The Qualified Sales Leader, by John McMahon
Close bigger deals and build unstoppable enterprise sales teams with McMahon’s tested playbook.
“A very old, wise man told a young salesperson to go to the window and look outside. So, the young salesperson did.
“What do you see?” asked the wise man.
“I see a number of potential customers.”
“Now, go over to the mirror. Tell me what you see.”
“I see myself, of course.”
“Why is that? Both the window and the mirror are made of glass.”
“Because the mirror has a backing of silver, which makes me see myself.”
“Exactly,” said the wise man. “When salespeople let silver get between themselves and their customers, they no longer have a clear view of their customers. They only think of themselves.”
Earn trust. Be selfless.” (156)
I realize that I like reading these types of expert-written narrative books — it allows you to picture the exact scenarios, with different characters in a story, and understand the lessons without feeling like you’re being force-fed a bunch of frameworks. It’s a similar reason why I liked Eliyahu Goldratt’s The Goal — how else would I have found a book on manufacturing to be such a gripping page turner?
The structure of McMahon’s book is to tell a specific story, narrate the current situation and the problems he observes, and then occasionally breaking the fourth wall and interspersing commentary that shares his experience seeing this problem in other companies too. It totally works.
There’s an incredible amount of great information and insights in this book, so these notes are less meant to be a comprehensive summary, but instead as signposts around the main arguments of the book.
The Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
It was really interesting to be taken through a (hypothetical) quarterly business review (QBR), but with play-by-play commentary from an expert. While I might have been in a QBR before, I don’t think I ever knew what good looked like.
"In a forecast review, reps often find it difficult to be completely honest about their account situations. They may have difficulty setting their pride and egos aside and viewing account situations without bias. Reps have a hard time learning from their managers’ inquiring questions. Questions that may reveal a reality quite different from what the reps believe regarding their account scenarios. They struggle. But they need to learn. Learning happens in the struggle. For the QBR to be a learning session (as it should be), the sales reps need to accept that they aren’t the only ones with account issues. They need to learn from mistakes—theirs as well as others’. For every rep who presents a specific account situation for the first time, there are other reps who have already experienced that situation. And still others who will see that same situation in the future. Lessons shared become lessons learned. The QBR should be utilized to coach reps and analyze their sales knowledge and sales skills. The manager-rep interaction shouldn’t be a one-way interrogation. But, in many instances, that’s how it evolves. Due to time constraints and the number of people who will present, managers, using the power of position, impatiently hammer reps in a one-way inquisition without intending to guide or teach. If the QBR is never leveraged as a way to capture account dynamics, understand buyer scenarios, learn about the competition, and discover ways to quantify customer value, the time is wasted. Eventually, reps will need to learn to self-analyze their account scenarios. Unfortunately, that’s not how the typical QBR runs. Too often, reps are faced with massive pressure to present a forecast with a high likelihood of quota achievement. No rep wants to forecast less than quota for the quarter." (16)
And of course, it’s important to share the same language in these sorts of discussions:
"Throughout the forecast session, many words flew around: champion, coach, Economic Buyer, enemy, gatekeeper, recommender, technical buyer, user buyer, POC, demo, and justification. But the context seemed inconsistent. Reps spoke of account Champions, but were they really coaches? They discussed Champions without defining why they were Champions. They declared a meeting with an Economic Buyer. What made the person an Economic Buyer? Was anyone using the same definition for each term? Was there a common vocabulary amongst the sales force? An entirely different story can be told when a group is using the same words . . . but with different meanings. An agonizing notion occurred to me: the sales reps and the managers were talking past each other. Not communicating. Same words, different definitions. This resulted in different pictures of the actual account status and left them unable to find common ground on the next logical step. As the day progressed, the game played on. The caffeine buzz waned as the coffee turned cold and catered food ran thin. The managers tired and asked fewer grilling questions. Some reps slid by with little intensity from the managers. Their repeated, superficial questions lost their original punch and potency." (33)
Otherwise, it’s far too easy to skate along a discussion without every truly digging in and understanding what is happening.
