“Paper Process is empty on a deal you called committed. Who owns procurement at Acme?”
Caty · MEDDPICC · weekly, by voice
The same read in Slack and in the CRM.Eight criteria. Miss one and it is not a deal.
MEDDPICC is a qualification discipline: eight things a deal must contain to be real. Replicate Labs installs it as the standard your pipeline is judged against. Caty then runs every deal through all eight, every week, by voice, and says which slot holds evidence and which holds optimism.
Eight slots. Evidence in every one.
A qualified MEDDPICC deal is a short, dated case file. Two of the eight are what MEDDPICC adds to MEDDIC, and they exist because enterprise deals rarely die in discovery. They die in procurement, or to a competitor the rep never named.
- M
Metrics
The quantified outcome the buyer expects, in their numbers. “Cut onboarding from 6 weeks to 2”, not “be more efficient.” A metric the buyer wrote down is the difference between a qualified deal and a polite conversation.
- E
Economic Buyer
The one person who can sign without asking anyone else. MEDDPICC asks it as a binary: have you met them, when, and what did they say? Working through their team is a relay race. Value and urgency degrade at every handoff.
- D
Decision Criteria
The technical, commercial and relational standards the buyer will judge options against, in their language. Capture them, confirm them, then shape them in your favour before they harden.
- D
Decision Process
The exact steps from “interested” to “signed”: who approves what, in what order, by when. A close date is not a process. The missing steps are where committed deals slip a quarter.
- P
Paper Process
Legal, procurement, security review, infosec, vendor onboarding. The graveyard of forecasted Q4 deals. It is its own letter because it runs on a separate clock from the buying decision. Start it early or watch it eat your close date.
- I
Identify Pain
The business pain, named in the buyer’s own words, with a cost attached. If they cannot articulate it, neither can you. A deal without compelling pain has no reason to close now instead of next quarter.
- C
Champion
Someone inside the org with influence and a personal stake in your win, who sells for you when you are not in the room. Test it: ask them to set up the EB meeting or co-author the business case. A champion delivers.
- C
Competition
Everyone else in the buyer’s consideration set, including “do nothing” and “build it ourselves.” Write the honest version down, however unflattering. You cannot position against a competitor you have not named.
All eight, every week. Evidence or optimism.
Caty runs the pipeline through MEDDPICC every week and names the slots that hold evidence. She flags the Paper Process you have not started and names who to call. She asks what your Champion has done. She turns “Competition: none” into the question that surfaces the status quo. Ask her by voice; type if you cannot talk.
- Every deal, all eight, every week. The empty slot named before the forecast call finds it.
- The same read in Slack. “@Caty is Acme safe to commit?”
The call on the empty slot. What to ask the buyer next, and who.
Your qualification bar, set once. Upload the playbook when you want her tuned to your standard.
CatyWeekly read · Acme renewalFive of eight earned. Not yet.
Paper Process is empty on a renewal you have called committed. That is the Q4 slip, three months early.
- MMetricsEarned
- EEconomic BuyerEarned
- DDecision CriteriaEarned
- DDecision ProcessEarned
- PPaper ProcessEmpty
- IIdentify PainEarned
- CChampionEmpty
- CCompetitionEmpty
MEDDPICC, in short.
The eight letters, and the honest version of each.
What is MEDDPICC?
A B2B sales qualification framework. Eight criteria the deal must satisfy to be considered real: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition. It is a qualification discipline: a way of pressure-testing whether a deal is real.
What do the extra two letters add over MEDDIC?
Paper Process and Competition. They exist because enterprise deals do not usually die in discovery. They die in procurement and security review, or they lose to a competitor or the status quo that the rep never named. Paper Process gets its own letter because it runs on a separate clock from the buying decision. Competition gets one because “do nothing” is easy to ignore.
Is MEDDPICC a discovery method or a qualification method?
Qualification. It does not script your discovery calls the way SPIN or Gap Selling do. It tells you what a deal must contain to be real and surfaces what is missing. The strongest teams pair it with a discovery method: discovery uncovers the information, MEDDPICC checks that you actually have it and have not just assumed 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: ask them to do something that costs effort or political capital: arrange the Economic Buyer meeting, co-author the business case, chase the security review. A Champion delivers; a friend explains why it is hard. If nobody passes that test, the Champion slot is empty and the deal carries hidden risk.
Why treat “do nothing” as competition?
Because the status quo is always in the running. It has no sales cycle, no implementation risk and an incumbent budget. If you only track named competitors, you miss the real fight, which is convincing the buyer that not deciding is itself a costly decision. MEDDPICC forces you to name it so you can sell against it.
Do I need to upload our playbook?
No. Start with standard MEDDPICC and Caty coaches against the eight criteria as written. Upload your team’s specific qualification bar later if you want her tuned to your standard for what “qualified” means.
How do I get Caty for my team?
Speak to us. Caty is delivered through Replicate Labs partners who configure her to 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 your top deal through the eight. Caty will say which slots are empty.
A working session with a Replicate Labs partner. Bring a top deal and hear the read on all eight criteria before the QBR finds the gap, then decide whether every deal in the pipeline should get it weekly.