The BANT model, originally created by IBM, has become a classic sales qualification framework in B2B selling. Acronym for Budget, Authority, Need, Timing, BANT aims to qualify your leads by determining their interest for both your company and your product.
The goal is to identify commercially exploitable leads based on relevant key criteria. This lead management process assesses the quality of the prospect based on their budget, authority, need, and timeframe.
Focus on these 4 criteria that will help you determine if your prospect is ready to purchase.
B for Budget
One of the most important criteria: Budget! Your potential customer have set a ceiling price they don’t want to exceed. If the cost of your product and/or service is too high, they will attempt to negotiate it or just not buy.
In order to measure their purchasing ability, you must carefully compare their budget with yours. If they don’t have a sufficient budget, then perhaps they don’t fulfil all the conditions to become a BANT lead...
A for Authority
Does your interlocutor have power in the purchasing decision? Are they the decision makers or do they just influence the negotiation? These questions are crucial to know who validates the purchases and not waste your time.
Authority is all the more important in the context of a complex sale, where the decision and influence circuit is often complicated. Identifying the actors involved will help you set up a suitable commercial strategy and reach your objectives.
N for Need
Although positioned in third place of the acronym BANT, detecting the need of your prospect is the very first step to take. Is there a real interest in the product or service you offer? Little to no understanding of your prospect’s need may mean that your commercial approach doesn't make sense and is ultimately bound to fail.
By correctly identifying the need, you have the right tools in your hands to offer a personalised and qualitative customer experience and better position your services. With a coherent speech answering their problematic, you qualify your leads more, and therefore simplify and streamline the sales process.
T for Timing
An intention to purchase necessarily involves a question of time. Is your prospect cold, warm or hot? Is their project short, medium or long term? Depending on how ready they are, their reflection time may vary.
Your goal is to keep a reasonable and feasible time.
Depending on the level of maturity, it is up to you to prioritise the most promising leads whose identified needs are urgent so you can conclude the sale quickly. The faster you respond to your hot leads, the more likely you are to transform them.
BANT and CRM: a 360° view of your leads
We highly recommend the use of a CRM tool to optimise the BANT qualification of your leads. An agile and intuitive software in SaaS mode allows you to centralise and decrypt the profiles of your leads according to these 4 BANT criteria.
Your sales teams gain in time and efficiency. This helps them adjust their commercial speech and make sure to target their actions to generate qualified leads. In addition, in the era of marketing automation, lead scoring and lead tracking are key features of your CRM to optimise and maximise lead acquisition.
However, in a highly digital B2B universe, never forget that your potential prospects are over-informed and in great demand. To capture their attention and seduce them, you must speak intelligently through a more human and authentic digital communication strategy.
