Author: houstontechnologies

Categories
Sales Process & Automation

Why Use MEDDPICC®

MEDDPICC-Funnel
Drive deals with MEDDPICC

Qualification is a Key to Sales Success

A strong qualification process is a critical component to any successful sales process. The right approach to sales qualification helps both the buyer and the seller navigate successfully through the decision-making process. It helps ensure that the way you sell is aligned with the way customers want to buy.

For the Buyers:

Buyers don’t want to waste time on solutions that aren’t a good fit. The right sales qualification process guides buyers through the requirements, options and risks that are all part of the buying process. Good qualification ensures that your solutions are correctly positioned within each of these stages and aligned with the buying decision criteria.

For the Sellers:

A great sales qualification process also helps sellers by identifying bad news early, such as gaps in customer knowledge or relationships. For the seller, the key is to qualify deals in or out faster, so you can focus on only the highest potential opportunities. This will prevent you from spending a lot of time on deals that were never going to close.

A Qualification Approach That Supports the Sales Process

MEDDPICC®  is a proven qualification methodology that supports your sales process. It provides a “litmus test” for gauging the strength of a sales opportunity. Think of it as a GPS to navigate the sales cycle. Using MEDDICC®, MEDDPICC®, or any its variants, as an internal Sales Qualification Tool helps drive consistent discovery and efficient qualification of opportunities. All the key components of a successful sales cycle are defined and integrated as part of the approach.

The right qualification approach ensures both buyers and sellers are aligned throughout the process to optimize their time, define accurate decision criteria, and integrate executive buy-in throughout the decision-making process. Understand what foundation is needed to maximize MEDDPICC® results. Check out how we’re helping clients implement MEDDPICC® in their CRMs!

Drive Consistency For Your Sales Team

  • Commit to Consistent Qualification: Qualification plays an integral role in supporting how you engage with customers as well as how you execute your sales operating rhythm.
  • Customization is Key: It’s important to customize each element of  your qualification criteria to ensure relevance for your sales team.
  • Create a Qualification Toolkit: Sales consumable tools, like Opportunity Qualifiers and Opportunity Coaching Guides provide a consistent approach for your sales qualification.
  • Train Your Team: To build fluency around your sales qualification criteria and toolkit, pair interactive instructor-led training with online learning modules.  
  • Coach and Reinforce Qualification Criteria: Provide your sales team with easy access to ongoing training and reinforcement materials and make sure your managers have a regular cadence for coaching your sellers to success. 

MEDDPICC® is a registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively licensed by MEDDIC® Academy, and is being used with permission

Categories
Sales Process & Automation

MEDDPICC® in Zoho CRM: How to Forecast Within 1% Accuracy

forecasting
Forecasting in Zoho CRM

The MEDDPICC® process has been used by many companies throughout the years, proving this methodology to be one of the most effective strategies in growing businesses and increasing their revenue and profits on a large scale. But with the recent development of technology, many analytical systems and software have already been developed for further analytics discovery in terms of the overall business process, where Zoho is one of the most prevalent software used to help predict and forecast with the help of the MEDDPICC® strategy.

But how does one go through the sales funnel to help forecast the 1% accuracy? The Funnel goes through several stages, such as listed below:

Stage 1: Metrics

To go through the funnel, one must first prospect the possible clients and customers of the business. Often this is the most taxing work, as there is a broad range of people to be contacted until the business or the marketers will be able to move to the next stage.

Stage 2: Economic Buyer

After a certain number of leads are reached, it is then possible to move to the next stage, which is to discuss the next steps through a discovery call or a short meeting for the possible outcome of the business deal.

Stage 3: Decision Criteria

Proceeding to the next stage is one of the most crucial steps, as this often makes or breaks the sales deals. Having solutions to a customer’s wants and needs is the next part, and this is on reviewing the overall business process with the use of decision-making AI, including the technical requirements necessary to proceed with the transaction. What are the business’ standard procedures? How is the data gathered from top to bottom? What tools are necessary to centralize and streamline the process easier without disrupting the operations’ current process?

Stage 4: Decision Process

The decision process then tackles the stakeholders of the business, including the influencers and approvers of the business overall. This is where the business accounts the changes and how it affects the hierarchy of standard procedures to help alleviate and centralize the whole operations of the business. With this, new tools, systems, processes, and software are introduced, making the main changes of the business and gathering the full picture of the lead time of the transformation for the business. Zoho does a good job of tracking these transactions in their system, helping you see the overall picture without the stress of extensive manual labor.

