“You have not met the economic buyer. Everything above that line is optimism.”
Caty · MEDDIC · every deal, every week
Ask her by voice. Type if you cannot talk.The original six. Read every week by Caty.
MEDDIC is the qualification framework that started the discipline: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion. Replicate Labs installs it as the standard your deals are judged against. Caty then scores every live deal against the six and names the call that has to happen next.
Six letters. Each one earned, or empty.
A qualified MEDDIC deal reads like a short case file: metrics agreed and written down, the Economic Buyer met and quoted, criteria captured verbatim, a dated process, pain in the buyer’s words, a Champion who has already done something hard for you.
- M
Metrics
The quantified business outcome the buyer expects, in their numbers. Not “improve efficiency”. “Cut 14 hours a week off month-end close.” If you cannot put a figure on the win, you cannot prove ROI and you cannot hold a price.
- E
Economic Buyer
The single person with the authority and budget to say yes without asking anyone else. MEDDIC is blunt here: if you have not met them, named them and heard their priorities first-hand, the deal is not qualified, however warm your contact is.
- D
Decision Criteria
The specific, often unwritten standards the buyer will use to choose. Technical, commercial and relational. Get them documented in the buyer’s words, then influence them before the criteria harden against you.
- D
Decision Process
The literal sequence from verbal yes to signed contract: every approval, demo, reference call and gate, with owners and dates. A vague process is the single most common reason “committed” deals slip a quarter.
- I
Identify Pain
The named business pain that justifies action now. A cost the buyer can articulate and feels personally, never a wish. No compelling pain, no urgency; no urgency, no deal that closes this quarter.
- C
Champion
A person inside the account with influence and a personal stake in your win, who sells for you when you are not in the room. Test the difference between a friend and a champion: ask them to do something. Set up the EB meeting, send a draft business case. A champion delivers.
All six, every week. Then the next call.
Caty scores your live deals against all six criteria, every week, and names the slots that hold evidence. She does not let “Champion: VP of Ops” sit unchallenged; she asks what that person has done for the deal. She turns “Decision Process: Q3” into the question for the next call. Bring the deal to her on a call; typing works when you cannot talk.
- Every deal, all six, every week. The empty slot named before the forecast call finds it.
- The next action, by voice. Which buyer to call, and what to ask.
Asked in the channel. “@Caty is Northwind ready for commit?”
Standard MEDDIC out of the box. Upload your qualification bar when you want her tuned to it.
CatyWeekly read · NorthwindFour of six earned. The Economic Buyer is unmet.
Everything above that line is optimism until the meeting happens. Your contact likes you; that is not the same slot.
- MMetricsEarned
- EEconomic BuyerEmpty
- DDecision CriteriaEarned
- DDecision ProcessEarned
- IIdentify PainEarned
- CChampionEmpty
MEDDIC, in short.
The six letters, and where they came from.
What is MEDDIC?
The original B2B sales qualification framework: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion. Developed at PTC in the 1990s. It is a qualification discipline: a way of pressure-testing whether a deal is real. Most teams have since evolved to MEDDPICC, which adds Paper Process and Competition.
Is MEDDIC a discovery method or a qualification method?
Qualification. MEDDIC does not tell you what to ask on a discovery call the way SPIN or Gap Selling do. It tells you what a deal must contain to be considered real, and it surfaces what is missing. The best teams pair it with a discovery method: discovery uncovers the information, MEDDIC checks that you actually have it.
How do I tell a Champion from a friend?
A friend gives you information and good wishes. A Champion has a personal stake in your win and acts on it. The test MEDDIC teaches: ask them to do something that costs them effort or political capital: arrange the Economic Buyer meeting, co-author the business case, push the legal review. A Champion delivers. A friend explains why it is hard. If nobody passes that test, you do not have a Champion yet, and the deal carries risk you cannot see.
Why does the Economic Buyer matter so much?
Because deals stall, shrink or die in the gap between the people who like your product and the one person who controls the budget. MEDDIC treats “have you met the EB” as a binary qualifier on purpose. Working through their team is a relay race, and information, urgency and your value story all degrade with every handoff. Caty will keep asking for that meeting until it happens.
Should I use MEDDIC or MEDDPICC?
MEDDIC if your sales cycle is short and legal or procurement is not a bottleneck. MEDDPICC if your enterprise deals die in paper process or you keep losing on competitive feel. The two extra letters (Paper Process and Competition) exist because those are the things that kill more enterprise Q4 deals than discovery does.
Who coaches MEDDIC?
Caty. She is methodology-flexible: she knows MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, MEDDPICCC and the variants. Pick MEDDIC and she runs your discovery and deals through all six criteria.
How do I get Caty for my team?
Speak to us. Caty is delivered through Replicate Labs partners who configure her against MEDDIC and your team’s qualification bar. Bring a live deal to a working session first and see the read on it before anything is rolled out.
Run a deal through the six. Caty will say which slot is empty.
A working session with a Replicate Labs partner. Bring your top deal and hear the read on all six criteria out loud, then decide whether every deal in the pipeline should get it weekly.