Masters of MEDDICC: Caroline Franczia

00:00 Andy Whyte: Hey Caroline, welcome to Masters of MEDDICC. It is a pleasure to have you on the show — for maybe the second time. I should tell the audience that the last time my laptop let us down and we couldn't quite hear everything properly. So by popular demand — well, by my demand — I've managed to persuade you to come back on. 00:21 Andy Whyte: Great to see you, Caroline. How are you doing? 00:21 Caroline Franczia: Awesome, thank you. I think it's great that the first time didn't work. The plan is perfect and there's a reason for everything. 00:21 Andy Whyte: I like that. A good positive mindset to start with. Caroline, for those who don't know you, could you give us a little insight into who you are and how you got started in this wonderful world of sales? 00:46 Caroline Franczia: Oh, goodness. I started in sales by accident — pretty much like everybody, I think. First job on the ground was at Computer Associates. Although I wanted to work for L'Oréal in marketing, I kind of got hooked. And then from that point on: sales, sales, sales. From inside sales at Computer Associates to Oracle, then wanting to be out in the field as fast as possible, wanting to be global as fast as possible — and then kind of fell into management by chance as well. 01:21 Andy Whyte: By chance. That's interesting, isn't it. Because what you were saying there — I'm sure so many people listening will resonate with it — that idea of being driven to always take the next step up. So many of us are not satisfied with whatever role we're doing; we're always aiming for the next thing. Which is a good trait in sales — always pushing ourselves forward. But it's funny to hear you say you fell into management, almost as if that wasn't part of the plan. Is that fair to say? 01:57 Caroline Franczia: It wasn't until it became available. When I left BMC, I had been very successful but I was a lone wolf. I actually had trouble working with teams, and I learned a lot at BMC. By the end of it I really began to understand the power of a team. I was the "I" that doesn't exist in "team" — and that wasn't good. So when I joined Sprinklr, I was ready to completely embrace the team aspect. And Sprinklr was this passionate, collaborative team. After six months there, I had matured so much in how I worked with other people that I thought: OK, maybe I can do this management thing. And so when my manager said they were going to open up some management roles, I stood up without even really thinking about it. And by the next day I had a plan for what I wanted to do for the team. 02:49 Andy Whyte: Yeah, and what's fascinating to me about that is that you described yourself as a lone wolf, with all the characteristics that go with that. And a lot of people will resonate with that. But then it's almost like you found yourself in a different environment and started behaving differently. And what you described as being a lone wolf was almost what you thought your personality was. But then you're in a new environment and suddenly you're not just a team player — you want to lead a team. You've gone from one extreme to the other. And that raises the big question: do you think you were a lone wolf because of your environment — and therefore it changed at Sprinklr? Or do you think you evolved as a person? Or maybe a bit of both? 03:31 Caroline Franczia: Yeah. I think I just didn't behave properly for a number of years. All I cared about was making my number and doubling it — I wanted to achieve that, that's what I cared about. And it's probably also the age — I was in my 20s, the ego wanting to achieve recognition, that's really what I cared about. I think the BMC team sort of helped me grow and mature. But when you've made a first impression, it's very hard to change everybody's perspective. I think I had to move company to start fresh. And I was definitely very attracted by the martech industry — much closer to the L'Oréal world than the infrastructure world. Martech is really sexy. Selling martech is really not easy — one of the hardest, I think — but genuinely exciting. And so joining Sprinklr was really like a second chance. I had matured enough by the end of my BMC era to be welcomed by that team. 04:56 Caroline Franczia: And the Paris team was incredible. I think when I signed my contract there were eight people. I joined two months later — I had big accounts at BMC, so I needed time to transition and hand things over cleanly. Two months later, there were sixteen. 05:18 Andy Whyte: Yeah. One thing I'll say — because I do agree with a lot of what you said, and sometimes having a reset, a blank canvas, a new set of people getting to know you — that's why people love New Year's resolutions. It feels like a new dawn. Which is cool. But I also want to say — because many listeners won't know this — we were at Sprinklr at the same time. I was in the London team, you were in the Paris team. 05:38 Caroline Franczia: Yeah, exactly. 