Masters of MEDDICC: Learn from Top Enterprise Sales Leaders in Tech! – Details, episodes & analysis

25. That's the number of consecutive Presidents Clubs Lucy Williams-Jones has qualified for. Across some of the greatest companies in our industry, BMC, MongoDB, Datadog and now Astronomer, Lucy has built one of the most consistent and decorated careers in enterprise sales. 

In this episode, Andy Whyte sits down with Lucy to unpack what separates a lucky career from a legendary one. From the impact of AI on modern selling to the growing complexity of buying committees, Economic Buyer engagement and what it really takes to build a champion, this is a masterclass in consistency. 

You'll learn: 
✅ Why AI is making salespeople lazy and what the best sellers do differently 
✅ How buying committees have grown from 1-2 people to 10-15 and what that means for how you sell 
✅ Why your Economic Buyer should be your champion and how to get there early ✅ The traits that separate A Players from the rest 
✅ How to use MEDDPICC as a personal framework, even when job hunting 
✅ Why you can't build a champion on WhatsApp 

🕐 Chapters: 
0:00 Introduction 
2:06 AI taking away tasks for salespeople, making them potentially lazy 
2:58 How would you use AI as a young AE? 
3:38 Using AI as a junior analyst 
5:20 Discovery calls, new business meetings and AI 
6:18 Customers becoming fatigued with AI 
7:28 The human element being taken out of sales with AI 
8:55 AI tools and automated emails 
11:49 Game theory and multiple AI emails 
13:12 Sellers and buyers having more data 
14:08 A Players vs B Players and becoming the vendor of choice 
15:59 The changes in buying committees and Economic Buyers over the last 25 years 
17:14 How personas have changed and how that affects MEDDPICC and multiple champions 
19:58 How people movement between organisations affects deals 
21:09 How prospects may come back to you later in their careers 
22:43 Getting to the Economic Buyer and earning the right to discuss with them 25:12 Testing champions 
27:28 The traits of a champion and sales not being a linear path 
29:20 Champions are funny things 
31:28 Deals aren't being done on the golf course anymore 
32:08 Maximising your time with a champion 
32:59 The five gold coins analogy 
35:06 You can't build a champion on WhatsApp 
35:43 The rules of engagement with a champion 
37:18 The champion and WhatsApp relationship 
39:01 Story about an old boss and champion updates 
40:14 Fawlty Towers analogy 
41:43 Economic Buyers in different sized companies 
43:20 Getting the Economic Buyer involved in deals 
44:11 Identifying Economic Buyer peers and getting to them early 
46:05 Economic Buyer access being part of the process early 
47:20 MEDDICC selling to prospects using the behaviours we teach 
50:51 Advice for salespeople trying to join A Player companies 
52:28 Working for a tech sales startup 
54:31 Qualifying companies you interview for 
57:18 The Female Sales Leader book 
58:02 Going the extra mile in the recruitment process 
59:11 Making hiring managers your champion when looking for a new role 

🔔 Subscribe for more Masters of MEDDICC episodes, framework breakdowns and sales training content. 

#MEDDICC #MEDDPICC #MastersOfMEDDICC #SalesLeadership #B2BSales #EnterpriseSales #AI #EconomicBuyer #PresidentsClub

In this episode of Masters of MEDDICC, Andy sits down with Josh Reiner, VP of EMEA at WIZ.

This might be controversial, but Josh doesn’t like leads. In the current landscape, while customers may be coming to you more informed, they also might be coming with more preconceived ideas about what your solution can (or can’t) do. Josh tells Andy all about why it’s more important to be able to go into customer engagements where everyone has an open mind about how to solve the problem. 

Technology presents a great advantage to the modern seller, but there is no shortcut that can replace credibility and understanding the data. Andy and Josh talk about how in the wake of AI, sellers need to avoid relying too heavily on tech, when it is our own hard work that will set us up for real success.

Great salespeople are uncomfortable being comfortable. Andy and Josh discuss how A-Players are always striving to be better. As Josh says, “A-Players don’t care about money because they have it,” - so the best leaders need to motivate them by challenging them to do their best.

We also hear from Josh about how to build a diverse team, a winning culture and more. 

