Some time ago, IBM laid claim to the acronym “BANT” when training their sales team on finding qualified leads. BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe) has since been adopted by many companies and is now a well-known tool to many sales and marketing teams across the globe.
Any sales person or dedicated lead generating team should at least use BANT to qualify the interest of their prospects. There are a lot of reasons as why you need to qualify your prospects but let’s focus on a single one: your sales pipeline. It’s all about closing the sale so qualifying will help you assess and measure the degree of interest for your product/solution and get more visibility on what opportunities will be pushed down your pipeline, when, etc…
We’ll spice things up a little and start going through BANT definition, with the “N”:
NEED
Remember: NO NEED = NO LEAD. It’s not enough that the prospect has shown interest in your solution or product. Try to explore deeper and find out why they are looking to engaging with you further.Is it that they are using a legacy system and would like something more up to date? Are they currently using a solution that is not providing them with what they need? Are they perhaps not getting the support or a good service from their current provider?
Try to ensure that you or your team nail down clear issues or pain points with the prospect. This will make for a far better qualified lead and will really enhance your follow up meeting.
BUDGET
Establish whether the prospect has a set budget for your solution. Sometimes simply asking if a budget has been agreed for a specific project will be enough and the prospect will be happy to state if so. However, enquiring about specific figures can be difficult and seen as too early to discuss – make sure your team steer clear of asking “how much have you set aside for x project?”
Depending on your solution and of course, the urgency of the prospect’s needs, budget may be made available. If the prospect says budget is an issue for them, don’t take it as a knock back, and ask “if we can prove a strong business case to you and show you how we can help – can a budget be made available?”.
AUTHORITY
Nowadays, key decision makers (those with purchasing authority) can be very difficult to engage with. In complex solution selling, decision making is more complex and multi-layered, with various functions or departments involved in the process. Even though you should always aim to have a conversation with a decision-maker, speaking with an influencer in the decision making process may also prove very effective. You may gather more about the pain points, gaps or project plans within the company.
Asking the question straight out, i.e. Are you the decision maker? can be a bit awkward. Try to ask about the decision making process and who is involved. You could also ask if the prospect would like anyone else in their company to be involved in the meeting – this can usually open the floor up for the prospect to offer the decision maker’s name.
TIMEFRAME
Timeframe relates to when the decision to purchase is likely to be made and when the prospective company is looking to implement the solution. Even though this sounds promising, just because the prospect has said they want to meet you next week, doesn’t mean that their decision to purchase will be made soon.
Thinking that timeframe relates to the meeting date is a trap that many fall into and will be misleading when looking at your sales pipeline.Asking the prospect “what way will the decision making process work?”, “How long will the evaluation process last?” or “When will a decision be likely to be made?” will give you clarity on timeframe and allow you to implement a nurturing process if the decision is more long-term.
By uncovering each of the four elements of BANT, you get more visibility on the hot leads and the ones that will require more nurturing over time. If your prospects are not looking at making a decision on the project for another year, now is the time to nurture that lead until ready.
Even though BANT is a “classic” in terms of lead qualification, there are other ways to qualify a prospect further. What do you use to qualify your prospects?
Maven TM is specialised in B2B Telemarketing and Sales Leads Generation. We offer our clients nothing but highly qualified sales leads using BANT & other methods. Why not let us provide you with highly qualified leads and allow your sales team to focus on what they do best, closing sales! For more information, please contact Maven TM at info@maventm.com.