Masters of MEDDICC: Dick Dunkel

00:04 Andy Whyte: All right. Hey, Dick. Welcome to Masters of MEDDICC. It is absolutely awesome to have you on the show. As I was just saying to you — when I came up with the idea of doing a show like this, there's obviously a list of names of people you want to get on, and nobody occupies the number one spot more than you do. I felt like I had to warm up a little bit first, get some practice in with some other absolutely epic sales leaders — many of whom you know, and I think you enjoyed those conversations very much. 00:26 Dick Dunkel: They were great. Yeah, you did a great job on those interviews. 00:40 Andy Whyte: Thank you very much. Well, perhaps for those who — whether they're new to the Masters of MEDDICC show or have just been living under a rock somewhere — don't know who you are, Dick. Perhaps you could introduce yourself to the listeners and viewers. 00:40 Dick Dunkel: Yeah. So I tell people I've spent most of my life carrying a quota. Lifelong Philadelphian, if you will. My first professional sales job — my first software sales job — was at PTC. That was kind of the beginning. But even before that, my very first sales job was selling books door to door for two summers in college, helping to pay some of my college expenses. I was studying civil engineering, so I spent a little time doing that after school, but eventually got into sales with Xerox Corporation, which was great training. That's the professional side of things. Otherwise — married, three sons. My sons are, in order: a sales guy, an artist, and aspiring backcountry snowboard instructor. So there's a lot of diversity in the family. But anyway, that's a little bit about me. Very exciting. I've really spent most of my career working for very innovative technology companies — that's been my niche, both as a seller and, for the past six years, returning to something I did for a short time at PTC: sales development and sales enablement. So I've toggled back and forth between those two roles, but most of my time has really been spent carrying a quota. 02:12 Andy Whyte: Right. Interesting. And so when you moved from Xerox to PTC — it seems like PTC almost had a desk in the foyer of Xerox, because so many great sellers who came to PTC came from Xerox. Was that one of those classic things where you saw colleagues making that move and thought it sounded interesting? How did that come about? 02:30 Dick Dunkel: A little bit, yeah. It's actually interesting — I worked for Xerox, started out selling office equipment, then moved to commercial printing, selling the big iron — the big, high-speed duplicators. And then I moved to Xerox Engineering Systems, selling wide-format engineering copiers and plotters, so I could tell my parents I was using my engineering degree. Being there exposed me to more engineering environments. I started hearing about this thing called Pro/ENGINEER, which was a genuinely revolutionary technology. They contacted me, and it all went from there. And I remember the experience of really engaging with PTC — how Xerox was so buttoned-up, professional, and evolved, whereas PTC was just a completely different kind of environment. It was edgy, fast-moving, high-accountability. Very exciting and very intense. A great experience. 03:19 Andy Whyte: That's interesting — the two words you used there: "high accountability." Being accountable is something that's gone on to be so closely associated with the calibre of salespeople and sales leaders who came out of PTC. What do you think created that high-accountability environment there? 03:50 Dick Dunkel: Yeah. I think it really started at the top. You had Steve Walske, Dick Harrison, who was the president, John McMahon, who was the head of sales — these were strong leaders with a really clear vision. They expected their managers to commit to the number and find a way to make it. And that trickled down to every single individual sales rep. I think it really emanated from Dick and John and the other top sales leaders. And when you're in this kind of business where growth is expected — and you're sometimes making forecasts your pipeline doesn't necessarily support, and you're having to find a way to get there anyway — that's where the intensity and energy come from. Because we all felt like we were in a race to grab as much growth and displace as much old technology as we possibly could. And the numbers bear that out — the company grew from $300 million to $1 billion over the time I was there, and they were one of the first software companies to reach $1 billion in annual sales. And I think the mindset you develop from working in environments like that, cultures like that, as a salesperson — it almost imprints on you. 05:09 Andy Whyte: One of the things that always makes me laugh and fascinates me about enterprise sales is how, regardless of how a company defines their sales periods — quarters, say — you get this same recurring pattern of deals rising and then spiking at the end of the quarter, and the end of the year is always the biggest spike of all. Now, customers — as much as people say they're smart and they know when to buy — I don't really see it that way. I think we as salespeople are dictating when things close, and therefore, with that