Stage 5: Paper Process

Although most businesses are going digital by this stage, it is important to note the legal paperwork necessary to achieve and ensure that everything is correctly documented and legalized in an efficient manner. To be able to document the status of each paper process is essential in keeping track of the business’ necessary requirements. This also adds an extra layer of protection to ensure the process is well documented and maintained. Zoho can take note of these documents, and even predict the closing dates of said documents as a way to keep track of the progress.

Stage 5: Identification/Implication (of Pain Points)

In this stage, it’s important to check the overall status of the prospect and to take note of any difficulties along the way. Are there any factors hindering the process? Are there any factors that are driving away from the prospect from the plans?

Stage 6: Champion

With Zoho, you can use the system to document and score any potential champions on the process, making sure that they are able to make the deal and pitch it, granting their ideals as well as being the driving force of the deal.

Stage 7: Competitor

Are there any specific competitors you should take note of? Who are you competing against? To know about the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors is one way to be able to analyze the possible competition and make the necessary adjustments or decisions to help drive the business forward, and might also even be a learning opportunity to study the competitor’s mindset along the way to help you drive the business one step further ahead.

Additional Features

Forecasting in Zoho can be further enhanced with inbuilt AI and machine learning capabilities. See our making smarter article on features and benefits of using ZIA voice prediction capabilities how it supercharge your business

Summary

With Zoho’s robust and scalable technology, enhanced with the MEDDPICC® sales methodology, your sales organization can supercharge their efforts, decrease inefficiencies, close more deals, and predictably forecast within 1% accuracy at the individual account executive level, all the way to upper management. It’s never been easier to gain actionable insights into your sales organization while driving measurable results with a repeatable and easy-to-use framework like with our MEDDPICC® for Zoho CRM capability.

If you need any assistance in getting started, come and contact us at Houston Technologies today. We are here to help you out anytime.

MEDDPICC® is a registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively licensed by MEDDIC® Academy, and is being used with permission.

Categories
Oracle CX Services

Oracle Social Cloud

“The Social Cloud platform offers an API layer to deliver social data and functionality into existing technology stacks including Oracle Customer Experience Cloud and Marketing Cloud.”

A unified listening, analytics and engagement application helps marketers measure social success and connect social analytics with business KPI.

WHY MARKETERS CHOOSE ORACLE SOCIAL CLOUD

KEY BENEFITS

  • Engage with Customers in Near Real-Time: The capacity to screen and react to high volumes of messages across numerous channels. Oracle Social Engage enables advertisers to deal with these exercises through an outwardly roused, simple to-explore interface.
  • Deliver Relevant Content: Utilizing With the Publish include, advertisers can undoubtedly plan and distribute content across online media channels, and in different dialects to meet their crowds requirements.
  • Connect Social Across CX: Oracle Social Cloud is integrated with Oracle CX and Oracle Marketing Cloud solutions like Eloqua, Responsys, Service, and more.
Categories
Sales Process & Automation

What is MEDDICC®: Everything You Need To Know About It

meddicc-sales-process
MEDDICC Sales Process

Organizations strive to generate leads to use on their marketing campaigns to get desired results. But these leads often come in thousands, yet only a fraction of the leads eventually become paying customers. To filter out the potential customers from the thousand leads, a systematic process called “Lead Qualification” is used. A successful sales process comes from a robust qualification process. And one of the famous lead qualification methodologies is called “MEDDICC®“.

What is MEDDICC®?

MEDDICC®, a B2B sales qualification process developed in the 1990s, is a process that emphasizes the better customer qualification from the list of your generated leads. It helps your organization determine whether you should expend effort to get a particular lead into your sales funnel. MEDDICC®, as a proven qualification methodology, is used by many as an internal Sales Qualification Tool that helps drive consistent discovery and efficient qualification of opportunities. If your marketing has not been effective, it might not have anything to do with how you market. You could be targeting the wrong audience. MEDDICC® sales process helps businesses qualify their target audiences. Getting to target the right people to sell your products or service makes it easier to close sales. The following sections will discuss MEDDICC®’s acronym and its functions and how you can begin implementing MEDDICC® to your sales approach.

Metrics

The metrics part of MEDDICC® focuses on quantifiable measurements of the gains customers can get from your offered solution. By using a metric to factor in the economic benefits of your solution, you can easily prove to customers how your solution can provide a good return on investment or ROI. When you know what the customer cares about, you’ll be one step closer to closing your sale.