05:38 Andy Whyte: And from an observational perspective, looking at that team you were leading in Paris — I have to say, I could see why anyone, even the most ardent lone wolf, would have become a team player. From the outside looking in — we were in different teams so I didn't spend time with your team directly — but seeing how you came together, how you acted as a unit: it was beautiful. A wonderful thing to see. Everyone wanting everyone else to win. Everyone helping everyone else to win. And that deserves real credit — for finding the right people and for leading it that way. Finding the right personalities and team players who pull each other forward together. I'll be honest: we didn't have anything quite like that in the London team. And I'm grateful for that comparison — it gave me a really clear sense of the power of what a great team looks like. 07:08 Andy Whyte: And that's actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about — you taking that step into leadership at Sprinklr. You were, I think, a Regional Sales Manager at the time — or was the title Account Executive then? — yes — and you took a step up into a Director of Sales role, which today would be called Regional Vice President or something similarly grand. And it's escalating. Before long we'll have Chief Executive Officers of Sales — I'm absolutely convinced of it. But you took that big step from individual contributor to leadership. And we so often see people make that move by joining a new company — where they get that fresh start we were just talking about. You did it within the team you were already part of. Which adds an extra layer of challenge: your peers are now your reports. That is a topic I get asked a lot about in our MEDDIC community. And I'd love to hear you talk about that experience — any guidance, advice, or takeaways you'd give to anyone considering that step up. 07:49 Caroline Franczia: Well, the first piece of advice to give everyone is: no matter how good a salesperson you are, no matter how much you think you've prepared yourself to become a manager — you're not ready. You're really not. Because there's no other way than being in it and trying. You can read all the books you want. I remember my dad telling me something — about when you have to let someone go from your team, whether for attitude or performance or any other issue — your top performers react to that. And I was like: what do you mean? That doesn't make sense. And that's one of those layers you only truly understand when you've lived it. Because you have to create a team that works together. And a lot of people will tell you: recruit A-players, recruit A-players, recruit A-players. But the truth is, I've yet to see a team of five A-players that functions like five A-players. There's always a mix of things — and that's OK, because they're complementary to one another. 09:36 Caroline Franczia: We tend to forget that you need that balance within a team. And the thing is, you can't find that balance until you've experienced it. Because people are people — they have personalities, they're not numbers. And to make it work, you need to know what they care about. For someone trying to get the best out of me, talking about commission — of course I love money as much as the next person, but it doesn't truly motivate me. What motivates me is being the best version of myself, for myself. And then right next to me might be someone who's the complete opposite — who doesn't care about their own inner drive, but wants to be seen by everyone else as number one, to be elevated and recognised. So that difference is something we often don't do enough with. What do you think? 10:17 Andy Whyte: Well — you're touching on something really astute about understanding what makes people tick, what drives them. How did you actually get to understand those things in your team? 10:35 Caroline Franczia: So let's just go back to when I was promoted. I had no team — I had to build one from scratch. Some people had been recruited and allocated to my team — people I didn't recruit myself, wasn't even part of their interview process as their future manager. So that's an adjustment for both sides. Getting to know each other. And I think this is something I figured out along the way — nobody taught me to be careful of this, but eventually it becomes clear: it's like your kids. They couldn't be more different from each other. Different personalities, different reasons for doing things. And as managers, we tend to look at the team-level quota and think about that. 11:30 Caroline Franczia: And one of the things — I'm sure you've heard this a thousand times — when you've been a successful salesperson and you step into management, you cannot let go of the deals. It takes tremendous courage, I'm sorry to say. For me, it was so hard not to get in on the deals. I was prouder when I was able to step back and not be in every meeting — just let it happen. Prepare, help, guide — but not be systematically in every important meeting. Because if you try to attend all of your reps' important meetings, you'll exhaust yourself. And you won't be able to coach them properly. 