"The remaining reps gave what they believed to be the status of their deals, and the managers let red flags fly with so many unanswered questions. The managers asked questions on the periphery, never focusing on core account issues. Never digging into the heart of the matter. There was a common theme on each deal. Neither the rep nor the managers could articulate the exact stage of every deal, the exact status, nor the logical next step. I had several questions in mind: Did they have a coach or a Champion? What information did they lack? Why did the customer have to buy? Who had final budget approval? Who controlled the deal? What is the urgency to buy? How will the customer justify the purchase? What is the customer’s evaluation process? Were they winning or losing? Were they in control?" (34)
Just as importantly, he points out that great sales manager leadership is training the sales team, not being a super salesperson — it’s a completely different skillset:
“I’d seen this before. Managers came into the position, ready to be buddies and earn friendships. But reps didn’t need more friends. Most had plenty of friends and some were trying to get rid of a few. What they needed was someone to teach, coach, motivate, and lead them. Someone to help them develop their sales craft, make more money, and win. Reps needed someone they could respect. “Many of the recently promoted managers haven’t fully realized that the sales leadership role isn’t about them,” Jim said. “They think they’re a super sales rep and have to sell all the deals for their reps. They don’t really see that the combined successes of their reps are what determines their success as a manager.” Check the manager comp plan, I thought. In other words, the sales managers were still selfish. They hadn’t realized that the success of their reps came from how well they trained, developed, and coached the reps. The newer managers believed their reps all had the same strengths, weaknesses, desires, and motivations as they did, so they managed them as if they were all the same. Cookie cutter. They weren’t educating their reps on how to prospect, build a pipeline of qualified deals, understand and use the sales process, prepare themselves for their next meeting, or analyze their sales calls." (53)
The sales process
The B2B sales process:
Discovery: deeply understand the customer’s pains, goals, and decision-making processes.
Scoping: take uncovered pain and quantify and implicate that pain
Economic Buyer Meeting: building trust with Champions for introduction to person with ultimate authority over the budget
Validation Event: proof that your product capabilities deliver business value to the customer for their specific use case — you either win or lose the sale from here
Business Case and Final Proposal: presentation of compelling, quantitative justification for the solution
Negotiate and Close: final resolution and alignment on terms
A well-defined sales process is important for various stakeholders:
1. Sales Reps: A sales process provides a structured roadmap, leading to higher win rates, larger deal sizes, and faster deal closures when followed consistently.
2. Sales Managers: A unified process ensures consistency across the team, allows for better coaching, and identifies skill or knowledge gaps by analyzing where reps struggle.
3. Customers: They benefit from clarity on the product’s unique value and how it addresses their specific needs and pain points.
4. Executive Management: A structured process improves resource efficiency, enhances productivity, and generates more accurate forecasts. It also provides insights into issues with people, processes, and products that hinder performance.
“Of course, the downside of not having deals in their proper stages has a huge net negative effect on the forecast. If every rep on a team moves just one deal to the next unqualified step in the sales process, the net negative compounds as you move up in sales leadership. I pointed to Andy. “Let’s say five of your reps misrepresent one forecasted deal at $100,000. That has a $500,000 net negative effect. At a second-line manager level, with three first-line managers and fifteen reps, that’s a 1.5-million-dollar misrepresentation.” My gaze moved to Raj and Dennis. “At the CRO and CEO level, where decisions are made based on the forecast, the aggregation of deals in the wrong stages compounds even further.” Raj and Dennis’s emphatic nods punctuated the silence more than words ever could have." (84)
The sales process is the roadmap, while the qualification methods is the GPS that ensures you’re on the right track as a sales leader. McMahon talks about the proven qualification method MEDDPICC:
Metrics: the quantification of customer pain and the business benefits of your solution
Economic Buyer: the person with the discretionary use of the funds
Decision Criteria: the required capabilities that must be in the solution to solve the pain
Your product differentiators must be documented in the final-decision criteria
You must control the criteria to control the deal
If changes to the criteria are in your favor, you’re in control or gaining control
If changes are in the competition’s favor, you’ve lost or are losing control
Decision Process: the specific people, events, and timeframes the customer will use to evaluate several products and select a solution
Identify the Pain or Initiative: why the customer must buy (Three Whys)
Paper Process: the step-by-step process the buyer’s organization uses to produce a purchase order
Champion: the person that has influence (power) in an account which gives them access to the Economic Buyer
Competition: you must know the relative positioning of your competitors in your current account
More specific qualification questions in the last section.