Don't miss this episode for an insightful take on what truly drives top sales performers and how to stay ahead in the evolving sales landscape!

ABOUT JOSH REINER:
Josh Reiner is an accomplished Executive with a stellar track record in the SaaS industry, currently serving as the VP of EMEA at Wiz. He began his career at BMC, playing a key role in the reverse takeover by BladeLogic, which set the stage for his leadership path in the tech sector. Josh further refined his collaborative leadership style at AppDynamics, and later at Zscaler, where he made a significant transition from the US to the UK in 2020 with his family. During his time at Zscaler, he played a crucial role in driving growth and aligning global teams to strategic objectives.

In early 2024, Josh joined Wiz to lead the EMEA team, driving adoption of the Wiz Cloud Security Platform. His focus is on enabling faster cloud development by fostering collaboration between security, development, and DevOps teams. Josh champions a self-service model that meets the scale and speed demands of modern cloud development, ensuring efficiency and security are optimized in tandem.`

ABOUT ANDY WHYTE:
The founder of MEDDICC™ and the author of the five-star rated “MEDDICC’ book, it’s no surprise that Andy has an impressive sales career spanning over 18 years. Andy first started out as a door-to-door, double-glazing salesman where he quickly built up an appetite for sales, hungry for more, he started his B2B career as an SDR, progressing through the ranks to eventually lead the EMEA at Branch before moving on to set up MEDDICC™. 

Andy used MEDDIC in multiple companies as an individual contributor and sales leader and even implemented MEDDPICC into two SaaS organisations. Known for his mantra “Nobody ever regrets qualifying out” and his passion for the science and art of sales. 

Away from the day-to-day, Andy practices many skills as a chef, sports coach, taxi, and cleaner in his most important role to date - DAD.

Today on Masters of MEDDICC, we welcome Caroline Franczia to the show.   

Caroline Franczia has had a succesful career spanning over 15 years in the sales industry, working at brands such as Sprinklr, Datadog and Confluent. Caroline is known for shaking the ground of the tech scaleup world with a revenue architecture approach. A regular columnist for Maddyness, she’s a board advisor, Speaker, startup/scaleup CEO whisperer, and the founder of Uppercut First and we're extremely excited to have her on our podcast! 

In this episode, Caroline shares her experience around moving from Individual Contributor to Leadership, how best to manage a team full of your ex-peers and how businesses should take a leap of faith and increase ACV instead of increasing opportunities. 

“…My first advice, you're not ready”

[00:00] Introduction to Caroline
[01:47] Stepping into Management
[07:59] Going from IC to Leadership, and managing your ex-peers
[10:52] Managing a team and understanding their triggers
[14:55] Starting a leadership role with experience
[18:49] Pipeline generation and MEDDICC
[26:57] Implementing MEDDICC - Strengths and weaknesses

We are extremely excited to get our latest episode of Masters of MEDDICC live, with the EMEA hyper-growth specialist Andy Sadler, GM of EMEA at the mega Imply! 🙌

In this episode, we dig into Andy's epic career in B2B sales that spans over 20 years and includes 16 quarters at PTC and being part of John McMahon's legendary Bladelogic team.

Andy's association with the GOAT's of our industry doesn't stop with John, as he has also worked with revenue leadership titan Mark Cranney

A two-time CRO, who has been a part of 4x successful exits that have amassed more than $10bn it is no wonder Andy is the person on Andreessen Horowitz's speed dial when they need a leader to launch EMEA operations for one of their portfolio companies. 

Andy is a believer in "value-based social selling" and his mantra to success is crystal clear: "focus on the development of staff" and then the results will follow for all, not the other way around! 

Andy's go-to-market processes have helped boost revenue for his clients and he's left no stone unturned to show up as a great leader driving growth at every company he's built or worked at. 

In this episode, Andy shares how he believes MEDDIC is a personal phenomenon rather than a company ethos, how over time competition has become more complex so effective strategies are key to surviving and how he hires in order to create successful teams. 