same mindset, if we can impact when things close, we're also impacting what closes. So when you say people were forecasting numbers the pipeline velocity didn't necessarily support — I'd be fascinated, knowing you'd never get the actual data, to figure out what percentage of those numbers that came in were brought in almost by — I don't want to be too wishy-washy about it — the power of intent. That same intent, starting from the top, driving all the way down until everyone feels: "We've committed to a number. We've got to bring it in." 06:02 Dick Dunkel: Yeah. And I think, you know, it's obviously creativity — finding ways to accelerate an opportunity — some of the different creative things we've all seen. But I can't say it's necessarily a healthy lifestyle. That's not necessarily the right way to operate long-term. And I think one of the things we really need to do is avoid putting ourselves in that situation. Healthy pipeline cures all ills. And I think too often managers and sales organisations are more focused on the closing side than the pipeline-building side. If you're really being proactive — really thinking about how to avoid the hockey stick at the end of the quarter — you should be putting more energy into pipeline building so that you've got a reserve of opportunities to tap into and you're not draining the pond every single quarter. That's a vicious cycle that a lot of organisations would love to get themselves out of. A real focus and commitment to pipeline building is the way to do it. 08:01 Andy Whyte: Yeah, I think so too. And one of the fascinating things to me is the psychology that goes into your success rate. It's not just the quantity of pipeline, or the velocity moving through your sales process — it's the seller's mindset as well. If they feel like they've got a lot of pipeline behind them, they become more selective with their time and therefore more successful, because they qualify better and hold the customer more accountable for their time. And I think you and I have talked about this before — I believe you used to work with someone who talked about a "fair exchange of value." I'd really love to hear you expand on that. 09:23 Dick Dunkel: Yeah, that's a great topic and a great observation. There has to be a certain fearlessness. I think a lot of people are afraid to hear bad news. There's a willingness to ask the tough questions. And when you do have a healthy pipeline, you become a better qualifier — because you're not desperately clinging to that second-rate opportunity. You're like: "Look, I'm busy. I've got people to see, solutions to provide. If you can't help me understand how we're going to do business here — if we can't get an NDA in place so we can have a free exchange of information and really understand what's not working — then this isn't a great use of my time." And the customer thinks: "Whoa." We've got to bring some of that gravitas. The reality is that everyone we deal with in a customer account is incredibly busy — and so many of the people we deal with don't necessarily know how to buy technology. So I believe we really need to bring strong leadership into the engagement. Great salespeople are natural leaders — and leadership is also something that can be learned. But when you bring leadership into an engagement, the definition of leadership is that people will follow you — and that includes the customer. 10:21 Dick Dunkel: It's not to say we're going to ignore their process, but it has to be done together. When we lead as sellers, customers will follow. 11:05 Andy Whyte: I strongly believe that too. And I always say: if you think about the most impressive salesperson you've ever worked with, there are a lot of attributes people apply to great salespeople — product expertise, being good with people, all of those things you'd get if you surveyed the masses. But the one thing that stands head and shoulders above, when I think about the best salespeople I've ever worked with, is exactly what you just described: leadership qualities. Being the person who can bring everybody together — all the stakeholders, whether internal ones like your team, your sales engineer, your exec team, or the customer's exec team and their stakeholders — and managing all of those. I always think about this one person I worked with at Oracle. Oracle's a gigantic company, and we were in the construction industry vertical, so there were regular meetings where all the different internal Oracle stakeholders would come together. This person was a thoroughly impressive salesperson. I think they may have been globally top that year — at least top in EMEA, which is a significant achievement given the thousands of Oracle application salespeople. And I remember being earlier in my career, watching him in those meetings and thinking: "This guy doesn't contribute anything from a construction perspective. He doesn't seem to have any particular thought leadership." 