Clutch time plan of attack

David Chimenti

I’m big on systems in general. They’re replicable, lessen my anxiety because there are concrete steps, and they allow me to be more “action oriented” than “result oriented” because I know if I am consistently performing the correct actions, I will achieve the desired results consistently. It’s like pulling out the family cookbook for Thanksgiving dinner.

At times in my career, before widespread CRM use, I’d plan out my entire plan of attack for each month on notebook paper (these are back in the BANT days).

MEDDICC allows us to make much more calculated decisions about where to spend our time and how to execute.

I am curious, as we head into EOY, how people are using MEDDICC training for their own EOY plan of attack and where they feel like they need to be in their deals at this juncture to convert business by EOY (indicating your industry, revenue band/department and general sales cycle duration would likely be helpful as well)

Adam Bowen

Hey there David. 20+ year MEDDPICC guy. I'm in B2B SaaS sales with a deal velocity average of 6 months.

Our FY ends in Jan, so are quarters are not so dependent on typical CY fiscal spending.

At this point, everything that we will close in the quarter should at least be in the validation phase, which is typically a POV.

From a MEDDPICC perspective, that means my team should

• have a firm Champion candidate (Ch),
• have met the EB (go/no go meeting) (E),
• have quantifiable (M) business pain (I),
• understand (and helped define) Decision Criteria (Dc),
• have at least a semi-detailed understanding of how to get to a commercial decision after a successful validation event (Dp) and to get the signature (P). These continue to be fleshed out into greater detail as we go through the validation event.
• These last two would have been documented in a Mutual action plan that was shared with the EB and discussed between the EB and I in the go/no go meeting. This is a living document that will be used to keep both teams on target and accountable until close.
  
  I think this is the state that all deals should be in shortly after entering into the current quarter they are forecasted to close. unless you have a sub-75 day deal cycle.

Hope this helps.

David Chimenti

@Adam Bowen that is some amazing advice. Thank you for taking the time to put a detailed answer.

My “Plan of Attack” I did every month but particularly focused on months when quota was upcoming.

It was essentially a running list of actions to focus on and when to perform those actions to give myself the best potential for positive outcomes.

This meant assessing each deal top-to-bottom and planning out every touchpoint on any late phase opp. So that meant knowing how I wanted to reach out, what value needed to be uncovered or provided by the interaction, and planning on having those conversations with the end in mind. Below is a fake but realistic mini-example.

December 1

-Email Carrie at x company and provide the case study she wanted, and once she’s reviewed, ask for permission to meet the Economic Buyer by the 8th or forecast to next month

-call Dan at y company and chat about what happened at the Decision Team’s last meeting, and based off that advisement, provide him with the necessary resources to allocate budget so we are on track for EOM (also ask his upcoming addition to his family - wife is due next month so congrats in order but also want to ensure his availability if deal moves to next month)

-send a quick text to Julie at z company and ask her how she thought our demo last week went with the rest of the decision team, provide any relevant resources but try to get Julie to get a meeting for both of you with the EB by December 8 or forecast for next month

-go view LinkedIn profiles for other EBs on course for the month’s end to make sure they didn’t forget about me over Thanksgiving, personalized emails to follow on December 3 for key stakeholders

and that would go on for the whole month so there wasn’t a single conversation I wasn’t A) prepared for B) understood the personal and professional challenges for working with that person and C) have an ideal outcome in mind if there are no surprises.

This allowed me to focus on actions instead of outcomes which was the key value driver for me.

I actually like your qualification level benchmarks better though. Thanks again!