Economic buyer

Find out who in your customer’s organization has the power to make decisions and authorize spending. Learning about the economic buyer and their mindset regarding expectations, personal metrics, and decision-making processes can be a great advantage in closing your sales. Adjust your sales so it is palatable to the economic buyer as their veto power makes them the one person in your customer’s organization that must be convinced as much as possible.

Decision Criteria

Another critical thing to find out from your customer organization is their criteria for making decisions. As they get presented with multiple solutions from different sources, they have to compare and choose which can bring a much better gain. If you understand their decision criteria, you can easily adjust how you market your solution. Suppose the customer organization does not have decision criteria, urge them to put it to paper so that you can easily prove to them that your solution can meet all their needs. Thus, showing to the customer organization no reason why they shouldn’t agree to a sale.

Decision Process

Knowing the customer organization’s decision process will prevent loss of sale due to stagnation. For example, if the economic buyer has already approved the offered solution, but the follow-up process paperwork hasn’t gotten completed yet, your side can specifically push for the paperwork process. Thus, closing the sale for your side. Noting when to follow up with the other company for the decision process is always advantageous to close deals.

Identify Pain

Customers seek solutions from businesses because of their “pain”. You must first know what is causing pain to the customers to offer them the best solution. When you already know what the customer’s pain is, you can pitch your solution in a compelling way to solve their problem and give them additional gains.

Champions

Champions are those people inside your customer’s organization that can bring an advantage when you come to offer your solution finally. Champions are those invested in your solution and can sell the idea of it inside the customer’s organization. It could be a person in a managerial or supervisory role or just someone with a well-respected influence. Having their favor can make closing sales an easy job to settle.

Competition

Lastly, knowing your competitors’ strengths, weaknesses and processes can put an edge on how you manage your sales pitch. Having a unique and compelling pitch about your product that makes it stand out from the competition can easily convince your customer organization.

Difference Between MEDDICC® and MEDDPICC®

MEDDPICC® is a variant of MEDDICC®. Both are B2B sales methodologies that help teams qualify opportunities. MEDDICC® sets a solid sales foundation with a competitive advantage. Using MEDDICC® can let you effectively qualify, forecast, and close deals. It helps your sales team learn and track their market landscape, giving them prospects of their competition and target customers. On the other hand, MEDDPICC® works the same as MEDDICC®, but it is more advantageous when dealing with complex contracting. It is ideal for selling to enterprise buyers who have long or complex contracting processes. Regardless of the Paper Process difference, both work throughout your deal cycle from start to finish. They can provide flexibility and adaptability to your sales process to customize it according to your team’s capabilities and your customer’s specific needs.

MEDDPICC® is a registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively licensed by MEDDIC® Academy, and is being used with permission.

Categories
Digital Transformation Sales Process & Automation

What is MEDDPICC® and Why Do You Need it?

meddpicc
MEDDPICC

Have you ever wondered how can you increase your sales, better hit your targets, double your profits, and earn more as a salesperson? If you have been working in enterprise sales or might have seen this word as you read through some other salespeople’s success stories online, then it’s highly likely that you have already seen this particular word: MEDDPICC®, at least once in your life as a salesperson. But before we dive first into following this process – first, we will explain what is MEDDPICC®, and why do you need it.

So what is MEDDPICC®?

MEDDPICC® is a widely known and popular sales qualification methodology that is commonly used in enterprise sales. This was first developed by the PTC corporation’s creators, Dick Dunkel and Jack Napoli, and has been one of the most used sales qualification approaches in recent times, especially in the B2B industries. As a head start, it is quite similar to a checklist, that allows you to see what things you are supposed to do to identify your weak spots in your current process. Let’s start by breaking down each word to fully understand this methodology.

Metrics

Metrics is probably one, if not the most, important thing in sales. You track your business’s growth and see your current assessment in just one glance. For this method, you must check your current metrics and determine the financial impact you have, and let your prospects see how you can change or improve their own metrics by providing them with the solutions you offer.

Economic buyer

The Economic Buyer is also one of the most important people you will encounter in your life as a salesperson. These people are the ones who can make your ideas into reality and can help you fund through your ideals, as long as you provide them with a good and feasible goal. Make sure you can share with them your concrete ideas and gain their trust.

Decision Criteria

The decision criteria is mainly understanding what your buyer wants as an outcome. Many buyers have different ideals, and it is your job to provide them the solution you want that adheres to their wants and needs.

Decision Process

The decision process is then the step-by-step method of getting your buyer to close the sale. Oftentimes, the buyer will have their concerns and questions in terms of completing the purchase, and it is your responsibility to address their clarifications throughout the purchase process. Forecasting the possibilities and open options for them as they complete the sale is crucial and can lead you to close more deals in the future.