12:10 Andy Whyte: And yet he was clearly the most impressive person in the entire organisation. And it goes back to exactly what you were saying — he commanded leadership because he was so confident in the value he provided that he filtered out anyone who wasn't going to be a good use of his time. 12:53 Andy Whyte: And I think that obviously ties into a big topic where MEDDIC is extremely strong: as a qualification framework. That's why they go so hand-in-hand. You and I are obviously both very biased towards MEDDIC. But to bring it full circle — I know you're probably one of the most modest people I know, Dick. I was looking at your LinkedIn profile earlier today, and under your areas of expertise, one of the third or fourth things listed is MEDDIC. And I thought: you're classing yourself as an expert in MEDDIC — but most people will know this — you literally coined the phrase. You invented the term MEDDIC. Which just amuses me. 12:53 Dick Dunkel: Yeah, I actually ran the very first MEDDIC implementation. There have been quite a few since then. But the first one — 13:54 Andy Whyte: that's amazing. And it's a fascinating story of how it came about. And I think what people would love to hear is the organic nature in which MEDDIC was born — I think that's actually one of the reasons why it's gone on to be so prolific and lasted the test of time like it has. So perhaps from your side — 13:54 Dick Dunkel: oh sure, yeah, yeah. You know, I think maybe some of this comes from my engineering background — but I think anyone who goes through school develops critical thinking. And one of the things I really took away from Xerox — it's funny, I actually have it on my desk right here — my first sales book was SPIN Selling. A classic. And what it really instilled was this idea that you can take something most people would think of as an art and break it down into sub-concepts: understanding the Situation, defining the Problem, exploring and exposing the Implications of that problem, and then the Needs Payoff. And I thought: that's really something. That was the methodology really instilled at Xerox. So when I got to PTC, I was initially a sales rep working in eastern Pennsylvania — spending time in Scranton and Allentown, calling on sheet metal fabricators and pump manufacturers, selling Pro/ENGINEER, which was design-through-manufacturing software. I was very successful there, responsible for generating a lot of new business in eastern Pennsylvania. And then I got a phone call from Ann Gary, who at the time was the head of sales development at PTC — she worked for John McMahon. She invited me to Waltham, Massachusetts to join the sales development organisation as an interim position. 15:30 Dick Dunkel: Because what PTC was doing at the time — which I think is a great practice — was pulling salespeople out of the field to do a stint in sales development, using it as an opportunity for professional development, and then spinning those people back out into the field as district managers. So it was an opportunity for me to develop professionally, as well as provide value to the organisation through training. At the time, John McMahon had this concept called "Five Touches" — he wanted five touches during the first year. There was a new hire class, then a boot camp, then an intermediate class, then another boot camp, and then Ann Gary's advanced class. But you had to earn an invitation to get to Ann's class. So I was responsible for developing this intermediate sales training class. I worked with a few different people — Dale Dahlmann was part of the team at the time, Jack Napoli was part of the team, and of course many other sales leaders who were there. And so I was in the process of developing this intermediate sales training class — and that was when this activity developed: Why do we win? Why do we lose? And why do deals slip? 17:06 Dick Dunkel: We moved to Waltham from the Philadelphia area in about April, so we went from spring in Philadelphia back to winter in Massachusetts — that's what happens when you move up there and step back in time a couple of months. I started working there in April or May, and by June or July we were running this course. And one of the things that started to emerge was a pattern coming out of this "Why do we win, why do we lose, why do deals slip" exercise. We started to see some recurring themes. And eventually we said: "Look, we keep coming up with the same six things." So I presented it to Ann and John. I said, "John, I think we've got something here. These are the six recurring themes of why we win, why we lose, why deals slip." And he said, "Let's run with it." So we had six things: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Pain, and Champions. And my claim to fame is that I was the person who had to decide that I was for the Identification of Pain — the identification and implication of pain. That was the original definition and version of MEDDIC. 