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Pain + Value = Urgency
Andy Whyte 4 min
Andy Whyte 05 September 2022

Pain + Value = Urgency

CONTENTS

urgency is what gets deals done.

MEDDIC Pain and Value are key parts of MEDDICC and MEDDPICC

As a seller, if you are selling without Urgency, you are effectively order-taking. You are doing things on the customer’s terms and timings. This is a recipe for failure. At best, the deal will happen, but you will not be in control of when, resulting in slippages and missed forecasts.

How do you create Urgency? I hear you cry!

The answer is straightforward; Urgency consists of two ingredients: Pain and Value. The more Pain and Value you uncover, the more Urgency you will create.

How do you uncover Pain and Value? I hear you cry!

It all starts with three words:

  • Discovery

  • Discovery

  • Discovery

Okay, that is just one word, but I say it three times because it is three times more important than most people think it is.

First things first, you need to ‘Identify the Pain’ – you’ve heard that phrase before, right? It’s commonly the definition of the ‘I’ in MEDDIC. But, it’s wildly misused. You see, Identifying the Pain is just the first stage of the Pain Process. This first stage is about talking to your customer to uncover where they have Pain that your solution can solve.

Once you find the Pain, you have to evolve it to the second stage of the Pain Process, which is to ‘Indicate the Pain’ to the customer. This involves underpinning the Pain with a Value, meaning you relate the Pain the customer is feeling to a form of Value, which is often (but not always) either an increase in revenue or a decrease in costs.

Where do I find my Value?

The best place to find Value is with your existing successful customers. What Value are they getting from your solution? What incremental revenue do they have thanks to your solution? Or how much have they saved by using your solution?

Overlaying Value over the top of the Pain you have discovered is a proven strategy to uncover the Metrics which can play a critical part in your deal as part of MEDDICC.

I like to use Metrics as the headline that refers to the combination of Pain and Value and how you can clearly articulate that to your customer.

Once you have your Metrics combined from the Pain and Value you have uncovered, it is time to shift to the third stage of the Pain Process, which is to Implicate the Pain upon your customer. Implicating the Pain means you portray the Metrics to your customer in such a manner that they feel the Pain so strongly within themselves that they HAVE to take action. They have to take action ‘Urgently.’

I call this the Pain + Value = Urgency Equation. One day perhaps it will be remembered alongside other pivotal equations such as E=MC2. For now, I am just pleased to share it with you 😄

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