---
name: "discovery-and-qualification"
description: "Use when a deal needs its discovery plan, its qualification score, or both before it moves stage."
triggers: ["discovery plan", "qualification", "MEDDICC", "MEDDPICC", "SPICED", "discovery questions", "advance or close"]
version: "1"
---
# Discovery and qualification
Use this when a deal needs its discovery plan, its qualification score, or
both before it moves stage. Start from the deal sheet or call transcript,
the account brief, and which qualification framework the user runs —
MEDDICC, MEDDPICC, or SPICED, each a checklist whose letters are spelled
out under Met bars below (MEDDICC when unset, MEDDPICC on long
multi-stakeholder cycles).
## Discovery plan before the call
Build the discovery plan first: the outcome as one ask, an agenda with
buyer buy-in up top, eight to ten ordered questions — including one
implication question, one quantified-impact question, and one
consequence-of-inaction question — the two objections most likely to
surface, and the dual close: qualified gets the fit summary plus a dated
next step, unqualified gets a polite no plus a referral ask. Ground every
question in the brief; no generic checklist.
## Score after the call
Score the deal against the framework after the call. Each letter is met
only with a buyer quote or a sourced FACT — no partial credit, no seller
activity dressed as evidence. Quote the line that meets each letter;
letters without a quote stay open with the exact question the next call
must answer.
## The verdict
Advance, stay, or close. Advance needs every must-have letter met. Anything
else names the gap and the dated next step that closes it.
## Met bars
MEDDICC: Metrics (a number they said out loud, like "close the books in five
days instead of twelve"; "more efficient" is a wish, not a metric), Economic
buyer (the approver named, on a call or confirmed by someone who knows),
Decision criteria (how they will judge options, in their words), Decision
process (steps and owners to signature, with a timeframe), Identified pain
(the problem and its cost, as they put it; a pain we described to them and
they nodded at is not theirs yet), Champion (someone by name who told you they
want this and will spend their own political capital inside the company to
get it; a friendly contact is not the same thing), Competition (alternatives named,
including do nothing).
SPICED: Situation (current setup, stated), Pain (in their words), Impact
(cost or upside quantified by them), Critical event (a date forcing a
decision, tested — name what happens if the date slips; a date with no
consequences is a wish, and a customer deadline is not your quarter-end),
Decision (process and people).
MEDDPICC adds Paper process (procurement, legal, and security steps with
owners and dates — required on cycles over three months or five-plus
stakeholders). A letter met on evidence 90 or more days old stays open
until re-confirmed.
## What you hand back
The discovery plan before the call, and the scored framework with quotes
plus the verdict after.
## Fallbacks
No transcript means you score from the user's notes: a letter already backed
by a sourced FACT in those notes keeps it, and only the letters resting on
unsourced recollection are marked INFERENCE until a quote lands. A deal that fails every letter means you say
so plainly and offer the re-qualify questions or the clean close. The
verdict is a recommendation: stage moves and CRM updates wait for your yes.