18:38 Dick Dunkel: And it's funny — I remember the first time I presented this to a class. We had a group of sales reps who'd been on board for a few months. We went through the exercise, and then at the end I presented it and said: "This is it. This is the answer. The answer is MEDDIC." And this guy in the class — I remember to this day, his name is Mike McCarter — raised his hand. He said: "OK, let me see if I've got this straight. You mean to tell me that I is for Pain?" And I said: "Yes, you're damn right it is." Everybody laughed. And then he said: "That's the worst acronym I've ever heard." And then — I swear to God — a couple of weeks later he called me and said: "Hey, you remember I was making fun of your acronym?" He said: "I use it every day. I will never forget it. I use it in preparation for meetings. I use it to analyse a deal and figure out where our gaps are." He said: "I use it all the time." Funny story — in preparation for this interview, I exchanged messages with him and he said he's still using it. Still using it. 20:03 Andy Whyte: Wow, that's a brilliant story. Imagine if you'd taken offence and thought: "Maybe he's got a point. Maybe this acronym doesn't have legs." Because — and we joke — but I genuinely think about the billions and billions of dollars of revenue that have been won because organisations have been able to sell more proficiently because of what you created. That's fascinating. 20:23 Dick Dunkel: You know, I want to give a little more context, because maybe the piece I left out is that the people contributing to "Why do we win, why do we lose, why do deals slip" — those were people with great experience. Talented people who worked for really strong managers. So maybe what I was responsible for was the packaging — maybe that's the thing I can take credit for: the packaging exercise. These guys were the ones bringing the ideas. They were discussing the concepts — champion, decision criteria — these things already somewhat existed. And the other book that was very popular at PTC at the time was Power Base Selling — the subtitle was something about stories of an Ivy League street fighter. So concepts of Economic Buyer and champion were already embedded in that book. These guys were bringing the ideas. If I can take credit for anything, it's the packaging. 21:24 Andy Whyte: Yeah. No, that makes sense. But thank you. And I think — throughout history there have been collections of talent like this. PTC seemed like a very special place. You only have to look at the proliferation of who's come out of there, and the who's who in sales leadership today, to see that. But I think you should take credit — having the ability to bring it together, package it up, and articulate it in a manner that people can just grab hold of. And one of the things that's always been interesting to me about MEDDIC is that if you spoke to most enterprise salespeople, they would understand it even if they've not used it — or if they have used it, they'd have engaged with it to some degree. But it does seem to be a very wide spectrum — especially from my experience — of people who know what the acronym stands for and could answer questions like "Who's your champion? Who's your economic buyer?" right through to actually using it, executing against it, and then levelling it up to where you've been able to take it: executing it on top of defined sales processes, with entrance and exit criteria mapped to each stage. 22:28 Andy Whyte: That for me is very, very interesting. And I think there's a correlation between some of the fastest-growing companies and the level of discipline with which they deploy MEDDIC or MEDDPICC, as it often is now. Is that what you find as well? 22:28 Dick Dunkel: Yeah, for sure. And it's a really interesting concept. I think about organisations that are more of a startup — smaller, without the infrastructure, management structure, or process to really operate in a disciplined way. In early-stage companies, a lot of organisations bring in rainmakers — genuine superstars who can create business because they come from the industry or from a direct competitor. And with a small company and a group of very independent rainmakers, you might say: "I'm just going to let these guys run." And in that kind of environment, you don't necessarily need a structured framework from day one. You can say: "Look, let's all agree on the things we need to navigate through in our sales processes — clearly identifying a business priority and attaching ourselves to it, quantifiably defining how we're going to impact that solution, building consensus across decision makers, navigating through an agreed-upon process, developing champions — we've got to do all those things. But I'm going to let you figure out how and when." You can operate like that at a smaller stage, without strong sales leadership infrastructure. 24:22 Dick Dunkel: But what happens as organisations get bigger is that rainmakers don't grow on trees. You now have to expand your hiring profile to scale the sales organisation — you're still looking for top talent, but you need a model where you can bring in more salespeople, have more structure, a more repeatable process, more consistent forecasting. And that's when the discipline has to set in. That's when you've got to clearly define sales stages. And that's when, to me, MEDDIC can become less of a UI and more of an operating system. Love it. And that's kind of how I think about it — that's how we're using it at [Company]. Every activity doesn't start with one of those letters. There are things like: you've got to get an NDA in place. You've got to know whether the executive decision maker even knows you're talking to their company. There are things you've embedded in the process so that you can clearly define where you are in the process, what the definition of success looks like at each stage, and whether there's a fair exchange of value — whether we're delivering value to the customer within that process. I think that's an important concept, because it creates small victories. 