12:26 Andy Whyte: Yeah. I agree. And that was one of the things I found challenging when making that step up — and I've learned it since, though I couldn't quite see it at the time. I always like to split a salesperson's strengths into three pillars — I know there's much more to it, but broadly: selling value, selling to stakeholders, and selling the process. And obviously those three things are what underpins MEDDIC. But generally you find people whose number one strength is selling value, some who are brilliant at building stakeholder relationships, and some who are outstanding on process. And — let's say for argument's sake — I was very good at value. Then someone in my team was very good at building stakeholders. My instinct was to try and make them little mini versions of me, rather than building their actual strengths — which were around stakeholders. 13:22 Andy Whyte: Something I didn't really understand at the time. I was trying to make these mini versions of me in my team, which was never going to happen because we've all got different strengths. It's much better to build on someone's existing strengths than to try and make them a carbon copy of you. It took me too long to figure that out. It meant I was spending time in one-on-ones feeding people what the company was about, what we were selling, what the value was — and not enough time understanding what was actually going to make them specifically successful in the shortest time. 13:57 Caroline Franczia: Yeah, absolutely. 13:57 Andy Whyte: So how did you find it — you'd built this team up, got it going the way you wanted — and then you got the opportunity to join Datadog in a leadership role. So now you've got this fresh start again. I really like this as a theme — we didn't plan it, but it's definitely emerged here, and I think everyone will resonate with it. Another blank canvas. And this time you're coming in with experience as a sales leader. What did you do differently landing as a sales leader at Datadog compared to when you got the promotion at Sprinklr? 14:39 Caroline Franczia: Two very different industries. With Datadog I was going back to infrastructure, which I'd known from BMC. I think one of the things I learned very quickly is: you are only as good as how fast you can penetrate the market and get reference customers. So I focused hard on ideal customer profile. Our team's mission was companies over 5,000 employees, at a time when Southern Europe was still wondering whether it needed to move to the cloud. So we had to identify and target the companies that were moving to the cloud fastest. Pipeline generation was about 60 new logos in nine months. 15:12 Andy Whyte: For companies of that size — proper enterprise — that's quite considerable. 15:12 Caroline Franczia: It was. So that was the role where I got closest to thinking like an entrepreneur: defining the ideal customer profile to get in fast, and then defining ways to close paperwork fast. So working with the AWS Marketplace, putting things in place to accelerate deal signing with large companies — because we all know the paper process with big companies is really what can slow down your cycle. And then attending a bunch of events — including events we hadn't planned to attend. We got some amazing pipeline generation from the cloud community that way. I remember there was a cloud industry event one weekend, and I thought: we are not sitting at our desks. This is not a time to sit at a desk. Take your bag — we're going to the cloud event. And we went, and we had some amazing meetings. I can't name which company, but literally grabbed a CTO over a coffee, got the meetings, and they closed some amazing deals from that afterwards. 16:49 Caroline Franczia: So I think it's less about what you do differently — it's about adapting to the company once you figure out where your strengths are. And my strengths are definitely in pipeline generation — PG is my thing. And once you know how to organise it, it becomes a machine. Pipeline generation — for everyone listening who may not know the term — is just that: generating new pipeline. And it's not something you qualify out of. It's targeted: where are you going to get maximum conversion, maximum return on time invested? 17:36 Andy Whyte: Yeah. Let's dig into that because I think it's super interesting. In my world, pipeline generation is often considered something that happens separately from MEDDIC — it's something that's already occurred. But I'm really passionate that MEDDIC genuinely contributes towards pipeline generation, particularly when we think about how we capture people's attention. We need to focus on what pain we help solve, the quantification of that pain, the value they get from solving it, and how we do it — which is right in the middle of Metrics, Identified Pain, and Decision Criteria — before we even start thinking about champion personas and economic buyer profiles. So for me, MEDDIC very much expands to the top-of-funnel side of things. 