Discovery
Relentless curiosity and urgency to understand makes the greatest salesperson:
“Carlo Carpanelli came from Bologna, Italy. Perennially, Carlo was the top sales rep in every company he worked for. He always sold the company’s largest deals to the largest companies in the Emilia Romagna region of Italy. Companies like GD, Marchesini, Ducati, and Ferrari. I always wondered what made Carlo the top rep. Perhaps his incredible depth of character. He had a multitude of character traits most people could only wish to possess:
High intelligence
Keen sense of human behavior
Complete self-awareness
Powerful situational intuition
Courage
Unflappability
However, with all his assets, I always wondered if there was one trait that separated Carlo from the rest of his peers. Maybe that trait could make the rest of the sales force just as productive as Carlo.
One day, I saw that trait in person. Carlo and I had just finished making all-day sales calls in Ferrari. Ferrari, a world-famous brand, home of the “Prancing Horse,” headquartered in Maranello, Italy. You could almost feel the prestige of the Ferrari brand as we walked the historic hallways that Enzo Ferrari had built. The incredible legacy of his wins at Formula 1, racing with the Scuderia Ferrari team and renowned production cars.
We made sales calls on multiple Ferrari directors throughout the day and even had the pleasure of dining with Piero Ferrari in the executive dining room for lunch. All day long, during our interactions with Ferrari leaders, I noticed Carlo’s curiosity. He was curious about everything. Curious to understand why. Curious as to why things were the way they were. So curious, in fact, that Carlo was never offended by someone’s differing opinion, someone degrading his product or speaking down to him. For Carlo, that was an opportunity to understand why. Curiosity.
After all the calls, we stepped into the crisp spring air in front of the entrance. As the sun started to set, Carlo stopped and asked me a question. “What did we learn on the calls today?” While I summarized what we had learned, I realized there was a new set of unanswered questions. A puzzled expression came to his face.
Right then, several employees drove past us through the open archway of the Ferrari building. I watched their sleek forms slip by for a second. When I turned back to Carlo, he had walked away from me and back to the front door of Ferrari. “Carlo, where are you going?” I yelled. “Back into Ferrari to get the answers,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m going to do it in Italian so I can get the answers quickly.”
In that moment, I recognized that Carlo had been carrying me all day. My not speaking Italian had been a hindrance to his ability to perform. As I stood there, I also realized something more important: The character trait that separated Carlo from his peers wasn’t his intelligence, his keen sense of human behavior, his street smarts, or his amazing intuition. I’d hired many sales reps with all of those traits. It was curiosity that separated Carlo. Sincere curiosity, which is never offensive.
He had an earnest need to understand and a desire to know the answers, right now. He had an urgency to understand. Why wait until tomorrow if you can know now? To leave for home without the answers to his open questions would drive Carlo absolutely bananas. In other words, he had an urgent curiosity. Most sales reps would have driven home and, in a few days, tried to schedule follow-up meetings with Ferrari stakeholders. Carlo, knowing that the people with the answers were still inside the building, obtained their responses immediately. That’s why he was different. He knew time was his enemy." (78)
The Discovery stage is crucial for determining if a client aligns with the solution being offered. During this stage, sales reps should gather key information, including the client’s pain points, current processes, desired outcomes, and key stakeholders such as Champions, coaches, and competitors. This process helps qualify accounts and identifies individuals who will influence the deal’s progression.
