Not all Decision Criteria are Created Equally.

A great first place to start regarding the Decision Criteria is the definition:

The Decision Criteria is the standard by which each of the vendors' offerings will be compared to determine the winner of the opportunity.

In technology sales, the Decision Criteria are typically broken down into two major categories:

1. Technical Criteria: Any technical specifications that the prospect, such as infrastructure needs, integration needs, and compliance needs, may require.
   

2. Business Criteria: Any commercial requirements that the prospect may require, such as payment terms, budget limits, ROI calculations, and contract terms.

I have personally been involved in over 1,000 software evaluations over my career, and more times than not, prospects typically do not have any form of Decision Criteria documented. Below is my experience of how often Decision Criteria are fully formed.

There are pros and cons to each:

Documented - There is a good chance that bias already exists within that Decision Criteria. If you were not part of the team that helped create that, chances are your competitor was. Usually, the larger the company, the more likely it will have this documented.

Undocumented - This is more common than documented. In this scenario, the prospect has an idea of their Decision Criteria but has not formalized it, prioritized it, or socialized it among all the stakeholders.

Non-Existing - The most common scenario here is that a prospect has difficulty describing how they will go about making a decision. They will often use qualitative descriptions to communicate their requirements, making it very difficult for any seller to know if they will meet their needs.

In the three scenarios mentioned above, I always prefer the non-existing scenario as it allowed us to help the prospect document their Decision Criteria. Most vendors will continue with the opportunity without the Decision Criteria documented and try to use sales tactics to sway the opportunity in their favor. This approach is very risky for both the seller and the buyer and makes forecasting the deal almost impossible. Without the Decision Criteria, you are operating in the dark; requirements can and will change, and it is like trying to hit a moving target blindfolded.

Helping to craft the Decision Criteria is not as easy as it sounds; it is very labor-intensive and requires talking to many stakeholders. We will cover building the Decision Criteria in a future MEDDIC Mondays post; however, I want to mention one last thing. The Decision Criteria are only valid if the Economic Buyer agrees to them. Stay tuned for more training on Decision Criteria. For now, take action below!

​🎬 Action

1. Look at all your opportunities and document whether you have documented Decision Criteria and whether the Economic Buyer has validated them. If you don't, start working on that.

2. Make a promise to yourself that you will not move forward with any deal unless you understand the Decision Criteria.