Ask Andy Whyte: Closing Questions and Why Not All MEDDICC Is Equal

00:00:00 Andy Whyte: Hey, friends, we’ve got some new questions. Let’s get stuck in. Question number one, it says, is from you, Producer Ali. 00:00:09 Producer: So this is a question from Greg. What’s one of the best closing questions you’ve ever been asked? 00:00:14 Andy Whyte: My answer’s probably going to be unpopular here, but I’m not a massive fan of focusing on the closing question. Now, that could be wrong. Of course, in sales we’re outcome-driven, whether we’re trying to get that next meeting or trying to get the deal itself. For me, yes, it’s important that we close for the next step we want, so don’t get me wrong about that. But the way I’d phrase it is this: I would rather have a great meeting, where I’ve got to understand that customer’s business, their goals, their challenges, what they’re trying to achieve, the pain they have and the other stakeholders involved, even if you said to me, “You can have that great meeting, but you can’t ask any closing questions,” than have an average meeting where you give me the world’s greatest closing question. I think how good the answer to the question will be has nothing to do with the question itself. It’s about how much trust, credibility and value you’ve built in the meeting. So with all of those things in mind, the question doesn’t have to be that clever. It just has to have the anchor of value that we can point back to. 00:01:12 Andy Whyte: Throughout that meeting, I’ve been trying to understand the customer’s business and what they’re trying to achieve, or, if it’s a true closing question, I’ve been doing all these things throughout the cycle. By the time I get to asking for the order or closing the meeting, everything should be beautifully lined up anyway. So it’s just a case of asking, “Based on everything we’ve seen and everything we’ve done so far, shall we move to the next steps?” or however you ask that. And this is another point, and I’m going to sound like I’m doing a double rant now: I’m also a big fan of salespeople being credible, being themselves, using their own voice and their own style. What sounds right for me probably wouldn’t sound right for anyone else. It’s all about the setup. It’s all about being curious, great discovery, being value-driven throughout. And then it won’t matter how sharp it is, or where you got your closing question from, as long as you’ve done the work beforehand. Question number two. It says, “Play a video from Lisa.” 00:02:13 Lisa: Hi Andy, I’d love to know: what is one of your non-negotiables that you have to do every single day, no matter what? 00:02:20 Andy Whyte: Oh, non-negotiables every day. I’ll flip this a little bit, because I’m not consistent enough to say I do the stuff I know I should do every single day. But what I will say is that when I plan my day, when I make a conscious, proactive effort to sit down, either the night before or the morning of, and think, “Right, what have I got ahead today? What time do I need to prepare for myself? What do I need to be the best version of myself?” As much as I wish it were a non-negotiable, and that I could be more disciplined myself, whenever I do that, I always seem to have a great day. I’ll go with that, but it probably seems a bit of a cop-out. Question number three, it says, is a voice note from Producer Nick. 00:02:59 Nick: Andy, we’ve had a great question for you from Ronald on LinkedIn, and this is what he put forward. He says, “I spoke with a sales leader from a well-known SaaS company who shared an interesting perspective. They see experience at a playbook company, one that has formally adopted MEDDPICC, as more valuable than certification alone. Their view is that immersion in a fully MEDDPICC-driven environment gives candidates more of an edge. Have you come across this sentiment, and how do you see the distinction in terms of sales effectiveness?” 00:03:33 Andy Whyte: First and foremost, it’s tough to argue against the idea that being immersed in an environment is better than just learning about it. So I think that’s obvious. But I will say this: not all MEDDICC is equal. Particularly with what are classed as playbook companies, they tend to use MEDDICC in a very narrow manner. It’s very much about qualification. It’s very much about auditing the deal and then reflecting backward, reacting to where they are in the deal. It’s not that they don’t do all the things that are important. Playbook companies are typically at the very, very top end of our industry in things like sales execution, so it’s certainly no criticism of them. But they’re just using MEDDICC for a very small function. So the whole experience of being in that company would make you a better salesperson overall. But the MEDDICC side of things is typically pretty narrow. They’ll be very good, and they’ll use it very well, in that narrow function. But when it comes to things like using it for discovery, for building value, uncovering pain, implicating pain, really building stakeholders, all of the methods we’ve built into the way we do MEDDPICC, they don’t do those. 00:04:45 Andy Whyte: So yes, if you were a playbook person who’d never worked with us, and you were looking at how they do it, I can see why someone would have given you that view. But not all MEDDICC is equal, so I’ll leave it at that. Okay. Question number four is a voice note, but it doesn’t say who it’s from. 00:04:57 Jesse Walker: Andy, it’s your favorite Walker here. Yes, it’s Jesse. I have a question for you that I’m hoping you have the best answer for. What’s the most common mistake you see teams make when trying to implement MEDDPICC across the full go-to-market organization, and how can they fix it before it stalls adoption? 00:05:17 Andy Whyte: You know what? This is going to sound so contrived, honestly. But with the organizations we’ve been working with, where they’ve been implementing MEDDPICC across the whole go-to-market team, I don’t see it stalling. It actually has a force-multiplier effect on the impact. The reasons we’d normally see an implementation stall are other competing initiatives, or the wider go-to-market team not being in support. So when we do things like building value into what we call M1s, the marketing team might not be on board with that, or haven’t been brought on board. The same goes for other go-to-market roles, like CSMs, perhaps not understanding how they can play a part in implementing and delivering the value sold via MEDDPICC. Same thing with SDRs: they’re qualifying on BANT and then handing over in a different language. So these are all things that create friction, and [unclear] stall things. Where we’ve seen the whole go-to-market team involved, everybody’s not just helping, they’re bought in, because they see the value that having a common language across the whole go-to-market team brings to them. 00:06:22 Andy Whyte: So I’d really love to sit here and say we’ve seen problems with it, but I just can’t. The only way I could probably add value here is by saying that something is imperative: the more teams involved, the more departments involved, the more people involved, the more important it is to have executive buy-in. We’ve been fortunate enough to have that with every one of our customers where we’ve really been implementing across the whole go-to-market team. We’ve had CEO buy-in, and even, in a couple of cases with PE- and VC-backed companies, the venture capital and private equity folks have been involved as well. They’ve almost been the drivers of it. So it comes right from the very top, throughout. We haven’t seen it yet, and touch wood it doesn’t happen anytime soon, but that would be the thing: having executive support. That’s it for this episode. Thank you, as always, for your time and your attention, and to those who asked questions, for your questions as well. If you’d like your question answered, you can write it in the comments below or send me a DM on LinkedIn. I look forward to hearing from you. Until the next time, my friends, may your champions be strong. See you.