MEDMEN: What People Get Wrong with Decision Criteria

00:09 Pim Roelofsen: Welcome to The MedMen Show. This is Andy — 00:11 Andy Whyte: — and that's Pim. What are we talking about today, Pim? 00:14 Pim Roelofsen: We are talking about what people get wrong with my favorite MEDDIC element — decision criteria. It breaks my heart when I see people not utilizing it as fully as they could. Getting it wrong. Makes me very, very sad. 00:30 Andy Whyte: What do you think the number one thing is that salespeople get wrong about decision criteria? 00:33 Pim Roelofsen: There is this mindset where we think decision criteria are something that the customer already has. We need to uncover what their decision criteria are — as if they're experts in buying your solution. As if they've already got it all worked out. And all you need to do as a salesperson is go and figure out what things in particular they know they need to have in your solution, and basically match your solution to their needs. 00:49 Andy Whyte: Yeah — as if our customers are so busy day in, day out that they're just spending time reading Forrester reports, going on all of our websites, competitors' websites, reading G2, all this kind of stuff. And even if they did do all of that — the opinion they form, the decision criteria that forms, is the one that's best for their business. That is the number one thing people get wrong about decision criteria. 01:30 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah. Because when you do find that they have decision criteria, there's probably something else going on — which is even less favorable for where you'll be with that prospect. At best it's come from good, unbiased research. At worst, it's coming from a competitor — who is not going to go in there and talk about all the things that are better about your solution that they should be looking for. They're only going to talk about what's great about theirs. And if they're a really good salesperson, they're going to set some traps for you that you're probably going to walk straight into if you try and match to that competitor-set decision criteria. 02:08 Andy Whyte: Yeah. And then — maybe jointly the biggest thing people get wrong with decision criteria — is that they're just reactive with it. What I mean by reactive is: they go and find out what the criteria is, and then they react and tune their pitch to it. They accept it for what it is. Don't change it. It's locked in now — and we're going to have to do our best to make our solution sound as good as it can against this criteria. When, as we just said, even if the customer has very clear decision criteria from their side, it's unlikely to be good for you. At best it'll be neutral. And if you just sit back, you're not really doing what I'd call professional selling. You're just answering questions about your solution. You're demonstrating your vanilla solution rather than actually solution selling. 03:07 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah. And I think as it connects back to value — which is the bigger pillar that decision criteria are part of — this is how you do it. If you think about the pain that this customer is looking to solve, potentially with you as a seller, you need to care about the way you're going to earn the right to address it. And when you're thinking about the strengths of your company, your products and so on — it's the articulation of how you do that better than anyone else, or maybe even uniquely, if you're in a really lucky spot. So yeah — that reactiveness is a real big thing we see people get wrong. 03:49 Andy Whyte: Right. And it shouldn't be forgotten how much the customer will mark you down as a partner if all you do is go "oh, OK — yeah, we can do that." To make this more visual: it's like if you invite an architect round to your house and you tell them you want an extension because you need more space. And they go outside and start measuring how much garden you're going to lose. They come back with a plan — you're going to lose half your backyard. 04:27 Andy Whyte: And then another architect comes in and says: "Tell me why — why is it you want the extension?" You say: "We need another room, we've got a child on the way." And they say: "OK, but if you do an extension you're going to lose half your garden. But I noticed you've got a loft — an attic. Have you thought about converting that?" All of a sudden — it doesn't matter how good the first architect is, or how beautiful the extension was going to be. The second architect just changed the game. And they're probably going to win the deal. 04:59 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah, absolutely. And that's decision criteria in action. And actually you've made me realise something else — another thing people get wrong is they think about it only in the technical sense. But we break it down into other categories too. 05:09 Andy Whyte: Yeah, for sure. In your example: there's the economic side — from an economics perspective there'll definitely be a cost difference. But as we always say, it's not just about money. You probably don't need as much planning permission or authority involvement to convert an attic as you do to extend the back of the house, depending on where you live. That's your time to value and efficiency criteria. And then from a relationship perspective — an extension might affect the future sale value of the house in ways that aligning with longer-term goals might make relevant. We're going way too far into this analogy — but it's a good one! 05:59 Pim Roelofsen: I'm thinking there are probably architects cold calling you right now! Let's summarize. What is it people get wrong? They assume customers either don't have decision criteria at all, or if they do, that it's well thought out. They're reactive about it — just lining themselves up and hearing what the customer has to say rather than influencing, taking control, and thought leading. Yeah. So: the assumption that it's well thought out, basically. 06:30 Andy Whyte: Yeah. What else? Oh — there's one I thought of. People assume that they go in, do the world's greatest job of influencing and thought leadership, get confirmation from their customer, have consensus — and then they hang the decision criteria on the wall and assume it's not going to change. They assume the salesperson who comes in after them isn't going to make the customer think about things differently. I'm bringing the architect analogy back — sorry, Pim — but it's like: what if someone comes in and says "actually, maybe you don't need more space for the child at all. Maybe you just want more space in general." Someone catches their eye, sells them a holiday home somewhere else entirely. As long as you're attaching back to the core business need, the decision criteria can be so far from that that it could change radically. 07:26 Andy Whyte: And that's why salespeople today can have five deals — and in each of those deals they can have five, ten, fifteen different competitors. They won't necessarily see the same competition in the same deal, even if they're selling the same solution. 07:42 Pim Roelofsen: I'm really glad you brought it back to selling. I've been through quite a bit of a rebuild myself, and I think everyone who has — and is listening to this — will resonate with that. But yeah, it makes a lot of sense in the context of professional selling. 07:53 Andy Whyte: Yeah. Cheers — and thanks for listening to The MedMen Show!