A B2B sales qualification framework for qualifying opportunities and forecasting accurately.
MEDDIC is a qualification framework for complex B2B sales, built from six things a deal needs before it can be forecast with any confidence: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion. It was developed at PTC in the 1990s and has since been adapted into MEDDICC and MEDDPICC, which add competition and paper process. The additions are useful. The original six are the ones that predict whether a deal closes. Whether qualification holds up across a full buying committee is part of what our 2026 business case report examines.
The quantified outcome the customer will use to judge success. Not "improve efficiency" but "cut invoice processing from four days to one". Without a number there is nothing to build a case on and nothing to check at renewal. These metrics become the value drivers in the deal's ROI model.
Questions: how will you measure this? Which measure is worst today? What does that cost you?
The person with the authority to approve this spend (see economic buyer). Named, not inferred. Direct or credible indirect access established, and their priorities understood in their words.
Questions: who signs for this? Who approved the last purchase at this size? What would make them refuse?
The stated and unstated requirements the buyer will use to compare options. The commercial advantage goes to whoever shapes these before they are formalised.
Questions: what will you compare on? Which of those is weighted most heavily? Who wrote the list?
The steps, dates and people between today and a signature. Procurement, security review, legal, and the committee calendar all live here.
Questions: walk me through what happens after this meeting. What has to be approved, by whom, in what order? When does the committee next meet?
The business problem driving the purchase, with a cost attached and urgency established. A pain without a cost is a preference.
Questions: what happens if this is still unsolved in twelve months? Who feels it most? Why now rather than last year?
An internal advocate with influence, credibility with the economic buyer, and the willingness to spend their own political capital. A friendly contact is not a champion. A champion can tell you what was said in the meeting you were not in.
Questions: who inside wants this to happen? What have they done so far that cost them something?
The common approach scores each element from one to three: not identified, partially identified, fully validated. Eighteen is a perfect score. The value is not the number but the discipline of writing it down before a forecast call, because the disagreements are always about the low scores.
Three deals, each weighted by a rule that maps the score to a probability: fifteen and above at 70%, eleven to fourteen at 40%, ten and below at 15%.
| Deal | Value | Score | Weighted |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | £150,000 | 11 | £60,000 |
| B | £90,000 | 13 | £36,000 |
| C | £200,000 | 17 | £140,000 |
The rep has all three in commit, which totals £440,000. The weighted view is £236,000, a difference of £204,000.
Deal A is the instructive one. Its score of eleven comes from Metrics 2, Economic buyer 1, Decision criteria 2, Decision process 2, Identify pain 3, Champion 1. The pain is real and quantified. Nobody has met the person who signs, and the "champion" has not yet done anything that costs them. A score of one on the economic buyer should be enough on its own to keep a deal out of commit, whatever the rep believes about the relationship.
The arithmetic does not tell you the deal will lose. It tells you the forecast is being built on optimism in a specific, named place, which is a conversation a manager can have in five minutes.
Forecast review, the last week of the quarter. A deal moves from pipeline to commit because the buyer said it "looks good". The manager asks for the economic buyer's name and gets a job title. The decision process turns out to include a security review nobody has started. The deal slips, the quarter misses, and the post-mortem concludes that the qualification was thin, which everyone already knew and nobody had written down. A scored MEDDIC sheet, reviewed weekly, makes that slip visible three weeks earlier, when it can still be fixed.
The value selling framework for enterprise sales shows where qualification sits in a broader cycle. How RevOps reduces no-decision losses is about the failure mode MEDDIC is worst at predicting, where the deal is qualified and then nothing happens. Value selling statistics 2026 sets out the buying-side research behind the framework, and what value engineering means in B2B sales explains how the metrics element turns into a case the economic buyer will read. Qualification is not the case itself; business case strategies for each buying committee role covers the document that person needs in order to approve.
The decision-maker with budget authority who ultimately approves or rejects a purchase based on business value.
A documented justification for undertaking a project or initiative, typically including financial analysis, risk assessment, and expected outcomes.
A systematic method to improve the value of products or services by examining function and cost. In B2B sales, it refers to the practice of quantifying and communicating business value to support purchasing decisions.
A clear statement that explains how a product or service solves customer problems, delivers benefits, and why customers should choose it over competitors.
See how ValueNova helps you apply these concepts to build compelling business cases.