The Discovery stage is where potential Champions are identified, as they connect to solving mission-critical business pain. Champions play a vital role by facilitating access to the Economic Buyer, who controls the budget. The process follows a clear logic:
Uncover pain → find Champions → reach the Economic Buyer → close larger deals
Common pain areas that sales managers should focus on:
Regulation: Non-compliance to regulatory issues like PCI SSC (Payment Card Industry), HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) and GDPR-General Data Protection Regulation.
Competition: Continual improvements in their processes to maintain a competitive edge. They may need to move their IT infrastructure and applications to the cloud to meet or beat their competition.
Security: The move to multiple cloud vendors, mobile devices, work from home initiatives, AI, and machine learning implementations can cause potential opening for cyber-attacks.
Productivity, Cost, and Quality: Process and operational pain from ongoing business activities, procedures, processes, labor and systems may cause lost productivity, inflict higher costs, and create quality issues.
Reputation: Unhappy customers or product failures can negatively impact a company's brand on social media, causing reputational risk." (103)
Scoping
Scoping is the second step, where reps should take the pain uncovered during Discovery to quantify and implicate that pain.
"“Some salespeople will find pain, but fewer salespeople quantify pain, and only a small minority will ever implicate pain,” I continued. “If salespeople never quantify pain, they can’t justify their price point. If salespeople never implicate pain, they never create urgency. They never give the customer a powerful reason to buy now. A reason for them to change their priorities. That’s why so many forecasted deals die a slow death.”
“Time kills all deals without urgency. If you haven’t established urgency, then, as time moves on, the customer believes they can continue to operate without your solution.”" (123)
Implication is done by creating a negative outcome that focused on problems and the potential fear of not solving those problems.
In addition, many great sales reps share their sales process with the customer they are selling to:
“Scoping: A method to understand and quantify their business pain and outline a potential POV. (The method will decide if there is alignment between product capabilities and pain, between seller capabilities and customer value.)
A Go/No-Go Meeting: A meeting with the Economic Buyer to confirm whether or not the pain is a priority to solve
The POV: The outline of the POV criteria, incorporating the required product capabilities and timeframe for a POV
The Scoping journey will generate three documents for review:
A Cost Justification with as-is and to-be metrics
A POV Plan that directly correlates to the POV criteria and preliminary cost justification
A Preliminary Pricing Proposal which is a price quote is based upon the preliminary cost justification
This journey can only happen early in a sales process (which is why reps should slow down). This is the time to garner as much knowledge as possible for the rep to gain control of the deal.
If you wait too long to gather this information, the sale creeps into the later stages of the sales process, where there is a dynamic shift in which the customer can discern the capabilities of your product.
With that understanding, the customer becomes more reluctant to share pain and process metrics. When the customer has connected the dots between their problem and your solution, they no longer require anything more from you than pricing information." (106)
Economic Buyer meeting
The Champion has influence (power) in an account which gives them access to the Economic Buyer.
The Economic Buyer is the person with discretionary use of the funds. After the Economic Buyer approves, all other signatures are formalities.
In the process, you first must earn the trust of a Champion:
“Champions are intellectually astute and politically shrewd. They’re careful in two predominant ways:
Will not align to small pains
Won’t attach to unprepared salespeople
Champions won’t jeopardize their standing in the company or their influence and reputation with the Economic Buyer over a salesperson who doesn’t understand their business. Or one who is incapable of articulating, in business terms, how they can solve a serious business problem. Reps need to understand that the reputation of the Champion is at stake. The Champion wants to work with a trusted business partner to ensure the solution will be successful or their reputation will be tarnished." (155)
But even if you find a champion and build a relationship with them, you’re not done — you need to test the Champion.