19:06 Andy Whyte: But one thing you touched on — the CTO you met at the cloud event — that's a classic PG play. And you talked about how you and your team got that person's attention over coffee and expanded it into a deal, and then into many more deals — as I know is a big part of the Datadog land-and-expand strategy. The way you described it, your face lit up as you said it — it was almost like all the little things you and your team did along the way had paid off. And I think everyone has a story like that if they fast-forward it. But together those pieces — using the magic of MEDDIC is exactly the right phrase. What were that company's Metrics? What were they heading towards? What was in their annual report? 19:45 Caroline Franczia: Going back to ideal customer profile — they had just signed a massive contract with AWS, and we knew they were moving to the cloud and would need a solution to monitor their infrastructure. We knew what their pain would be because of the scale of that contract. And at the time, the alternatives would have been AWS native tooling or some others — but we knew they'd feel the pain and need to find a solution fast. And then the champion: we knew that CTO would be a champion because he was typically the person who had been putting programmes in place — who had been carrying the AWS contract, would likely carry the MongoDB contract and so on. So targeting that CTO involved a lot of pre-work: understanding the account was a target, understanding we were a potential solution to pains that were coming, keeping at it, educating the right person at the right level, and then sending that person a series of personalised outreach messages — written and digital — and trying to reach his assistant. 21:17 Caroline Franczia: So when I finally got in front of him — I remember Zach looked at me like I was completely nuts — I said: "I've been trying to reach you for a while. " And he said: "OK, let's set up a meeting. Have your assistant call my assistant for tomorrow. " And I said: "I have been calling your assistant a number of times. You have a phone. Let me give you something on your phone directly — that way you see how it feels. " He was like: "I'm not getting out of this, am I? " And I said: "No. " He was like: "OK, you've got three minutes. " And we sat down and talked with him. But we knew everything. We were prepared. It was like seizing the moment — but we knew the MEDDIC. 22:08 Andy Whyte: Yeah. I love that. And you know what? This is something I think our industry doesn't talk about enough — and it's so, so important. By the time you spotted that person at the event — maybe recognised them from their LinkedIn photo you'd been staring at for weeks, or caught their name badge — the important thing wasn't spotting them. What made you get that meeting — and many would say it was persistence, and probably so. But what made it turn from an initial sit-down into a real opportunity was all the work you'd put in beforehand. The outreach, the messages, the voicemails — sitting down with your team and asking: how do I get this person's attention? What value can I bring to them? 22:54 Andy Whyte: And like you say, it's in the M — Metrics — and it's in the I — the Pain — and the C — the Champion — what that person cares about. Not just who they are or how well-qualified they look, but what they actually care about. And because that had become your second nature through MEDDIC, you'd gone over and over it until you were ready to go at any moment. You could have been walking down the street and bumped into them. You could have been in a hotel elevator and spotted them — classic elevator pitch. That's the point. And I think as an industry we miss this: we don't talk about it enough. If we really focus on personalised outbound and pipeline generation, and put real time into the research — it's not just that the outreach will resonate more. We're also preparing ourselves for the meeting we're actually going to get. 23:47 Andy Whyte: It doesn't get talked about enough. And I often hear this when I talk to people about the importance of meeting preparation — thinking about what Metrics you can bring from your existing customer base that will resonate with that prospect. And occasionally I'll hear: "If I have to go and do all that work before a meeting — matching customers to the prospect, mapping what parts of their decision criteria resonate, all of that — I'm not going to have time to do anything else. " And I'm like: either you should be insanely successful if you've got that much pipeline, or there's an opportunity to increase your conversion rate — reduce the volume of opportunities, take higher-value deals, and win a higher percentage of fewer opportunities. Which brings me back to the point: if you put more effort in, you get more out. And here's the key thing that everyone overlooks — everything is scalable. So that company — let's say they were a telco. You've put all this work into capturing the attention of a telco CTO. Well, there's more than one telco in France. That work is transferable. It's scalable to other telcos, and probably to other industries as well. 25:25 Caroline Franczia: