Pipeline Reviews are a rep's chance to discuss their opportunities and get the coaching and support they need.
Sometimes though it’s hard for them to know what they don’t know…
Without a system in place for breaking down these deals into easily digestible chunks, it can be overwhelming – for reps and managers. This is made even worse when the information is spread across multiple platforms and spreadsheets.
This is why sales methodologies have become so popular. Your methodology outlines the steps reps need to take to qualify their opportunities.
Qualified opps optimize the use of reps’ time by determining if a prospect is a good fit for your solution – meaning they have a higher return on investment and close rate. Standardizing the procedure creates a repeatable, predictable process for sales teams to focus on in order to close deals successfully.
One such example of this is MEDDPICC®. This helps reps to understand deals and what is required to close them. When they know this, they can be far more focused in their approach, targeting the key decision makers, and knowing exactly how to message – ultimately helping them to close more.
Ebsta introduced the Deal Qualification Guide to enable sales teams to review the 8 MEDDPICC® criteria and update them in real-time.
This enables you to combine a data-driven pipeline review with a thorough sales methodology to ensure reps hit (or exceed) their quota.
Here's how:
What new opportunities have been created? Have they been qualified?
With new opportunities being created every week, it can be challenging to keep on top of them. However, with the Opportunity Table, a rep can see all of their opportunities in one clear display.
Select New Opps from the flowchart and the Opportunity Table below will be populated with these deals. From here both reps and managers will be able to see which new deals are qualified using the MEDDPICC® column.
After the first meeting with a prospect a rep can outline what success looks like and what potential blockers there might be using the Deal Qualification Guide. This then gets logged into Ebsta (and synced into the CRM), great! Finally, when it comes to pipeline review time, we’ve got all the information needed.
The best bit? Both rep and manager have complete visibility of the qualification – including scoring and notes. This means that a quick review ahead of the pipeline review means both parties come to the meeting prepared -elevating the whole conversation.
What deals are at risk? Why?
So we’ve shown you how to use our pipeline flowchart to identify risk (if not, check out the 1:1 Pipeline Review use case here). Great, but I think we can all admit that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Using MEDDPICC®, you can now see how qualified these at-risk deals are.
You may discover that there are areas of deals that need a bit of tlc. For example, we can see that the economic buyer has been identified. On review though we have a poor relationship score with this person. As they have final sign off on the deal, it’s vital to nurture this relationship.
Now you can speak with your manager about how to improve your relationship and see if there are any connections in your organization that you could leverage to help.

Why will we win this deal? Have we proved that we will solve the prospect’s problems?
Knowing what your prospect needs and ensuring you can deliver that for them is essential to closing deals. But when you have multiple deals it can be difficult to remember what matters to a specific customer.
Luckily, MEDDPICC® gives you an easy-to-use checklist that helps make sure you are always on top of your opps. Using metrics you can see what the prospect is hoping to achieve. By identifying what success looks like early, it’s easier to achieve it.
For example, you can see that a prospect has said they want to improve their forecasting accuracy to within 90%. You therefore know to emphasize this in communication with the prospect. It ensures reps are using the right language and sharing the most relevant values of the solution – something that will be appreciated by a prospect.
How do we plan to close this deal?
Your pipeline review is the best time to discuss with your manager how you’re going to close opportunities and get advice if required.
Have you reviewed the decision criteria? If reps are not able to answer these questions then they are only guessing at what the prospect wants. If they are unsure, a pipeline review is the perfect time to discuss with their manager what would be the best way to find out this information.
When will it close?
For forecasting accuracy it is important to keep the decision process and paper process in mind. If it is going to take legal 1 month to review and there’s only 2 weeks left in the quarter, no matter how confident you are it will close, it should not be put in commit for this quarter.
It is therefore important to discuss with your manager exactly how long the deal will take to close. With MEDDPICC® you have this worked out ahead of time and can take it into account when making your forecast submission.
It’s these simple steps that reps may forget to think about without a thorough sales methodology in place.
Who do we need to influence?
Sometimes it is hard to know who you need to influence to close a deal. Understanding who these players are – whether they are economic buyers, champions or others – is a surefire way to ensure you are nurturing the right relationships.
With Ebsta, reps can see these relationships, review account hierarchies and find out their Relationship Score. Relationship Score is generated from analysis of a rep’s interaction with prospects in real-time and given a score from 0-100 to show the level of engagement.
Relationship Mapping allows you to see who knows who internally, so you can leverage warm relationships your colleagues already have to get a headstart on closing opps.
Armed with this information, reps can ensure they are reaching out consistently and maintaining healthy relationships with all influencers in an opportunity.

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