You’ve probably rolled out MEDDPICC®, or something like it, before. It’s a proven methodology and your team might have reacted well to the training. But a few weeks later, your reps were likely back to working deals how they always had. CRM fields half-filled and forecasts padded with their gut feeling. 

At the end of the day, there’s no real change, and you’ve ended up wasting money. 

The problem doesn’t sit within the methodology, it’s because it never made it into the teams day-to-day.

The trick is to bring MEDDPICC® into the workflow, inside your Salesforce org, where deals actually get worked. So your reps don’t have to have 20 tabs open and work from different systems. Just structured qualification, visible progress, and reps who stay on track because the process is right in front of them.

In this article, we’ll show you what MEDDPICC® is, and show you how your team can start using it.

What Is MEDDPICC®?

We’re not going to give you another acronym breakdown that you could just google. You already know that MEDDPICC® is a qualification framework. But the real question is:

What does it look like when it’s actually used inside a sales deal?

So before we walk through an example, here’s the short version of what each part actually helps you do:

• Metrics → Anchor the deal in business impact. Time saved, margin increases, whatever proves this is worth doing now.
  
• Economic Buyer → Find the person who can say yes without asking someone else. Not just who signs but also who owns the budget?
  
• Decision Criteria → Know what you’re being measured against. Price? Integrations? Be specific.
  
• Decision Process → Get clear on steps, timing, and people. No more “just waiting to hear back.”
  
• Paper Process → Understand how the contract gets signed. Legal, procurement, redlines, before they become a bottleneck.
  
• Identify Pain → What’s broken right now? Why are they even talking to you?
  
• Champion → Who wants you to win and will push for you when you’re not in the room?
  
• Competition → Who else are they talking to? And how are you actually different?
  

You don’t need to memorize the acronym. You need to use it to run cleaner, faster deals, where no critical step gets missed.

And when you build this into Salesforce, with something like Plan2Close, that’s exactly what starts happening.

What Does This Look Like In Practice?

M – Metrics

You ask early:

“What result would make this project a success in your eyes?”

They might mention reducing churn, speeding up onboarding. You press further:

“Is there a KPI or hard cost tied to that?”

Often, you’ll get:

• A revenue goal (“We’re aiming to grow X line of business by 15%”)
  
• A cost exposure (“We’re spending $250K/year on manual workarounds”)
  
• A performance threshold (“We need to reduce time-to-quote by 40%”)
  

You’re left with a shared success metric. One that can anchor the proposal, the business case, and any budget discussion. It stops the deal becoming “a nice-to-have” and makes it commercially necessary.

E – Economic Buyer

At some point, your main contact says:

“Sounds great, let me take this to my boss.”

That’s your cue to ask:

“Who ultimately signs off, and can we involve them early so we’re building this together?”

Sometimes it’s a department head. Sometimes it’s someone in finance. Either way, this person controls funding and typically won’t engage unless you’re talking in terms of value they care about.

Without this person’s backing, your deal is wishful thinking. With them, your chances of closing are much higher.

D – Decision Criteria

The buyer outlines requirements like:

• “Needs to integrate with Salesforce”
  
• “Must hit our internal SLA”
  
• “Procurement insists on X clause”
  

You formalise that list:

“Can we agree on a clear set of criteria, so we all know what a successful decision looks like?”

You now have a scorecard instead of a wishlist. A lens for your proposal. If you’re not aligned to what matters most, you’re building the wrong case. When you are, you’re easier to buy.

D – Decision Process

You ask:

“Once you’re aligned internally, what steps are needed to get this over the line?”

You’ll hear things like:

• “IT needs to validate it”
  
• “It needs to go through InfoSec”
  
• “Then it gets presented at the steering committee”
  

It’s rarely linear. So you map it: who’s involved, what sequence, and how long each gate typically takes.

Now, you’ve got predictability. You shift from vague timelines (“hopefully by next quarter”) to trackable milestones. It also makes the buyer feel supported, not sold to.

P – Paper Process
 

You ask:

“Who owns contracting and procurement?”
“What do they usually need, and how long does legal review take?”

Sometimes there’s a full procurement portal. Sometimes it’s a single redline-heavy contract. Either way, it’s not a mystery, you can anticipate it.

