MEDDPICC deal review?
The frontline manager and the account executives on the team should attend a MEDDPICC deal review, with sales engineers joining for deals in evaluation. A second-line leader can join occasionally. Keep it small enough that a rep will admit a letter is unknown in front of the room.
What happens when a deal fails its stage gate?
When a deal fails its stage gate in a MEDDPICC deal review, it moves back to the stage its evidence supports, and the forecast category changes with it. The rep leaves with one question for the buyer that would earn the missing letter. Moving deals back is the review working.