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The SPICED Sales Framework
The sales framework that's actually working in 2025
In partnership with
Good Morning! It’s National Thank You Day, so here’s a big thank you to the real heroes… the champions who loop in their team, answer emails on the first try, and show up to discovery calls. We see you. We appreciate you. We wish there were more of you. Now let’s get into today’s Follow Up. 😁
‘We’re still reviewing internally’ 🗣️
The SPICED sales framework 🧑🍳
Is tech sales eating itself? 👀
Sales jobs & a meme 😂
Sales Tip of The Day 💡
When a prospect hits you with ‘We’re still reviewing internally’, don’t give in there.
Push back on it:
❌ No problem. I'll follow up next week.
✅ Got it. Just so I’m not chasing a ghost, when you say “reviewing,” does that mean budget, competing offers, or something else entirely?
This forces specificity over vagueness and gives you a shot at diagnosing the real blocker.
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This guide breaks down what truly matters—from infrastructure efficiency to conversational quality—and reveals how you can deploy voice AI in weeks, not months, all while achieving sub-100ms response times for faster, more human-like customer interactions.
The SPICED Sales Framework
Most sales frameworks were built for a different era of selling.
BANT assumes prospects know their budget. MEDDIC focuses on individual deals.
But modern B2B buying? It's messier, involves more people, and continues through the entire customer lifecycle.
That’s where SPICED comes in. A framework that changes how revenue teams operate.
Developed by Winning by Design, SPICED is a unified approach that aligns sales, marketing, and customer success around the most important thing: the customer.
Today, we're breaking down why SPICED is gaining traction and how it could transform your sales process.
Why Traditional Frameworks Don’t Work
The problem with most sales frameworks is… They create silos.
MEDDIC works great for sales reps. But try explaining "Economic Buyer" to your marketing team.
BANT helps with lead qualification. But doesn't help customer success with renewals.
SPICED was designed differently. It's built for the entire revenue team. From first touch to renewal and expansion.
The philosophy is simple: Instead of focusing on closing deals → focus on diagnosing customer needs. Like a doctor who needs to understand symptoms before prescribing treatment.
The Five Steps of SPICED
S - Situation
This is where you build comprehensive context about their business and current situation.
What you're uncovering:
Company size and industry
Current tech stack
Market position and any recent changes
Org structure
The goal is to understand what they do, how they operate, and what external factors affect their business.
P - Pain
Here's where you identify the specific challenges that are making them consider new solutions.
But don't stop at surface-level complaints. Dig for root causes.
Help prospects prioritize their pain points, because most organizations face multiple challenges simultaneously.
The key in this step is finding the pains that your solution can solve.
I - Impact
Transform identified pains into measurable business consequences.
This means understanding what happens if they fail to address their challenges AND what benefits they'd get from successfully fixing it.
Using “impact discovery” helps prospects build their own cost-benefit analysis. When they build the business case themselves, they're more likely to believe it than if you present it to them.
CE - Critical Events
These are deadlines or circumstances that create urgency for decision-making.
Examples include:
Regulatory compliance deadlines
Leadership changes
Budget cycles
Initiatives with fixed timelines
Understanding critical events helps you align your sales process with their natural buying timeline rather than trying to create artificial urgency.
*Special note: The Impact (I) and Critical Events (CE) steps aren’t always discovered in order. Sometimes they’re discovered at the same time, or in the opposite order.
D - Decision
These are the people, processes, and standards involved in purchase decisions.
You need to understand the entire decision-making ecosystem.
All stakeholders, their priorities, the formal approval process, and evaluation criteria.
Why SPICED Works So Well
SPICED shines in recurring revenue businesses because it emphasizes long-term customer relationships over transactional sales.
Especially companies where customer success drives revenue growth.
And the methodology creates a unified strategy across departments.
Marketing uses SPICED for content creation. Sales uses it for discovery. Customer success uses it for expansion conversations.
Do you use a sales framework when selling? |
