PLG Weekly #4: Re-imagining BANT, MEDDIC for product-led sales, How to staff your sales team for PLG
Welcome to the fourth edition of the PLG weekly. This week we begin to adapt popular existing sales methodologies like BANT, MEDDIC to product-led selling.
🧪BANT/MEDDIC in a product-led sales world
For the uninitiated, BANT and MEDDIC are popular sales qualification methodologies that help sales reps qualify prospects.
BANT is Budget, Authority, Need, and Timing.
MEDDIC is Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision process, Decision criteria, Identify pain and Champion.
Both these frameworks were made in a world where software was bought and used. Today software is try-and-buy. This means you don't have to guess how customers will use your product. You can know how they use it and have conversations accordingly!
Sales reps lack a playbook to have value-based conversations by understanding customers' needs based on one/two weeks of product usage. Our reps are still sending "just checking in" emails instead of having usage-based conversations with prospects who are already using the product.
For example:
Say an account has added integrations but not synced data; sales reps should nudge the account to sync data for a better product experience.
Similarly, reps need to intervene quickly and get usage back on track if the account has finished integrations but not added users or is not active
Think of all the actions that a user can take to show the value of your product and work on a playbook that helps sales say the right things, based on where they are in their usage journey! A little sales assistance goes a long way in increasing your free trial conversion rates.
If you're at a company that offers a free trial, you have to include product usage to your BANT or MEDDIC methodologies and enable sales reps to sell based on the customers' usage journey. I would even go as far as to question if you need BANT/MEDDIC, considering you have product usage data and product qualifying leads instead of reps.
The #1 priority as VP Sales should be to have a usage-based conversion playbook for your reps. Use your reps to help get prospects to "Aha!" moments faster. Stop "checking in."
👩👩👦👦 Advice on how to staff your team to support PLG by Dooly’s VP of Revenue
According to Michelle Pietsch, VP of Revenue, Dooly, adding a sales team to a successful PLG motion is like adding gasoline to fire. She lays down a beautiful three-step framework on how to start building a product-led sales team.
1️⃣ Listen to your customers.
Understand what your prospects love about your product.
What do they do when they sign up?
What are they saying on the sales/support calls you have today?
What's the "Aha!" moment, and when do they get to it?
How easy is it to get to the "Aha!" moment?
When they are stuck, do you have an easy support process to help them out?
Michelle listens to all of Dooly's call recordings and works with the product team and her Sales reps better their customer experience and make buying easier.
2️⃣ Deploying an SDR motion.
If you have users signing up and not activating right away, identify parts of the funnel where SDRs can engage them and help them get to the "Aha!" moment faster.
With PLG motions, you will have a couple of enterprise customers who would have bought via self-serve. SDR motions can be used to target wall-to-wall expansions within these customers.
For the smaller customers, you can deploy SDRs to help expand as they grow and reduce churn.
3️⃣ Hiring dedicated AEs.
Don’t hire Account Executives before identifying what their day looks like.
Will your AEs be consultants and more product-focused?
Will they be doing outbound prospecting to bring people to the product?
Don't put hand-raisers (customers who request a demo) through the traditional discovery process like BANT/MEDDIC. These customers have tried the product. Find out what they are interested in and already find value in, and expand on those usage patterns. Enhance your discovery instead of doing it from scratch.
Don't do a one-call close with AEs - It's not the best use of your AE's time. When you don't qualify well, especially in SMB, they end up churning a lot.
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