Metrics as a Solution to Inertia

For customers in the early stages of their MEDDPICC initiatives (first 3-6 months), 99% of the time, we see that Metrics can be a challenge.

If you were to look online, you would find articles and resources from the LinkedIn Gurus on how to ‘ask the right question’ to uncover the customer’s metrics.

Ask yourself this: Do the typical personas that we identify, build, and test as Champions have, anywhere in their job description, the need to be experts in buying technology?

Andy (Whyte) recently researched this: he looked at CMO and VP of Marketing jobs on LinkedIn to find how many had any trace of buying technology included in the job description, on a data set of 100 open roles in our industry.

Can you guess how many he found? ;)

In our industry, data suggests the main reason we lose deals is inertia. There are even whole books written about it, explaining how to overcome inertia (the JOLT Effect is one example).

Ultimately, this just goes back to how pain + value equal urgency and how ineffective we can be to:

A) find pain that is important enough for the customer to solve for
B) articulate the quantified value that prospective customers may expect from our solutions by solving for that pain
C) ensure alignment to strategic initiatives for the business we sell to empowering them to achieve goals and vested interests of our Champions

This isn’t necessarily easy (which is good, because it creates the opportunity to differentiate), but equally, it isn’t rocket science.

Enter: MEDDICC’s Metrics Framework as the absolute changemaker, across the full Customer Lifecycle. Remember not all MEDDIC is equal - the Metrics Framework (M1-M2-M3) connects the dots across the full customer lifecycle and unites GTM teams.

This brings the question to mind: should we find ways to overcome inertia - or level up the way we Go to Market altogether, not getting into the inertia limbo so often? 

Distinctions to reflect on:
Trusted advisor vs 10 golden disco questions AE
Professional Buyers vs Professional Sellers
Pro-active collaboration on Metrics vs Asking the Customer for ‘their Metrics’
GTM United or GTM Disconnected
Full Lifecycle or just Selling?

-Win the day, week, quarter and FY

Pim
CRO at MEDDICC