MEDMEN: The Worst Take On MEDDIC

00:00 Pim Roelofsen: Welcome to The MedMen Show. My name is Pim and that's Andy. And what are we talking about today, Pim? 00:04 Andy Whyte: Today we're talking about the worst takes on MEDDIC. 00:07 Pim Roelofsen: Oh — what's the worst one you've heard? 00:09 Andy Whyte: The worst take I've heard — and actually heard again quite recently — is basically throwing shade on the concept of a champion. And what I mean is: a self-professed sales guru — I'm not just throwing shade myself here, this person literally calls themselves "the Future of Sales" — came out on a webinar I was invited onto and said there's no such thing as a champion. No such thing as a deal without a champion? Yeah. And the idea was that having somebody inside a customer's business doing things for you is an old concept that doesn't happen anymore. So I pursued this. I asked them: "Tell me about a deal you're really proud of." They started talking about how wonderful they were in this opportunity. I said: "OK, what was the best meeting you had?" They said: "Oh, it was where this person was there, that person was there." I said: "How did you get those people in the room?" They said: "What do you mean? They were invited." "Who invited them?" "What do you mean, who invited them?" I said: "Which person was it? Did you send them an invite? Did you blindly email them?" "No." "Well, who did then?" Of course — the champion did. 01:35 Andy Whyte: And the funniest thing about this encounter — because it was on a LinkedIn Live — somebody was in the chat saying that they were this person's champion for a deal they'd done together, and that without them, there was no deal. So that was that. For me, I always laugh, but I don't dwell on it too much — because thinking there's no such thing as a champion is just daft. I bet everyone listening, if they think about the best deal they've ever done — the one that comes out in job interviews, the one you'd tell someone about as a brilliant act of professional selling — I guarantee there was a champion in that story. Good selling is ineffective without a champion, because it's like shouting into an empty room. It doesn't matter how good you are at overcoming objections, at discovery, at presenting and building a business case — if you haven't got somebody working on the inside, bringing other people in, sharing information, helping you get those insights in front of other people, it's ineffective. Doesn't matter how good you are at those things. 02:43 Andy Whyte: So a champion — we know this — is imperative. But I didn't even think I'd have to talk about this, because we almost dismissed that other situation as being daft. But then I saw a GM of a company that historically has a great name in our industry — a lot of talent has left the business, which may be part of the problem — come out and say that they think "champion" should be left to sport. They said we should have "executive sponsors" instead. And I thought: what do you mean? Are they talking about the economic buyer? I genuinely wasn't sure, because how they described what a stakeholder should be left me unable to tell if they were talking about a champion or an economic buyer — because they were using new language they'd invented. And that's part of the point. One of the values of MEDDIC is that it helps build cohesion in a concise way. What this person was doing was just creating new inefficiencies. 03:45 Andy Whyte: And for some strange reason, they've decided there's no such thing as a champion. I just thought to myself: how does somebody get to GM level at a great company, running a really strong region — some of the best people in our industry used to work in that region — and come out and say something like that? But forget deals for a moment — how does that person walk across their office and talk to the marketing team and say: "We need more pipeline — can we get some more executive sponsors into meetings? Can we build some content?" How do they even talk to salespeople? I mean — we've gone so backwards. 04:16 Pim Roelofsen: Yeah. I think you even mentioned you'd heard from someone who worked at that organization. 04:20 Andy Whyte: That's right. And it's almost become a bit of a meme internally there. But you said something a minute ago — about a lot of talent being attached to MEDDIC as well. You see MEDDIC companies with a great reputation, and there's a clear correlation with their performance over the next twelve months, retention rates, whatever you have. And then if you see this kind of thing happening, it's not a surprise. The point is: the best of the best have a correlation to MEDDIC. And I don't think that's what you'd see in that organization today anymore. 04:51 Pim Roelofsen: Yes, indeed. The other thing — it's a test anyone can do. If you're new to MEDDIC and thinking "what does this look like in my world?" — ask yourself: what's the best deal I've ever had? Who was the person there with me, selling on our behalf when we weren't in the room? What was their vested interest? How did they win when we did? You will see someone come up. You will have a name. And then it suddenly becomes very real, rather than something you've learned from theory. 05:25 Andy Whyte: Yes — and I'll drink to that! 05:27 Pim Roelofsen: Cheers — here's to champions! 05:29 Andy Whyte: Cheers!