Although few people and companies know (even in marketing areas), the methodology called BANT is efficient to qualify leads and transform prospects into customers. In this article I will explain everything about this acronym and how to apply in practice to broaden the options of your sales team.
What's BANT?
This methodology was created by IBM in the 1950s and as it produced good results, it was adopted by other businesses around the world. It meets four useful criteria to qualify potential customers and helps vendors determine whether a potential customer is qualified or not. It makes it easy enough for the commercial to prioritize negotiations, bringing greater likelihood of closure.
Understand what each letter means:
B= Budget (Budget): How much of the available money is allocated for purchase or business? How much does a potential customer expect to spend?
A= Authority (Authority): Who is the decision maker or director within the company that can facilitate the closing of the sale?
N= Need (Necessity): Does the prospect have any need that can be solved by your product or service?
T= Timing (Ergency): When does the potential customer's company plan to receive products/services?
BANT and lead qualification
A lead qualifications is the process of deciding if the opportunity you have ahead of you, that is the potential customer, is worth the time it takes to invest in it. It is an effective way to determine whether a potential customer is really interested in the opportunity you are offering.
Think about it: each of us ends up having a qualifying behavior:
- Is this product something I want to buy?
- What's the budget I have to buy?
We weigh the information to decide whether it is worth pursuing the opportunity presented to us. So as a sales representative, how do you qualify your potential customers as a lead that can close a sale? The BANT sales qualification strategy can help determine whether this lead is likely to be successful.
This lead qualification process saves sales teams time and energy, eliminating or ignoring opportunities without potential to become a customer. Leads are generated in many ways: email capture, phone number capture, reference, ads and other traditional and digital marketing techniques.
However, just because someone provided you with your email address or signed up for your newsletter to receive content, does not mean that it will become a successful lead.
If the opportunity seems really feasible, ask the lead as many questions as possible to collect the information that matters. Here are some additional questions to be considered when using BANT for lead qualification:
Budget
- Do you have a dedicated budget for new technology purchases? What's this budget?
- Are you sharing your budget with any other departments?
- If you had no budget limitations, what would you do?
Authority
- Do we need to include anyone else in our discussion?
- Do you currently use any similar products to ours? Do you foresee any overlap or redundancy?
- How were the previous products received? Is your team ready for change?
Need
- Tell me about the most frustrating part of your work. How long has that been a frustration?
- Do you currently have plans to solve these problems?
- What obstacles do you foresee if there are?
Timeline
- What other problems are you facing? What is your priority in solving the problems?
- When do you seek to solve your problem?
- Are you considering any other solution or service?
Good practices for the BANT strategy
Now let's go deeper on how to apply the steps of the BANT strategy, so you better understand and plan in your actions, with the aim of finding qualified leads for sales:
Set the potential client budget
When it comes to products, it is easy to qualify leads based on your financial expectations. If you have a recurring subscription-based business, you may need additional information about the purchase process within a company.
Today, the price range of many services and products is very wide and should be well planned to start the approach. Ask prospects “What is your budget?” during the first meeting is not the best idea.
Knowing if he has any kind of budget and if there is any real intention to invest, that should be enough. If you want more details, be more polite. For example, ask about the price of the current solution they used or used before. If it makes sense, ask about ROI's expectation. If this corresponds to your prices, that lead may be qualified in terms of budget.
Identify who is responsible for decision-making
The answer to this question may come from the previous question, which concerns the budget. For example, when the potential customer has a defined budget, it can invest in services or marketing campaigns.
But bear in mind that in medium and large enterprises, it is a group of people and not a single individual who makes decisions to buy. Normally, a group of three interested parties decides the business destination. So even if a person signs a contract, most of the team will be involved in the discussion and closing.
When implementing the BANT, your task is to find out who participated in the decision-making process, also called “stakeholders”: positions, functions, priorities and, finally, contacts. Ask the potential customer to arrange a meeting with all involved or contact them personally.
The more contacts your sales team can establish, the easier it will be to close a business and influence the final decision. Communication is the key to opportunities.
Understand the problem that the lead needs to solve
Your next task is to understand the importance of the problem for the potential customer and also for your company. During the conversation, you should find answers to the following questions:
- Is the company motivated to solve the problem?
- What happens if they don't solve the problem?
- Is there any other solution that can meet your needs and attract your attention and energy?
A potential customer may say that the company is working somehow to solve a problem, but the real goals of leadership may be different and there are other pains to attack. This is gonna get in the way of the sales process this way or that way.
Set deadlines for the sales process
As you have already noticed, the BANT methodology is connecting step after step. From the moment you are aware of the budget, the decision makers and the real need for your product or service, you need to know how long they intend to invest to finalize the sale.
There's a big difference between three months and a year. By defining the timeline of potential customers, you can program yourself better and prepare for the prioritised sales.
Search for information from various sources
The question you need to answer is: “How should this help me to fulfill the BANT strategy?”
It is important to be aware of the potential customer's concerns, intentions, objections and desires. You can find very useful information by searching your social networks by signing up for your newsletter and even participating in your public events.
Paying attention to the activities of potential buyers outside of your business and negotiations can help you set some problematic points that your service or product can eliminate.
There is no need to go too far to get acquainted with the purchasing decision makers in the companies even before a formal meeting. Check out your social media pages: LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Some of them share ambitious plans for the development of the company, announce new features and products where your service can be useful.
Maintaining control over the potential customer company can increase your competitive advantage and provide a healthy image. You can determine if it is suitable for your product before even being asked the main questions of the BANT.
Use the technologies to your advantage
By practicing the BANT approach in your sales process, you can track your pipeline and customer relationships using digital tools and applications. For example, by processing multiple prospects simultaneously, you can define how far the negotiations go and exactly what triggered or prevented the business.
Invest in email marketing tools, landing pages creation and lead qualification, as well as CRMs using well-planned funnels to monitor the evolution or loss of prospect.
Professional tip : apply the BANT as a form of communication, not just as a list of questions. Nobody likes to be interrogated. When your dialogue seems natural, leads or prospects are more willing to share extra information.
Finally, it is important to highlight that there is no single approach to the implementation of the BANT strategy. Test and apply to hot prospects in your marketing funnel.
Try to find some additional information that can help you qualify leads. In addition, you can prioritize one aspect above others (e.g. budget or schedules of potential customers). The BANT approach works well for many spheres, including B2B.
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