The framework
What is the Value Pyramid?
The Value Pyramid is the framework for strategic alignment between your solution and your customer's highest-level business objectives. It has six levels, and the most important rule is this: you build it top down, not bottom up. Elite sellers earn the right to talk about features by first proving they understand the business.
The six levels
From the boardroom down to the feature.
- 1Goals
The customer's top level business objectives, the kind found in a mission statement, annual report, or earnings call.
- 2Winds
The headwinds slowing the company down and the tailwinds speeding it up. Subjective, debatable, and the layer that opens conversation.
- 3Strategies
The actionable plans to achieve the Goals. They tend to map to one of three value drivers: increase revenue, improve efficiency, or reduce risk.
- 4Initiatives
The funded, prioritised, time-bound, owned actions that support each Strategy. This is where budget lives.
- 5Obstacles
The barriers that threaten the Initiatives and Strategies. Obstacles are pains: identify them, indicate they hurt the initiative, then implicate them up to threaten the strategy.
- 6Needs
The capabilities required to overcome the Obstacles. Needs without decision criteria are agnostic. The goal is to evolve them into criteria that lock in your differentiation.
The brick wall
Most sellers live below the wall. The economic buyer lives above it.
There is a wall in the middle of the pyramid. Below it sit Obstacles and Needs, which is just features and benefits language. Features are the Needs. Benefits are about overcoming the Obstacles. That is where most sellers spend their time.
Above the wall sit Goals, Winds, Strategies, and Initiatives. That is the language the economic buyer speaks. Climb above the wall and you stop being a vendor and start being a strategic partner.
Stakeholder altitude
Each level maps to the people who own it.
If you only speak Needs and Obstacles language, you will never reach the people who actually sign.
MEDDPICC
The engine that powers MEDDPICC.
The Value Pyramid is not separate from MEDDPICC. It is what feeds it. Goals and Strategies reach the Economic Buyer, Winds connect to Pain, Initiatives map to Metrics, Obstacles are where you Implicate Pain, and Needs become your Decision Criteria.
What this tool does not teach
This is the what and the why. The how lives inside MEDDICC Membership:
- The 5Rs research framework
- M1s, introducing value through real customer stories
- The Hypothesis to Consensus process
- Moving up and down the pyramid in a live conversation
- Presenting the pyramid to the economic buyer
Build a Value Pyramid for your most important account.
It is free, there is no login, and the coach will tell you the truth about where it stands.