What you're saying is very interesting. And I see this a lot — especially in the martech industry but across all industries — the leap of faith you have to take to say: I'm going to stop having 10 or 15 opportunities at €50K, and reduce the number of opportunities to target €300K or €500K deals. It really is a leap of faith in yourself. Like: I have a 30% conversion rate. So I need ten opportunities to hit my €200K target. But actually — it's better to have three opportunities at €200K and close one of those three, rather than chasing ten. And as you grow, your ACV is going to grow. So what we see a lot, Andy — you and I both — in companies that are willing to implement MEDDIC, is a will to increase their ACV. And the first step to increasing ACV is the mindset. 26:08 Andy Whyte: I want to talk to you about something. I know you're very, very passionate about MEDDIC, and I know you work with lots of companies implementing it, helping them get the most out of it. Is there anything you spot very quickly — in individuals or leaders — that you can immediately identify as a strength or a weakness? Because I think a lot of people listening will be keen to hear about that. 27:03 Caroline Franczia: So just to make the transition between that story you just told — about that person doing all that preparation — that's the art, right. MEDDIC is just the science. And I strongly believe you cannot use the science without having the art. And to me, the people who best use MEDDIC have incredible soft skills: humility, coachability, continuous learning and development, learning from experts, drive — obviously. But what we tend to forget, when we talk about the letters of MEDDIC and what it is and isn't — I've been in a lot of webinars about the chronological order of MEDDIC. Because I've had people starting with M and E, and I'm like: no — think of it like a doctor. You're going into a deal as a doctor. You should not start it as a checklist, because there's a chronological order to it. And I know you're laughing, but it's true. It can be painful to hear, but it's true. And then the other thing I like to say is: if you're using MEDDIC like "I know who my economic buyer is, I know this, I know that" — you're not really doing it. 28:22 Caroline Franczia: You're not truly doing MEDDIC. To do MEDDIC is to consistently search for what you're missing. You're looking for the gap. And I think that's a very difficult line. Because — let's put it this way — sales teams generally like to be praised for what they do well. They don't like to be in a position where they feel they're being told they're doing things wrong. But that's not what we're saying. We're saying: in any opportunity, even when it looks like things are closing, there are gaps. The point of MEDDIC is to be consistently comfortable with finding those gaps. You master MEDDIC when you know your definitions, yes. But you truly master it when you can laser-identify the gaps in your opportunity — consistently, honestly — and then seek help to close those gaps. Seek help within your organisation or the customer's organisation — yes, both. Do you need help from your pre-sales team? From customer success? From your SDR? From management? From the product team in understanding something better? From your coach in finding a real champion? Or from your champion in getting access to the economic buyer? You need to seek help. Use people as a real team. 29:20 Andy Whyte: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And I always find it so funny that as an industry we put a lot of emphasis on telling salespeople: don't be single-threaded to the customer. Make sure you have multiple contacts in the organisation, not just one. Which of course is really important — we all know why. But one thing I always find funny is that we never talk about the reverse. In most opportunities I see, there's a reverse single-thread. What I mean by that is: there's just one person — the salesperson — talking to the entire customer organisation. But we have all of these great internal stakeholders. The SDR probably opened the opportunity — why don't they keep in touch? Why do they stop nurturing once the meeting is booked? I know there are incentive and compensation structures — that's a different conversation. But we've also got executives who should be connected to the economic buyer. Solution consultants and sales engineers who are, frankly, the most technically credible people in the deal. So why don't we have those people connected to the technical stakeholders on the customer's side? 31:26 Andy Whyte: And all of those internal stakeholders should own their own champion relationships. Why should the account executive own all the champions? They shouldn't. And suddenly instead of just the salesperson as the single connection into the account — you've got all of these different internal stakeholders doing positive champion building, influencing decision criteria in your favour, building broader relationships, deepening value. Something we don't talk about enough. And then you've got external stakeholders too — partners who are working with third parties, who can be part of this, who can influence the agencies and other stakeholders operating around the edges of the deal. So yes — a really interesting thing. 