Wild West Selling vs. Structured Selling

I’ve become increasingly convinced that using a defined and trained sales methodology isn’t optional. It’s foundational.

One of the most common reasons I see sales teams struggle isn’t effort or talent.
It’s the absence of a shared language to talk about deals.

Without a common framework (MEDDIC, Challenger, SPIN, etc.), selling turns into the Wild West:

• Every rep defines “qualified” differently

• Deal health is based on gut feel instead of evidence

• Coaching becomes opinion-based instead of diagnostic

• Forecasts look fine… right up until they don’t

When teams do use a methodology well, a few things change quickly:

• Deals can be described consistently across reps and managers

• Risks surface earlier (instead of at the proposal stage)

• Metrics actually mean something because stages represent the same buyer truth

• Coaching shifts from firefighting to pattern recognition

The biggest benefit isn’t that a methodology tells sellers what to say.
It’s that it makes performance observable, coachable, and improvable.

Methodologies don’t magically create great sellers, but they reduce variance, create alignment, and give leaders something real to inspect and improve.

In complex sales, hope is not a strategy.
A shared process is.

Curious how others think about this. Have you seen methodology drive real performance gains, fail due to poor adoption, or stifle the creativity of your sales teams?