“…Pick a leader, not a role. If you're going to go into battle you need to pick the right team to be with” 

Timestamps: 
[00:06] Introduction to Andy Sadler 
[00:35] Background on Andy Sadler 
[04:00] Software startups, distributed teams, and changing locations represent the second C in MEDDIC
[05:36] The art of War and evolving strategies 
[10:11] Human behavior aligns to personal wins 
[12:38] Understanding Fear and Intelligence in Sales 
[15:50] The psychology, science, and stigma in Sales 
[27:30] Why just hire the Sevens & the Nines? [35:20] Frameworks over time and the dynamics of The EB & Influence Line 
[43:58] Developing and building Champions 
[45:28] Enabling teams to go to market 
[47:37] Recruitment and legacy 

Key Points: 
- Transparency is key. Establishing yourself as a salesperson earns you the right to continue a conversation openly. 
- Be confident in yourself, your proposition, and the value that you bring to the table. 
- While selling, strategy building, and having your facts in place is imperative. You need to have the mentality of stop, learn and then go forward. If you're looking to learn more about the MEDDIC framework and how you can implement it to drive more growth, check out our other videos on the channel.

Today on Masters of MEDDICC, we welcome Lucy Williams-Jones to the show. 

Lucy has gained over 20 years of sales experience and is a regional director for Datadog, leading a team of enterprise reps in the UK and Ireland. 

In this episode, Lucy shares her strategy behind recruitment that leans heavily upon MEDDIC. We discuss desired traits in potential prospects and dissect what sets a good salesperson apart from a great one!

  “…I know that I am engineered as a salesperson deep down.” 

Timestamps:
[00:08] Introduction to Lucy Williams Jones 
[02:09] Background on Lucy
[07:24] Criteria for working in a new company
[08:33] Misconceptions in Meddicc
[09:30] Leaving BMC
[12:28] The recruiting process  
[13:42] Three traits to look for  
[18:43] Learned behavior 
[20:32] Being open vs being desperate 
[25:21] Measuring success 
[31:30] Covid diagnosis
[34:21] Personal connections and vested interests
[35:52] What have you learned going from individual contributor to leader?
[42:22] Underlying talent in addition to MEDDIC
[45:05] What is the most important part of MEDDIC
[54:54] Using your champion
[56:36] Overview of PRV process 

Key Points:
- Three traits to look for when recruiting potential salespeople
1. Coachability 
2, High EQ
3. Affinity for pipelines generation

- Remain open and embrace the sales process. Don’t try to cut corners and have confidence in your ability

- To become a great leader, one must put themselves in the salesperson shoes, set a scene early in the playbook, and be strong during the discovery stage 

- Those most elite salespersons are seen as consultants

The world's most elite sales teams use MEDDIC as a common language across their entire revenues in everything aspect of their engagements with their customers.

MEDDIC, or as it is more widely used today as MEDDICC or MEDDPICC is a qualification framework that helps revenue professionals to align their selling process in line with their customers buying process. Specifically, the Who, What, and How of the customer's buying process.

MEDDIC helps revenue teams to focus on the following key aspects and use one clear common language to communicate them across their revenue organization:
- The stakeholders: Who are they? What do they care about? What is their role?
- The challenges or goals that the customer is facing, how you propose to solve them, and the measurable impact of solving them
- The customer’s buying process. Right from how they make the decision to even enter into an evaluation process through to the processes they have to go through to move forward with your products or services, through to the subsequent upsells and renewals.

Referenced Free Extract from the MEDDPICC Masterclass:
How to use Metrics in your first meeting: https://youtu.be/lRwd1zbnENs

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This episode centers around the life and thinking behind Eric Marterella, Chief Revenue Officer at GTM Hub. 

In the episode, Marterella is asked a series of questions that helps the viewer gain insight into his character, viewpoints, and work ethic- further helping him come across as a very genuine and honest person. The podcast covers a wide range of topics such as: family life, current global events, the work of the company, and where Marterella feels he fits into this as well as his own personal views on what it means to be an “authentic” person.

(0:46-2:38) One of the first things that is easily noticed from the very beginning of the episode is the candid nature behind Eric Marterella. He speaks of being a family-driven man, being a father of four, and how this is the driving force behind his work ethic. Marterella also mentions starting his journey into the workforce from the early age of 15 and how this has helped him gain experience in his field. From the get-go, the viewer can observe Marterella as a very family-driven man who cares deeply about his career and home life equally.

