MEDDICC and the Invisible Competitor: How Solution Engineers Win Deals Beyond the Demo

I’ve been a Solution Engineer long enough to recognize a familiar sales-cycle pattern:

Sales says, “We’re up against Vendor X.”

The demo gets tailored.

Everyone feels good.

Two weeks later, the deal stalls.

And then the realization hits. The real competitor was never Vendor X. It was the status quo. An internal build. A procurement requirement to evaluate three vendors. Or a cheaper tool that “does enough.”

Most SEs can add a few more examples to that list from their own scars.

That’s why, from a presales perspective, the “C” in MEDDICC (Competition) is one of the most important and least talked about parts of the framework.

Solution Engineers are uniquely positioned to own this. They sit closest to architecture, operational reality, and risk. When SEs actively manage competition, sales cycles shorten, deals get cleaner, and surprises disappear.

Here’s how Solution Engineers can influence competition in ways that help sales and move deals forward.

Identify the Real Competition (Especially in Enterprise Sales)

In mid-market deals, competition is usually visible and straightforward:

Two or three vendors

A buying team that values speed

Clear feature comparisons

In enterprise sales, the most dangerous competitors are often invisible:

“We already have something.”

“Let’s build it internally.”

“We’ll revisit this next fiscal year.”

In one enterprise deal I worked on, I assumed we were competing against a well-known vendor. During technical discovery, it became clear that the buyer’s most considerable hesitation was replacing a brittle internal tool they had built years earlier. Once we reframed the conversation around operational risk and long-term maintenance cost, the vendor comparison stopped mattering.

The question that unlocked the conversation was simple:

“What happens if you don’t choose us?”

That question forces the status quo to compete. And the status quo almost always cracks under scrutiny.

Presales takeaway: If you do not identify the real competition, you cannot displace it.

Translate Competitive Differences into Risk, Not Features

Buyers rarely lose deals over missing features. Deals stall when someone flags risk.

This is where Solution Engineers add disproportionate value.

Risk-based competitive positioning often includes:

Implementation complexity

Scalability limits at enterprise scale

Security or compliance gaps

Hidden operational overhead

In a mid-market deal, a competitor claimed faster deployment. We walked through what “fast” meant when core integrations were missing. The conversation shifted from speed to rework and operational drag.

In an enterprise deal, we mapped our architecture against future scale, governance, and security requirements. The competing solution technically worked, but only with heavy customization. That immediately raised concerns with the platform and security teams.

Presales takeaway: Competitive positioning should reduce perceived risk, not win feature debates.

Connect Competition Directly to Decision Criteria

Solution Engineers sit closest to Decision Criteria and often see gaps before sales do. That proximity matters.

Instead of saying:

“We’re better at X.”

Frame it as:

“This was a stated requirement. Here’s how we meet it, and here’s where alternatives introduce complexity or compromise.”

Enterprise buyers want decisions they can defend internally. MEDDIC works when competition, Decision Criteria, and Decision Process are tightly connected.

Presales takeaway: If the buyer cannot clearly explain why your solution won, the deal is not safe.

Surface Competitive Objections Before the Buyer Does

If a competitor has a strong talking point, assume the buyer will hear it, even if they have not yet.

In one deal, we proactively said:

“You may hear that we’re more expensive.”

Then we walked through the long-term cost of ownership, operational effort, and risk side by side. The objection never surfaced again.

Presales takeaway: If you do not frame the objection, your competitor will.

Equip the Champion to Win When You Are Not There

Some of the most important competitive work happens after the demo.

Strong Solution Engineers leave behind:

Clear technical comparison summaries

Simple “why we chose this” architecture narratives

Explicit tradeoff explanations, not marketing slides

In enterprise sales, especially, your champion must sell internally to stakeholders you will never meet.

Presales takeaway: Your job is not to win the meeting. Your job is to win the internal conversation.

Final Thought

For Solution Engineers, owning the “C” in MEDDICC is not about trashing competitors.

It is about creating clarity.

Reducing risk.

Making the buyer’s decision defensible.

When competition is managed this way, MEDDICC stops being a checklist and becomes a control system.

This approach has consistently worked for me, and it remains one of the highest-leverage ways presales can influence outcomes well beyond the demo.