“QUESTIONS TO TEST CHAMPIONS
How are items purchased at XYZ company?
What is the typical evaluation process for new products?
Who made the last few major purchases?
Can they help you map out the as-is process?
Can they detail why the identified company pain could be classified as “major”?
Can they explain the implications of not solving the pain?
How do they see that your solution provides business value?
How does the competition’s solution provide business value?
Can they tell you what happened during the meeting with the competition?
WHAT ACTIVITIES COULD WE ASK THEM TO PERFORM?
Arrange a demonstration to a different department
Facilitate an introduction to another stakeholder in the decision process
Share any product evaluation documents
Call a customer reference
Sponsor a meeting with the Economic Buyer
Help you create the POV criteria
Introduce you to the Legal and Procurement contacts
Help you craft a cost justification" (161)
You must figure out if your Champion is really a Champion or a coach. A Champion is someone who has the joint combination of influence and authority. Anything else, and your contact is likely a coach:
IA: influence and authority
INA: influence and no authority
NINA: no influence and no authority
ANI: authority and no influence
You need to educate your champion too, in order for them to be your internal sales rep:
“If you don’t, you’ll lose them later in the sales process. You want to ensure they don’t get caught flat-footed on known product limitations, competitive traps, or implementation impediments. Educate them on everything from the competition’s product, competitive traps, and common objections. Show them how to justify your product internally. Have them speak to Champions in your installed base. Arrange meetings for them with executives at your company. All of this is done in the vein of educating a Champion, not selling. Once you believe you have a potential Champion, selling ceases to be selling. Selling becomes educating.” (159)
And finally, you might earn the right to meet with the Economic Buyer with your Champion:
"The key to a successful meeting is how you prepare for it with your Champion. You need to ensure that you have agreement on the EB meeting deliverables and the talk track with your Champion prior to the meeting. This preparation frames the topics, roles and especially the guardrails for the meeting, which will give your Champion comfort with the agenda and proposed outcome.” In the majority of cases, Champions will brief the Economic Buyer prior to the meeting, making the meeting ceremonial. In a typical EB meeting, you need to substantiate the following with the EB: A high level summary of your Discovery and Scoping findings The company’s current state. The as-is The negative consequences of that current state Your proposed state. The to-be The benefits of the future state The required capabilities to achieve that future state Customer success stories with quantified before/after metrics Description of your solution based on the criteria Confirmation of the remaining decision-process steps" (177)
Validation event
This is one of the most interesting things I learned from this book. I used to think that proof of concept (or “design partnerships”) would happen relatively early in the enterprise sales process, where the builders would actively iterate on their product with potential customers. And indeed, this is the way that many B2B startups approach their POC’s, which means a lot of time wasted on customers that aren’t exactly a good fit for the product.
"Not quantifying the before and after is the main reason so many salespeople can’t overcome price objections. The customer won’t magically understand the value of your product. I went on, “From now on, I want you to stop saying POC and start saying POV, Proof of Value. Proof of Concept is pointless. Your product works. You’re not trying to prove the concept of your technology functioning. What is important is that you can prove that your product capabilities deliver business value to the customer for their specific use case.” (105)
As McMahon points out, this is the exact issue with POC’s.
“The Validation Event is NOT:
An event which occurs early in the sales process
A time to educate the customer on your product
An opportunity to start discovering pain
A chance to find a Champions
A time to make friends
Only Perform a Validation Event After:
You have a confirmed Champion.
Your Champion has helped you frame the validation criteria and scoring rules for the POV.
From your Discovery and Scoping findings, you and your Champion have built a cost justification where the gain far exceeds the pain.
You verified the priority, budget, authority, timing, and remaining process steps with the Economic Buyer." (207)
The Validation Event or Proof of Value (POV) is the terminal point of the sales process. It only occurs late in the sales process, and it validates your solution capabilities to solve their pain and substantiates the metrics in your cost justification (which you figured out during Scoping!).