Paper Process

One of the most common things salespeople often overlook is the paper process of a business. These might even cause you to miss out on great opportunities – so it’s important to consider the legal process, the timeframe of the said legal process, the people involved, the level of priority, and other factors that can affect the timeline of your sale and decision making.

Identify Pain

Do you sometimes find your prospect changes their mind in the middle of a sale? Identifying your prospect’s pain points is vital, as it can make or break your deal. By emphasizing and clearly articulating your prospect’s current pain points and addressing where you can solve the problem, and using other information such as your decision criteria and your metrics to strengthen your points, you can then finally find yourself both closing the sale and addressing your client’s concerns.

Champions

Champions are the people that are indirectly involved in your deal – they can help you ease the process internally on your client’s side, and you can discuss with them more of what they think about your deal by also helping them out by giving them again. By building a good relationship with them and educating them with your ideas to help them understand the main outcome of your proposition, you can watch your opportunity become stronger to aid you in closing the sale.

Competition

Having a competitor is normal in every business, but using them as an example to let your prospect see your edge over the competition is a strategy that also has been proven. When doing so, present your unbiased opinions over what pros and cons you have in comparison to their services. Although it can be tempting, you should also never lie or talk negatively about your competitors. Let your clients know that you know what you are offering, and making it clear on how you compare will also give your prospect a clearer picture of what they are purchasing for the long run.

End Thoughts

These pointers may seem fairly common for every salesperson out there but you may find the results surprising and game-changing. So take these as a challenge to yourself as a salesperson, and try to apply this methodology and see if it works for you.

MEDDPICC® is a registered trademark of Darius Lahoutifard, exclusively licensed by MEDDIC® Academy, and is being used with permission.

Categories
Artificial Intelligence

Principles For Making Better Chatbot Conversation

Conversation design is the art of teaching computers to communicate the way humans do. It’s a broad area that requires knowledge of UX design, audio design, linguistics, and copywriting.

Principles of Conversational Design

  • Quick and clear: While making your chatbot stories, attempt to stay away from complex similitudes, expressions, and long questionable explanations. They hinder the discussion and remove clients from where they should be. Utilize basic language, do nott request that a client pick numerous things without a moments delay, and arrive at the point.
  • Goal-oriented: Clients who start a discussion with a chatbot need to accomplish their objective while visiting: book an arrangement, reset their password, order something, or check your refund policy, order history. A viable discussion configuration empowers the two clients and your chatbot to accomplish their objective absent a lot of exertion.
  • Error tolerant: To make your chatbot error-tolerant, try to anticipate common spelling mistakes first. Teach your chatbot these variations to improve its understanding.
Categories
Oracle Business

Oracle Health Sciences Connect 2021 Goes Global

“networking and making connections with peers in the industry”

Life Sciences is changing and at a very rapid rate. We all know it’s a big pill to swallow (no pun intended!) for our industry to completely change the way clinical trials and its processes have been conducted for years.

Connected, Engaging, Personal

Smart Engagements

  • web: Personalize every customer experience by reading Digital Body Language. Capture and track behaviors while personalizing the experience
  • Email: Rely on a proven enterprise marketing platform. Power increased revenue and higher customer engagement.
  • Mobile: Engage your on-the-go customers wherever they are. Deliver your content and notifications in context.
  • Social: Start turning Likes and Tweets intoadvocacy and revenue. Connect social interaction data to campaigns and analytics.
  • Display: Give display ads personal relevance for increased engagement. Transform display from transactions to relationships.
Categories
App & Web Development

Business Trending Shifts from Web Development to Mobile-First Approach

With the present developing technology; mobiles are exceptionally populated than PC. The majority of users prefer to use their smart mobile phones for browsing instead of desktop and this number is increasing higher especially in the US compared to previous years and most of the visits come from mobile devices.

  • The mobile-first approach considers a lot of elements that should be followed like the plan of your portable site, an amicable construction so clients can follow it easily, the setting that they will peruse, and a secret installment door for simple buy. So whatever your business is, ought to be cleared in your versatile site with the correct design for a superior appearance. With these mobile websites, you can get the additional features as well that will not be able to use within the desktop website.
  • Designing a mobile website can’t ignore the presence and requirement of desktop websites but the only thing is that it should be compatible with mobiles so that you can reach your valuable customers. So follow the best web development organization, which can provide you with customized mobile responsive websites with mobile-first approach design.