26:18 Dick Dunkel: You can say: "We've successfully executed on this discovery stage, and the customer is like, yeah, that was great." They get what they need — a clear understanding of the problem and the potential solution. We begin to get a clear understanding of how they make decisions. It feels like a win-win. We've had an exchange of value at every sales stage. These feel like small victories. And when you can have small victories, they lead to the ultimate victory. 26:54 Andy Whyte: I love that. And yeah, that's exactly right. It's not about the fair exchange of value being a one-sided thing — because as I'm thinking about this, I'm thinking: that's all well and good if the customer is happy to go through that process. But the flip side is: if they're not happy to go through a process that's genuinely going to be win-win, because you're going to extract information that helps you demonstrate meaningful value to them — and they're not interested in that — then what are you doing there? So it is a classic dynamic. And I love the idea of the small wins, because especially in enterprise sales — and without disclosing anything sensitive, it must be a multi-month sales process given the complexity of what you're selling — building those wins in as you go is valuable not just for your own internal morale and sense of traction, but also for doing it with the customer. Saying: "Look, we've got through this stage together. Look at what we've done. This is the output of the work you've put in. And here's what's next — I'm going to be asking you to invest this much time, and the output will be this." 27:38 Andy Whyte: I love that. And the other thing this brings me back to is: this is where MEDDIC loves The Challenger Sale. Because so many of us are out there selling innovative solutions — bringing innovative ideas to organisations, introducing new concepts, challenging conventional thinking. That's a lot of what we do. People have conventional ways of thinking about how they can solve a problem. 28:59 Dick Dunkel: For us, it's about process improvement — identifying issues that exist inside organisations' critical business processes and improving them to achieve better business outcomes. But organisations can be stuck in the way they've done things historically. So for us to bring that innovation comes back to how important it is to really give first. Another basic tenet of sales is "give to get." But I think in order to really get traction, we put a lot of heavy emphasis on preparation. Know your customer. Know your audience. Be familiar with the kinds of challenges they face. Learn to speak their language — know the KPIs for their industry. When we take the time, have a relevant story to share, come in with strong ideas about how we believe we can help — that provocative point of view — that demonstrates a real strong "give." To me, that's the right way to enter into these kinds of relationships, builds credibility and respect, and gets us into a motion of that exchange of value, getting us into a healthy process. 30:27 Andy Whyte: Yeah, I love that. But when you're managing these — I won't call them extra layers, but this extra focus of things you're looking to complete at each stage — I don't know whether you call them exit criteria or just criteria — how are you managing that? Is it just added depth in the process, or is it genuinely binary — as in, if I'm a salesperson working for you, to progress a deal from one stage to the next, I have to have satisfied certain criteria? 31:06 Dick Dunkel: Yeah. So we actually have something we call the MEDDPICC Checklist. It's the absolute minimum set of things you have to have accomplished at a given stage in order to advance. And interestingly, for us, the P in MEDDPICC stands for Partner — because we're very committed to leveraging partner relationships. Partners can genuinely contribute and add value to our engagements, helping deliver process improvement to our customers. So we always, always, always have to have a partner plan. And what we did was go through each element and ask: what are the small steps you would go through to truly accomplish this? For example, with M — Metrics — what are the steps to securing strong metrics? What would the customer use to validate and justify an investment in [Company]? What are the steps to identify the Economic Buyer, secure alignment and sponsorship, and get their agreement to move forward together? You can go through each letter and describe all the steps involved. And Andy, I know you did this in your book and I think your descriptions were excellent. When you do it in your own terms — "this is how we would do it at our company" — those become the steps. 32:25 Dick Dunkel: Then you distribute those activities across your sales stages. You say: what are the things that have to have been accomplished during our initial stage — we call it "Profile" — and then we go into Discovery, then Confirm, then Executive Alignment? So there are these stages, and at the bare minimum, these are the things that have to have occurred in order for you to advance. And one of the things we noticed when we first rolled this out was that sales reps would not complete a stage and yet would still advance it. So they would be incomplete. 