Free Resource by Futureproofed

MEDDIC: The Sales Qualification Framework Used by the World's Top Enterprise Teams

Stop wasting time on deals that won't close. MEDDIC tells you which opportunities are real — before you spend months chasing them.

What is MEDDIC?

MEDDIC was developed at PTC in the 1990s — and turned PTC into one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies in the world. It stands for six qualification criteria: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, and Champion. Each criterion is a gate. If you can't answer it, the deal isn't qualified.

Unlike BANT (which only screens for surface-level fit — Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline), MEDDIC qualifies organizational readiness and internal sponsorship — the factors that actually determine whether a deal closes. Any enterprise rep who has lost a deal to “internal politics” or “the budget was cut” lost it because one of the MEDDIC criteria wasn't satisfied. MEDDIC forces those conversations early, when you can still do something about them.

The 6 MEDDIC Criteria

M — Metrics

The quantifiable business impact the buyer wants — ROI, cost savings, revenue increase, time saved. Without hard numbers, there's nothing to take to a CFO. If the buyer can't measure the problem, they can't justify solving it.

Questions to ask

01.“What does success look like in numbers for you?”
02.“How are you currently measuring the problem you're trying to solve?”
03.“What's the cost of NOT solving this in the next 12 months?”
04.“If we could help you improve [metric] by X%, what would that be worth?”
05.“How will you justify this purchase to your CFO?”

🚩

Red flag: Can't quantify impact → the deal will stall at finance approval. Push for a number or offer to help them build the business case.

E — Economic Buyer

The person with final budget authority. Not the champion. Not the committee. The one who writes the check — or kills the deal by not writing it. You must get to this person before the proposal stage.

Questions to ask

01.“Who has final sign-off on a decision of this size?”
02.“Have you made a purchase like this before — who approved it?”
03.“When you're evaluating options, who else needs to be involved in the final decision?”
04.“Is there a budget pre-approved for this, or does it need to go through an approval process?”
05.“Would it make sense to get [Economic Buyer] involved in one of our conversations?”

🚩

Red flag: Champion says "I can make this happen" but won't introduce the EB → probable blocker. A champion who can't or won't surface the EB is either not senior enough or not truly committed.

D — Decision Criteria

The formal and informal criteria used to evaluate options — technical fit, vendor stability, price, integrations, support. You need to know what they're scoring against before you present, not after.

Questions to ask

01.“What does your evaluation scorecard look like?”
02.“What are the 2-3 things that matter most to your team?”
03.“Are there any technical requirements that would be a hard no?”
04.“How are you comparing us against alternatives?”
05.“Is price the primary driver, or are there other factors that would override a lower price?”

🚩

Red flag: Vague criteria → they're still gathering market info, not buying. Real buyers have a list. If they can't tell you what they're evaluating on, they're not in buying mode.

D — Decision Process

The steps, stakeholders, and timeline required to get to a signed contract. Every enterprise deal has a process — legal, procurement, security review, budget cycle. You need to map it before you submit a proposal.

Questions to ask

01.“Walk me through your typical buying process for something like this”
02.“Who else needs to review or approve before you can move forward?”
03.“What happens after you decide internally — legal, procurement, security review?”
04.“Have you done a procurement process for software before? How long did it take?”
05.“If we agreed on everything today, what would need to happen before we could start?”

🚩

Red flag: "We'll figure it out when we get there" → no process = stalled deal. Deals that don't have a mapped process almost never close on schedule. Build the map together or it won't exist.

I — Identify Pain

The specific business pain driving the initiative. Not 'nice to have' — the burning problem costing them money, time, or risk right now. Pain creates urgency. No pain = no urgency to buy.

Questions to ask

01.“What's the #1 thing keeping you up at night about this area?”
02.“What happens if you don't solve this in the next 6 months?”
03.“Who in the business is most affected by this problem today?”
04.“Have you tried to solve this before? What happened?”
05.“On a scale of 1-10, how painful is this problem — and why isn't it a 10?”

🚩

Red flag: No urgent pain = no urgency to buy = stalls after proposal. If they can't name what's broken and why it has to be fixed now, the deal will die in the pipeline.

C — Champion

Your internal advocate who wants you to win and has influence with the Economic Buyer. Not just a friendly contact — someone with skin in the game who will fight for you when you're not in the room.

Questions to ask

01.“If we move forward, would you be willing to sponsor this internally?”
02.“When you've championed a new tool or vendor before, how did you build support internally?”
03.“What's in it for you personally if this project succeeds?”
04.“How would you describe the impact this would have on your role?”
05.“Is there anything that would make it hard for you to advocate for this internally?”

🚩

Red flag: Champion won't take a meeting with the EB, won't share internal politics → not a real champion. A true champion is willing to put their name on it. If they won't, they're just a friendly contact.

MEDDIC vs BANT

BANT was developed by IBM in the 1950s. It screens for basic fit. MEDDIC was built for the complexity of modern enterprise sales — where deals die because of internal politics, not product-market fit.

	MEDDIC	BANT
Focus	Organizational readiness + internal sponsorship	Surface-level fit
Best for	Complex, multi-stakeholder B2B deals	Simple, transactional sales
Economic Buyer	Explicit criterion	Implied
Champion	Explicit criterion	Not considered
Win rate	Higher (validates deal health)	Lower (misses internal blockers)

When to Use MEDDIC

❌ MEDDIC is overkill when:

•Small deals under $5K — the qualification overhead isn't worth it for low-ACV transactional sales
•Single decision-maker — if one person can approve, buy, and implement on their own, you don't need six criteria
•Short sales cycles (under 2 weeks) — if they can swipe a card today, focus on the pitch, not the process

✅ MEDDIC is essential when:

•Enterprise deals above $25K — at this level, every deal has multiple stakeholders, a process, and an Economic Buyer who hasn't said yes yet
•Multiple stakeholders involved — if more than one person needs to approve, you need a Champion and a mapped Decision Process
•Long sales cycles (60+ days) — the longer the cycle, the more ways the deal can die; MEDDIC surfaces them early