(3:53-6:24) As the episode progresses, the viewer may see a change in the direction of conversation towards current events of the world and the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the trade. Marterella speaks of his change in work ethic and how he views his own adaptive mindset. The discussion moves on to talk about how much he values the interpersonal relationships between himself and the people that he works with, whether that is “shaking hands, giving hugs or simply meeting in backyards”. Marterella begins to mention how he feels that this is vital to helping him gain insight into making decisions. This helps the viewer see the importance he feels towards the relationships he has with his clients and how the lack of in-person communication affects his work.

(20:59-22:27) Furthermore, the episode begins to take a self-reflective turn with Marterella speaking of his desire to be “authentic” and what his definition of that term is. He outlines his change in perspective from having a very productive mindset that “is only contributing to the machine” towards a more outcome-focused, efficient one. He mentions to the viewer that he has become more conscious about how he is contributing to the discussion and ensuring that when he does speak on a matter that what he says will be something valuable. This helps the viewer to gain further insight into his personality and viewpoints, showing them that he is an individual with forward-thinking ideas who isn’t afraid to say that he has changed his perspective on a matter 

(37:40-38:50) As the viewer progresses further into the episode, the conversation drifts to discuss Marterella’s occupation- Three-time Chief Revenue Officer at GTM Hub. He denotes that measuring effectiveness is vital in a fully functioning company and it is more important for a team to remain outcome-focused than to get swept up in minor issues. He also speaks of the difficulties in his line of work with the example that often it is not the selling or managing product but instead the changing and adapting of management. This helps the viewer to see Marterella’s honesty due to how freely he talks of how he overcomes any troubles he faces in his line of work. Despite the difficulties, he speaks fondly of his time being able to give to non-profit organizations furthering the positive view on his character by the viewer.

(46:47- 50:24) To end the episode, there is discussion surrounding the theme of opportunity, namely excess of opportunity. Eric speaks of having to combat this over the lockdowns due to the pandemic and that it was a challenge to remain motivated, as well as keeping his teams motivated alongside him. However, he solved these issues by maintaining discipline within his teams to continue to move his deals forwards. 

https://meddicc.com

Andy talks with the EMEA founder of Snowflake, Thibaut Ceyrolle.

Andy picks Thibaut’s brain for advice concerning how to find and hire elite sellers. They discuss what made him and Snowflake successful, how to build effective Champion and how to use the Decision Criteria.
 
Key takeaways:

(01:02) Thibaut introduces himself and goes into his past in the software industry. While he is also discussing the need to acquire skills in entrepreneurship. Overall, being more hands-on and practical.

(08:53) Then Thibaut delves into how one progresses in one’s career and advancing oneself to the next level from the mentorship of a professional, and a change of work atmosphere. Thibaut adopted the mantra of, “words on what I think was right – but in a more structured way.”

(14:01) Here Thibaut talks about the importance of practicality and personalization – of adapting processes and frameworks to existing ground floor work being carried out. Being open to change and not just understanding what MEDDPICC is, but practically using it.

(17:35) The importance of the individual contributor and of the individual salesperson. Overall adopting an entrepreneurial mindset. Do not be afraid to go to Ikea to buy the furniture for your office. The HR department, business plans, and all the top-level aspects can come later.

(21:03) How Thibaut built up his team at Snowflake. The importance of trust within the organization and the motivational factor of trust towards the sales team/person. Thibaut stresses the value of getting Champion Builders and their importance in the sales process overall.

(27:08) Here Thibaut elaborates on the significance of trust. And how in many instances, people decide just as much with their heart as with their mind. To sell emotionally, as well as rationally. This segment also goes into hiring Champion Builders who have the right mindset of changing the world. In essence, a disruptor’s mindset is key to elite selling. The salespeople you hire are willing and able to take risks and shake things up.

(31:29) The motivational factors of the right mindset for salespeople and specifically Champion and Relationship Builders. Getting retentive business and consistent sales from the same clients is essential. You want disruptive/transformative people – thought leaders.

(38:33) How to adapt and reintroduce Decision Criteria to go through. How designing the Decision Criteria to the individual prospective buyer leads to positive outcomes. Here saying "no" to the client and then reworking the Decision Criteria needed to go through if the prospective client misunderstands the solution on offer. This is difficult and is why you need Champion Builders.

