Consulting Services & MEDDIC
Selling using the MEDDIC sales methodology doesn’t solely exist for technology software sales, it is equally relevant for consultancy services.
That said, there are some differences at certain stages of the sales cycle.
The sales process itself is similar and of course, MEDDIC is used to qualify throughout. However, some of the technical validation points slightly differ for services vs technology.
It is important that you know how to implement these requirements if you are to successfully sell your services.
Go to:
SOLUTION DEMO – Software Sale vs Services Sale
Software sale:
At the ‘solution demo’ stage of a product sale, you will have out of the box technology demo environments that show how your solution meets the customer’s key requirements.
Typically, you will focus on the solution areas that most align to critical requirements you have identified when working through the Decision Criteria of your customer (the first D in MEDDIC).
Services sale:
Service offerings are more capability-based than software.
It can be challenging to ‘show’ how you will meet the requirements and difficult to seed points of difference from your competitors.
Therefore, as a 'services' business, we advise you to:
- Achieve crystal clear clarity around your customer’s Identified Pain (the I in MEDDIC)
- Use Metrics to demonstrate your understanding of this pain, plus associated costs and benefits to the business (the M in MEDDIC) - but specifically focused on your services advantage
- Fully understand the Decision Criteria of the business when presenting your offering (the first D in MEDDIC)
By doing this, the easier it will be for you to present your understanding of the current state challenges and show the difference you can make to the future state.
Tip – Stories Sell:
In the ‘solution demo’ stage, storytelling key.
Weave Metrics into the stories you tell about your project references and the specific value you will bring to this project.
Focus on the quantitative value:
- The quantitative value that you can bring to solve the pain you have identified for this specific scenario - whether expertise, implementation time, post sales support - all in number form.
BUSINESS CASE & PROOF OF VALUE
As you move through the sales cycle to create a ‘business case’ and ‘proof of value’, you need to think carefully about the Metrics that feed into the business case and how you map to the highest priorities in the Decision Criteria.
What can you do to pass the ‘why us’ test?
These three important meetings and events will give you the biggest chance of services preferred vendor status:
- A meeting with some of your key experts / consultants. (Decision Criteria & Champion)
- Workshop(s) to better qualify and quantify the challenges faced by the customer. (Identified Pain & Metrics)
- Time spent with the customer to build confidence and trust in your delivery capability. (Champion)
PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION
The success of you spending time with the customer to build confidence relies totally on your preparation for such a meeting.
Success in winning a services project is largely down to the customer having confidence that you can deliver the proposed outcome.
To build that confidence:
- Prepare for every interaction with your customer so they build, and maintain, that confidence in you.
- Demonstrate that you understand the reality of their current state, so you don’t under or over price a project.
Tips for success:
- Work with stakeholders to uncover the underlying issues to get a shared understanding of the challenges.
- Build and document workshop success criteria with your Champion (The C in MEDDIC).
- Spend time upfront to understand the attendees and what is important to the different stakeholders.
- Confirm commitment to proceed to the next stage, if successful, before you invest expensive resources upfront.
DEAL CLOSE & PAPERWORK - Decision Process
So, you have been selected as the preferred bidder and the customer plans to award you the contract and issue the order. Time to celebrate! Well, not just yet.
If it is a completely new customer, you will have a long way to go, but even for an existing customer with master terms in place, completing the paperwork for a services sale can take much longer that a product sale.
For any services contract, in addition to the core master terms, there will be some form of Statement of Work, Work Order, or Contract Schedule that is specific to the delivery of the project or programme.
Even for relatively small projects this can take weeks and run to multiple pages. Where typically the customer procurement, legal and finance teams will drive the negotiation on core terms and pricing, they will engage with internal operational stakeholders to ensure the delivery detail, milestones, commitments, risks etc are captured accurately in the final contractual documentation.
Tip - it's never too early to start:
Start the process as early as you can to get as much of the core content completed in parallel with winning over the decision makers. Seek out an operational or project stakeholder to work with so your early drafts are as near-final as possible. Ensure you have a clear Mutual Success Plan with key milestones and owners on all sides to avoid paperwork delays and slippage.
In summary, qualifying your deal using MEDDIC is not only applicable for software sales. With a few adjustments it is equally relevant and valuable for any business - particular professional, consulting or services businesses.
If you are interested in new ideas, inspir’em sales meeting exercises and lesson plans are available to continue the development journey of your teams.
Contact us today to further boost your sales and see your revenue grow.
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