“Prior to the Validation Event, you have confirmed with the EB that the customer is committed to buy if the test is successful … You agreed with the Economic Buyer, prior to the validation event, that the winner will receive a purchase order subject only to legal review and pricing negotiation.” (207)
Business Case and Final Proposal
The Business Case is a formal presentation to the Economic Buyer, serving as their value realization document. It consolidates findings from Discovery, Scoping, Economic Buyer meetings, and the Validation Event. It is written from the customer’s perspective, outlining the customer’s objectives, strategic initiatives, business problem or opportunity, before-and-after use cases, solution benefits, and a detailed cost justification in terms of measurable business value (e.g., revenue growth, cost savings, risk reduction). This document becomes the baseline for evaluating the solution’s success post-implementation, helping to justify additional purchases and establish credibility for future cross-selling opportunities.
“Take note: you can’t express the value only in general terms, like increased productivity, reduced headcount, quicker time to market, etc. without adding a material measure or a quantified value. Express the Business Case in the particular way your customer expresses business value. The results have to be translated into their business terms. For instance, increase annual revenue by twenty million dollars, eliminate fifty million dollars in production scrap, decrease XYZ product time to market by ten percent, resulting in fifteen million dollars of cost savings, etc.” (210)
There’s an interesting analogy that an executive buying solutions is a forest ranger, not a firefighter.
““I wanted to know what issues would gain the attention of C-level executives. So, I decided to ask them, ‘how do you deal with all of the vendors and make sense of all the different products salespeople are trying to sell to you?’
“He said, ‘We deal with thousands of vendors selling thousands of products, especially in the security world where there is a plethora of choices. We have hundreds of issues to solve, but only the vendors who focus on solving the largest problems our company faces obtain our business.
“He continued, ‘Let me give you an analogy. Most internal and external people think I’m a firefighter. But I’m actually a forest ranger. I overlook millions and millions of acres of land. My job is to think of the long-term safety of our people, our intellectual property, and potential threats that could affect the entire land mass. That means I can’t put out all the fires. Some fires will burn. Let them burn. I have to focus on preventing and extinguishing the largest fires that threaten our company.’ “Then he looked straight at me and said, ‘Shannon, every company has fires, most of which they can live with. If you want to sell high in an organization, get above the noise.’” (102)
So in order to sell to an executive, you need to get “above the noise.”
Negotiate and Close
Some fun notes about the inevitable battle you’ll have with the customer’s procurement arm, even though your Champion and Economic Buyer are bought in already:
Even if Procurement speaks to your Champion or the Economic Buyer, and they both express their interest in only having your solution, Procurement still has a job to perform, decrease your price. Meanwhile, Procurement will try to gain pricing leverage by creating a bidding war. They will invite price quotations from your closest competitors. In most large organizations, Procurement is required to obtain price quotations from two to three different competitors for any major purchase. When Procurement requests a proposal from one of your competitors in an effort to decrease your price, it’s an alarm to a smart competitor. When an intelligent competitor, not actively engaged with an account, receives an incoming call from the account Procurement Department, they instantly recognize they are late in the sales process and need to act quickly to have any chance of winning. Your competitor’s goal will be to delay the deal and buy time to perform a shortened sales process of their own. With Procurement’s approval, the competitor will identify and call the Economic Buyer to delay the sale. Your competitor will plant fear, uncertainty, and doubt regarding your product offering. They’ll try to create distrust in your company, hoping the Economic Buyer will take time to consider an alternative solution. At a minimum, they will heavily discount their price in an effort to “steal the deal”. That is why you don’t skip steps." (213)
But if you’ve done everything correctly, you are in an incredibly strong position:
"First, when these things happen, remain calm. If you’ve performed the sales process correctly, you are a respected partner of the Champion and Economic Buyer, and Procurement knows it. In fact, Procurement typically won’t like that you’ve developed strong price justification leverage over the business. Remember, that urgency is your friend. There is urgency for the customer to buy now. Urgency was formulated in Scoping through the implication of pain. You created additional urgency to implement the solution within a specific timeframe during your meeting with the Economic Buyer, and timeframes in your Implementation Plan. Every day that passes, the customer faces the negative consequences of not remedying their pain, because you have uncovered the why do I have to buy now … When confronted on price, be patient. You have time. You never have to make an immediate decision on price. You can always “think about it” or “consult with your manager.” You have time. Their business doesn’t have time. They have a prioritized need to solve the negative consequences now. Time has become their enemy. Time is now your friend." (218)
MEDDPICC qualification questions
Reminder on MEDDPICC:
Metrics: the quantification of customer pain and the business benefits of your solution
Economic Buyer: the person with the discretionary use of the funds
Decision Criteria: the required capabilities that must be in the solution to solve the pain
Decision Process: the specific people, events, and timeframes the customer will use to evaluate several products and select a solution
Identify the Pain or Initiative: why the customer must buy (Three Whys)
Paper Process: the step-by-step process the buyer’s organization uses to produce a purchase order
Champion: the person that has influence (power) in an account which gives them access to the Economic Buyer
Competition: you must know the relative positioning of your competitors in your current account
Qualifying reps on the Three Whys:
"Why do they HAVE TO buy?
How would they describe the level pain level?
What are the specific pain points?
Is the pain above the noise?
Is their description of pain in technical terms, business terms or both?
What is the customer use case?
Why do THEY have to buy?
Who is most impacted by the pain?
What is the title of the person most impacted?
How does this pain effect their job measures?
Why do they have to buy from US?
Do our product differentiators tie to their pains?
Which of our product capabilities is uniquely differentiated?
Why do they have to buy NOW?
What happens if they do nothing?
What company measurement suffers?
Do they have another alternative to solve the pain?
Do you know their desired business outcome?" (238)
If your reps can’t explain the Three Whys, then they are still in the Discovery phase.
Qualifying reps on Metrics:
“Several questions can indicate progress during the Scoping stage:
What is the use case?
Who owns the use case?
How much is the quantified pain?
Have you outlined the current as-is and the desired to-be scenarios? What is the quantified business value?
Does the gain far outweigh the pain?
What is their desired business outcome?
How do you measure a successful business outcome?
Do you have current KPIs you track for the business outcome?
Have you built a preliminary cost justification?
Have you shared the findings with your Champion?
Is your Champion in agreement with each element of the justification?
Have you reconfirmed why they need our differentiators in the to-be solution?
What price point will you set during your meeting with the EB?" (241)
If your team hasn’t been able to build the current and desired states with metrics, then they are still in the Scoping stage.
Qualifying reps on Decision Criteria:
"We created a list of qualifying decision criteria questions:
Do your product capabilities align to the customer pains?
Can you describe their major pain and how our product alleviates that pain?
Did you help your Champion write the decision criteria?
Which of our unique product differentiators are in the decision criteria?
Have the criteria changed since the original agreement?
If the criteria changed, which competitor has been influencing the criteria?
What specific differentiators of the competition have been inserted into the criteria?
When were their differentiators inserted into the criteria?
Who is the competition speaking with that has the power to change the criteria?
Are you in control of this deal or is the competition taking control?
Why do you think you are in control?
Are you prepared to discuss with the EB how the solution capabilities solve the customer’s business pain?" (243)
Qualifying reps on Decision Process:
"Here are some examples of qualifying decision process questions:
What are the specific events the company will use to evaluate a solution?
Besides your Champion, who else will be involved in each event of the decision process?
Of those people involved in the process, who have you met with one on one?
Have any new people entered the process since it was created?
What are the timeframes associated with each event?