31:54 Caroline Franczia: Indeed. I think when the entire village owns that opportunity — the team, the SDRs — let's go further: leads are generated not based on benefits but based on the problems the company can solve. So marketing. 31:54 Andy Whyte: Yes. 31:54 Caroline Franczia: Marketing should be leading with pain, not benefits. Going from a marketing motion that pushes features and benefits to one that pulls in people who are identifying with the same pain you solve. Webinars, testimonials, peer stories — not "do you want to increase this? " or "do you want to improve that? " — those aren't pains, they're benefits. And when you lead with benefits you fall into nice-to-haves — other priorities come along and you get deprioritised. So marketing brings in leads of a certain type. And then the AEs can focus on identifying the people who fit the ideal customer profile and are experiencing the specific pains you solve. 33:16 Caroline Franczia: And then we create multiple ways to build intimacy — digital intimacy, event intimacy, webinar intimacy, warm calling, introductions from other customers — until you get to the point of a genuine conversation. And we don't ask them to sit through a product pitch. We ask them to have a conversation. What's going on in their world? Tell me. Find the pain. When you find the pain, it moves into an opportunity. But you created that conversation already entering the relationship almost as a problem-solver — focused on what you can do for that person. As you say, this could already be the beginning of a champion relationship. 34:06 Caroline Franczia: And then: who else is experiencing this? Who else can we talk to? So the AEs become this engine of qualifying in — not qualifying out, but genuinely qualifying in — based on real pain and real fit. Not quantity but quality. And when the opportunity is there, they accelerate it: proving value, bringing metrics, implicating the business impact — and getting into all those difficult things: understanding the political landscape, focusing on champions, and not forgetting the detractors. People who don't want to move, or want to spend budget elsewhere. Not always the competition — sometimes it's just a competing internal project. 35:16 Caroline Franczia: Or it's the project manager who knows that any new technology implementation means work for them — they're already stretched from other initiatives, and this will draw on their capacity. Those are big ones. And I love what the AEs can do when they've got a team really working the angles they can't work at full speed. When they trust their pre-sales or solution consultants to deliver a personalised, customised demo — built around all the pains that have been identified and implicated by the SDR and the AE — but going one level deeper, understanding how the company can solve it in a way nobody else can. 36:12 Caroline Franczia: So it's not just a demo. It's a validation: we are here for you, we are the solution your team needs. And so the solution consultant creates their own champion relationships, keeps nurturing them, keeps giving them something, keeps testing and developing them. It really is a team thing. And when it's an existing customer, customer success can really help with Metrics. I'm not going to name the company — but you and I know that we did a land-and-expand at Sprinklr that was quite significant at the time. And one of the reasons it worked was because the team who ran the implementation had tracked 70 KPIs they were measuring. So when we went to expand and were asked to run an RFP, we said: no. And the reason we said no was: here is what has happened in terms of your success, in terms of KPIs and outcomes. There was more to the story, obviously — but Customer Success played a massive card in that. 37:09 Andy Whyte: Yeah, I love that. And the thing is — those 70 KPIs are probably related to the Metrics you had in the original sales process, or at least their evolution. Because it becomes the blueprint. What a team using MEDDIC well can hand to a Customer Success manager in the handover is: here's the blueprint for how to work with this company, what matters to them, how to demonstrate success. I could talk about this for hours. We're right up on time, I'm afraid. But this is a whole other big topic that I'm sure we can get into again. Thank you so much for coming on the show — again. Even though the first time didn't quite work, I have to say I think the second time was even better. So we've done the audience proud in that regard. Thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you if they want to connect? 37:57 Caroline Franczia: LinkedIn. Yes, LinkedIn — and that links back to my website as well. LinkedIn is best. 37:57 Andy Whyte: Good stuff. Well, thank you very much, and we'll see you soon. Thanks, Caroline. 37:57 Caroline Franczia: Thank you.