33:03 Dick Dunkel: And opportunities that were incomplete at an initial stage were much more likely to be incomplete at the next stage — and the stage after that. So you were creating a vicious cycle of incompleteness. As opposed to: let's take a disciplined approach. Don't move forward until you get that mutual NDA in place. Don't move forward until you know your contact has access to the economic buyer. When we started instilling that discipline, our sales reps began pushing back on the customer: "I don't think we're ready to move forward yet." And all of a sudden we were doing a better job of qualifying — and also qualifying out. And I think that's something many sales reps struggle with: how and when do I qualify out? Well, this is helping you figure out the when. This is the answer to that question. And qualifying out doesn't mean you're never going to talk to the customer again — it just means they're being deprioritised, and maybe you should be spending that time prospecting instead. 34:15 Andy Whyte: I love that. And you know what? That speaks to something I've been feeling for a while — it amuses me greatly that we as salespeople are the most pessimistic bunch of people you'll ever meet. We're constantly worrying about competition, about whether the customer has budget, about all the reasons our deals might fall through. That keeps us on our toes. But the only time salespeople stop being pessimistic and become total optimists is when the question of qualifying out comes up. 34:49 Dick Dunkel: And for whatever reason, we don't do it enough — despite the fact that no one has ever told me they regret qualifying out. No one. Ever. So we have this funny thing going on. And what you're talking about is brilliant — because it just gives the salesperson more evidence to support a decision: either stay in because there's light at the end of the tunnel and we will get these criteria met, or qualify out. And as I often say, two things will happen when you go to qualify out. The first: the customer says, "You know what, Dick — you're right. This isn't a priority for us right now." The second: they say, "Oh no — sorry, we are genuinely interested. Sorry if we gave you the wrong impression — that other project has now wrapped up and you have my full attention." And it changes the dynamic entirely. The other benefit of this approach is that we also use the checklist as a way to evaluate sales rep competencies. There's a list of anywhere from six to eight things to accomplish at each stage. And one of the things we say is: if you're struggling to execute on a particular item, please don't ignore it. 36:08 Dick Dunkel: Don't say "That's dumb" or "I don't understand why you're asking me to do that." Raise your hand and ask for help. Say, "I'm struggling with this — help me." And when you can help sales reps overcome a blind spot or something they're struggling with — navigating a process where you're getting agreement with the customer, getting consensus on next steps, getting them to commit to providing the information you need, defining the stakeholders — 36:47 Dick Dunkel: when you help them identify where those soft spots are, you can provide more targeted training. And all of a sudden you can unlock new potential in your sales reps. So to me, that checklist is not only a way to navigate qualification — qualifying in or qualifying out — it's also a development tool. 37:07 Andy Whyte: I love that, Dick. I know we're running out of time, and I can already tell you now who's going to be absolutely loving this episode. So hopefully we can find more time to pick up this conversation, because I know from our pre-show conversation there are a ton of really interesting things we haven't even touched on — MEDDIC as an operating system, and the scope of MEDDIC going all the way through the revenue operation, from pre-sales to post-sales. That's a whole other exciting topic. But for now, let's wrap it up there. And I just want to say thank you first — it's been fun. 37:47 Dick Dunkel: Thanks, Andy. Thank you so much for joining. 37:47 Andy Whyte: But also thank you for your work in inventing MEDDIC, and everything you've done since to help its proliferation. I know everyone listening to this is very, very grateful. And personally, thank you for your help with the work I've been doing. You've been an absolutely stellar partner. Thank you so much. 38:04 Dick Dunkel: Oh, it's been a pleasure. And I'll just say — MEDDIC turns 25 this spring. So perhaps we should raise a glass to — I would raise a glass to our customers. Because it's the customers — the ones we've worked with, the ones we've really delivered a win-win for — understanding each other, helping them achieve the things that really matter to their business. And then it's the salespeople who are helping them navigate through that process, find the opportunities, and bring them into their organisations. To me, those are the people who have brought it to life, and they're the ones who deserve the credit. 39:00 Andy Whyte: I think you're spot on. Thank you so much, Dick. 39:00 Dick Dunkel: My pleasure.