Has the decision process changed since it was first created? Who changed it?
Were you or your Champion involved?
Is your Champion helping you control the process? If not, which competitor’s Champion is controlling the process?
What is the title of the competition’s Champion?
Does the POV have defined start and end dates?
Which competitors are involved in the process?
Are you prepared to confirm the decision process with the Economic Buyer?
Can we meet with the EB after the POV?" (246)
Qualifying reps on having a Champion:
“These questions help to determine whether or not your rep has a Champion and is in control (which would indicate successful Discovery and Scoping stages):
Were you told the criteria and process, or did you develop it?
Did the Champion help the rep develop what was needed?
Before-and-after scenarios
Cost justification
Decision criteria with your differentiator
Decision process
Agenda for the EB meeting
What is the position of the Champion on the power chart?
If they are an IA, how do you know they have influence?
If they are an INA, why do they have influence?
Are they NINA or ANI?
Have you confirmed your Champion has influence with others?
What is the Champion’s personal win?
How have you educated and developed the Champion?
How have you tested your Champion?
What have they done to make you believe they are a Champion?
Who does your Champion say is the Economic Buyer?
Has your Champion scheduled a meeting for you with the Economic Buyer?" (251)
Qualifying reps on Economic Buyer meeting preparation:
"Before the Economic Buyer meeting, you should have answers to the following:
Who does your Champion say is the Economic Buyer?
Have you validated the Economic Buyer with multiple people?
When is the Economic Buyer meeting scheduled?
What are you prepared to present at the Economic Buyer meeting?
Has your Champion briefed the Economic Buyer prior to your meeting?
These are questions to ask of your reps who have met the Economic Buyer:
Did you confirm your Discovery and Scoping findings?
Did you confirm the Three WHYs?
Did you confirm the before and after scenarios?
What is the Economic Buyer’s desired business outcome?
Which Economic Buyer measure is most impacted by the pain?
Why is this a priority for the Economic Buyer?
Did the EB agree that all vendors must test to the same validation criteria?
Can we call the EB if someone tries to change the agreed-upon validation criteria?
Does the Economic Buyer have authority to make a purchase of this size?
Did you review the preliminary cost justification with the Economic Buyer?
Can we meet with the EB if our test results are materially different than our preliminary cost justification?
Will the Economic Buyer allocate budget, based on your cost justification, to this project?
In what timeframe does the Economic Buyer want a solution?
Why does the EB need the solution in the stated timeframe?
Did you confirm the remaining steps in the decision process?
Did you gain agreement on a follow-up EB meeting if the results from the validation event materially changed your cost justification?
What questions did the Economic Buyer ask you?
What did your Champion say after the meeting?" (253)
Qualifying reps on the competition:
"Several questions can help you understand your rep’s knowledge of the competition and control of the account:
Who is the competition?
When did they enter the account?
Were they in the account before us?
Who is their Champion?
What is their Champion’s influence? (IA or INA)
Is their Champion stronger than your Champion?
Have you been able to identify additional competitive Champions?
Who else is the competition speaking with in the account?
Have they met the Economic Buyer?
Was the decision criteria set when you entered the account?
Did the criteria change to include the competition’s differentiators?
When did the criteria change?
How is their Champion differentiating their solution?
How is their Champion strategizing to win?
Has the decision process changed since the competition entered the account?
Have you armed your Champion with FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) traps for the competition?
Is your Champion stronger than the competition’s Champion?" (256)
Qualifying reps on the paper process:
"These questions help you understand where the rep is in the Negotiate and Close stage:
Does your Champion know the approval process?
Has your Champion been involved in purchasing a product larger than $X?
Walk me through the steps in the approval process.
Who are the stakeholders involved in each of these steps?
What is the timeframe for each step of the process?
What is the name of the Legal contact?
Have our documents been redlined by their Legal?
Have you spoken to the contact in the Procurement Department?" (259)