This helps with your cycle time visibility. If you don’t prep for this, deals die in legal. If you do, you might be closing 2–3 weeks earlier, every time.

I – Identify Pain

You start by asking about objectives. But then you press into:

“What’s not working today?”
“What’s the consequence if that doesn’t change?”

They’ll tell you things like:

• “Our current process takes 4x longer than it should”
  
• “Our team’s morale is low because it’s so manual”
  
• “We’ve missed multiple SLAs and lost clients because of it”

This gives you a reason to act. Metrics are the rationale, pain is the motivation. Without pain, there’s no urgency. With it, timelines tighten and buy-in expands.

C – Champion

They’re not always the most senior. But they’re the ones chasing next steps, looping in stakeholders, and testing ideas internally.

You ask:

“Would you be open to helping us shape this so it lands well internally?”
“What would help you make the case when I’m not in the room?”

Then you equip them with ROI slides, comparisons, or answers to likely pushback.

It brings momentum into the deal. You can’t drive the deal from the outside, but your champion can drive it from the inside.

C – Competition

You ask directly:

“Are you comparing other options?”
“What’s important to you in how those stack up?”

Sometimes they name vendors. Sometimes they say “we’ve got someone in-house who could build this.” Either way, you take notes.

You then clarify where you win, on speed, simplicity, support, roadmap, whatever’s matters to the buyer.

Now, you have accurate positioning. You’re no longer pitching in the dark, you’re contrasting with something concrete. And that makes your value clearer.

Bringing MEDDPICC® Into Salesforce with Plan2Close

Like we said before, most sales methodologies fail because they never make it into the tools reps use every day.

Plan2Close solves that. It builds the MEDDPICC® framework directly into Salesforce so reps don’t just know what to do, they’re guided through it as they work the deal. And managers can finally see qualification progress, not just close dates.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. Qualification Questions Built into the Opportunity

Reps don’t need to remember what to ask. Every MEDDPICC pillar is broken down into specific, answerable questions, embedded in the Opportunity view.

For example:

• “Have you identified your prospect’s key pain points?”
  
• “Do you have contact information for everyone involved in the Paper Process?”
  
• “Has your champion confirmed the quantified pain?”
  

Each one is answered with a simple yes or no, giving you a running track record of what’s been covered and what hasn’t.

This provides all your reps with structure, without taking them out of Salesforce or burying them in spreadsheets.

2. Visual Feedback: Plan Score Shape

As reps answer questions, Plan2Close generates a visual score shape. Think of it as a radar chart that shows how complete and balanced the deal is across all MEDDPICC® pillars.

If Metrics, Economic Buyer, and Pain are strong but Champion and Paper Process are weak, you’ll see it immediately.

This replaces that gut feeling with a clear picture of deal health. Managers can coach based on what’s missing, not just what’s next.

3. Stakeholder Coverage and Accountability

Every deal touches multiple departments: transport ops, procurement, finance, even compliance. Plan2Close helps reps identify and map these people early:

• Who’s the Economic Buyer?
  
• Who’s involved in SLA validation?
  
• Who has procurement veto power?
  

You see it all in one place, directly linked to the Opportunity.

Deals stall when someone’s forgotten. This makes stakeholder visibility part of the sales process not a “nice to have.”

4. Plan Score Progress Bar

At the bottom of the view, Plan2Close tracks how much of the plan is complete, per pillar. It’s not just “Stage 4 – Proposal.” 

It’s:

• 62% of Paper Process done
  
• 88% of Decision Process mapped
  
• 0% Champion
  

This lets you forecast based on evidence instead of hope. You see where the work is still missing, and how close you are to a real close.

5. Real Time Coaching

Alongside the Opportunity, the Coaching panel explains what each MEDDPICC® element means in plain terms so newer reps aren’t guessing.

This standardizes qualification across the team, so everyone’s speaking the same language, and no deal falls apart because of missed steps.

Even better, this is fully customisable, so you can edit the definitions based on context from your own deals.

Summary

MEDDPICC® works when your team uses it. Plan2Close makes that possible, inside Salesforce, where deals are worked. 

Take a virtual tour here!

MEDDPICC® is a registered Trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, founder of MEDDIC Academy™ where MEDDPICC® courses can be taken.