(41:39) Which Decision Criteria strategies that Snowflake and Thibaut carry out to experience the kind of Unicorn-growth that Snowflake has experienced. Thibaut talks about elite salespeople finding immense value in building a lasting – retentive - relationship with prospective buyers.

(46:33) The hiring process at Snowflake, and Thibaut's advice in regard to hiring salespeople. First, Thibaut suggests only utilizing a few recruiters, giving them exclusivity and trust in order to find the right people. Thibaut states, “I will recommend having limited head-hunters. Spend some time with them and ask questions about your business.” If the recruiters you hire do not know your business, company, and industry, then that is a big red flag.

(51:13) Thibaut goes into his interview process and what advice he can give here. Thibaut recommends delving into the prospective new salesperson's view on the sales process, and also the future. Meaning their future in the company, their wishes for their personal future, and where they think the company will go. Get people who, “speak with honesty, think with sincerity, and act with integrity.”

MEDDIC

John McMahon is the greatest sales leader of our time. Both as the CRO of 5x public companies (PTC, GeoTel, Ariba, BladeLogic, BMC) and as an executive board advisor to some of the greatest companies of the last decade, such as AppDynamics, Glassdoor, HubSpot, Fuze, Sumo Logic, Sprinklr, Cybereason, Thoughtspot, MongoDB, Lacework, and Snowflake.

In this session, we talk about John's new book 'The Qualified Sales Leader', and why of all the topics on which John is an expert he chose qualification to write a book upon.

We dig into John's mind to find out his creative process for creating insights and advice that is understandable and relatable to both the most experienced and elite sellers through to technical founders who are brand new to sales.

And the question you all want to know the answer to - What would it take to get John back on the tools leading a tech company.

LINKS AND RELATED SOURCES:

• MEDDICC.com, the number one resource for MEDDIC online
• Learn MEDDPICC with the MEDDPICC Masterclass 
• Watch more episodes and other MEDDIC related content on YouTube
• MEDDPICC Instagram
• MEDDPICC on Twitter
• MEDDICC on LinkedIn

Today on Masters of MEDDICC, I am joined Dick Dunkel, the creator of MEDDIC. 

Dick started his sales journey selling books door to door in college while studying civil engineering. His first professional sales job was with Xerox, followed by PTC. 

PTC would be where he came up with the six elements of MEDDIC. 

In this episode, Dick shares his experience from how he came up with MEDDIC through to how it has helped him shape his career, along with the tools he learned and carried onto future positions. 

One topic of particular interest is how Dick is using MEDDPICC at Celonis today to instill a qualification-focused sales process that helps sellers to remain on the right path and to get customer buy-in at every step. 

“When we lead as sellers, customers will follow”

TIMESTAMPS:

[00:30] Introduction to Dick Dunkel 

[02:53] Moving from Xerox to PTC         

[04:26] What created a higher accountability environment at PTC?

[09:31] The seller’s mindset

[09:48] A fair exchange of value

[14:32] The very first MEDDIC implementation  

[17:41] Developing an intermediate sales training class

[21:54] Powerbase selling

[22:55] MEDDIC as a wide concept

[23:51] The correlation between the fastest-growing companies and how MEDDICC is deployed

[28:10] The small wins 

[30:52] Managing the extra layers  

[34:54] Pessimistic salespeople, but not when qualifying out
 

KEY POINTS:

1.     Create a high accountability environment by starting at the top and allowing it to trickle down to the sales rep.

2.     Develop a fair exchange of value by, for example; singing an NDA in order to implement a free exchange of information

3.     Small victories lead to bigger victories; operate by taking small steps and implementing MEDDICC.

4.     The MEDDPICC checklist, a checklist you have to accomplish in that stage in order for you to advance.

LINKS AND RELATED SOURCES:

• MEDDICC.com, the number one resource for MEDDIC online
• Learn MEDDPICC with the MEDDPICC Masterclass 
• Watch more episodes and other MEDDIC related content on YouTube
• MEDDPICC Instagram
• MEDDPICC on Twitter
• MEDDICC on LinkedIn