B-A-N-T – Filling Your Sales Funnel with Qualified Opportunities

If you know me or you’ve read any of my other posts, then by now you’ve realized that I really like acronyms.  This serves me well since I’m in the IT space and there are lots of them in our vernacular.  Some of them are just abbreviations for long descriptions of technology and it’s easier to throw the acronym around instead of the full term or phrase.  Sometimes they're even used as a test to see how much the other person really knows what we’re talking about.

“I was resolving a ticket for one of our sales guys and he swore it was an application issue, but I quickly realized I was really just dealing with an ID10T.” :)

Then there are others which have become the foundations of my success in sales, like F-I-D-O.  B-A-N-T is one of those foundational acronyms for me.  My first B2B sales gig was "slinging" copiers for Konica Minolta in Austin, TX.  I was very fortunate to have an awesome manager.  He taught me everything I needed to know about becoming a consultative seller.  One of the things I liked most about his approach was that he taught us what we needed to know when we needed to know it.  Rather than forcing us to sit through hours of training and spewing tons of technical jargon and advanced sales methodologies, he would break our training sessions into smaller segments based upon what the sales team was experiencing in the field at that time. 

We were the first class of sales reps in a new branch for the company and we were all brand-new to B2B sales.  There was the former college cheerleader guy who loved to show off his backflips in the office, the young lady who was transitioning from being a contract ultrasound tech, a fun-loving party girl who came from a retail background, and me the USMC combat Veteran who’d recently returned from Iraq.  We were a motley crew to say the least.  But we all had one thing in common.  We were hungry for success and eager to learn from our mentor.  He was a young man in his early thirties who’d been in the industry for 10 years and was a proven field sales manager.  He’d recently been promoted to Branch General Manager from the Dallas Branch to launch the new branch in Austin and build another high-performing team.  He was the right guy for the job.

In order to fill the funnel we obviously had to prospect, so that’s where he started with the trainings.  Strategic prospecting is a topic for another post and how we did it back then is a little different from how I do it today.  Once we learned the basics on prospecting he assigned us our zip code territories and we went to town, literally.  We’d come back after a morning in the field with at least 30-50 cards and we’d start doing our data-entry and making calls to set up discovery meetings.  The phone calls were rough at first and he trained us on how to be more effective at setting appointments.  After all, without setting appointments we wouldn’t be able to fill the funnel. 

“Every ‘NO’ gets you closer to a ‘YES’!” – F-I-D-O

After pushing through a whole lot of NOs, being hung up, and even cursed out we finally began setting some discovery meetings.  It always feels good to experience success after you’ve been working hard at something.  I’ll never forget the first time someone actually said YES when I asked them for a meeting, I kept selling them on meeting with me and the guy kindly reminded me that he’d already agreed to meet.  That was another key lesson, you’ve got to know when to shut up and stop selling!

On those early discovery meetings our fearless leader would join us and he’d be the one to actually ask the questions.  That was another thing I really appreciated about his leadership and tried to model when I later became a sales manager.  He would get “in the trenches” with us and “show us what good looks like” (My words, not his.  He is much more humble than that.)  After our third discovery meeting together I began to realize that his process always seemed follow a similar pattern to gather all of the information we needed in order to put together a solution.  He’d start by stating what we’d learned about the company in our prep for the meeting and asking for confirmation of our understanding of their business.  I didn’t realize it at the time, but this too would prove to be one of those foundational consultative selling lessons for me.  Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.  I’ll write another post on the 5Ps.  This technique got the customer talking about what they know, their business.  His goal was always to follow the 80-20 rule in regards to who does most of the talking in a discovery meeting.

“The client should be talking 80% of the time and you should be talking 20% of the time.  Your 20% needs to be filled with good, thought-provoking questions which are tailored to your audience.”

“We have 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason.”

“Don’t show up and throw up!”

By following this process he’d gained rapport and credibility with the client, gathered all the details of their struggles, business needs and requirements, and never once made them feel like they were being sold.  Then he’d always finish with B-A-N-T.

Budget

Authority

Need

Timeframe

I’m sure this is nothing new to many of you who are reading this.  It was originally developed by IBM to help reps figure out which of their prospects have a higher probability of closing.  The reason I decided to write this post is that it’s become glaringly obvious to me in the past few years that not everyone sells this way.  I was fortunate to learn this in my first sales role so I assumed that everyone sold this way because it just made sense to me.  

So let’s take a second to break down each of these components.

Budget – contrary to what some people believe, budget is not necessarily what they’re paying today.  It really comes down to what they feel the solution is worth based upon how well it addresses the needs of their business. It may be less, but it may be more than what they’re paying today.  During the first part of the discovery meeting while you’re asking your tailored questions you're identifying their current challenges.  So how do you ask the budget question?  Simple, you just ask!  Something like, “we talked about X, Y, and Z being the things you’re currently struggling with.  If my solution can address all of those things for you, what would that be worth to you on a monthly basis (if your solution is MRR-based)?”

Authority – this one trips up new B2B sales reps all the time.  I heard it time after time in one-on-ones with my sales reps and I even fell prey to it when I was a rookie.  Often times new sellers simply ask people if they’re the decision-maker. They say yes and the seller takes them at their word.  Then the deal stalls because that "DM" has to get approval.  They don’t mean to lie to you, they simply have a different definition of decision-maker because they’re not in sales.  Take an SMB office manager for instance.  In their minds they are the decision-maker because they decide which vendors to allow into the bid process, they decide who to promote internally, and they normally have at least some impact on the timing of the deal.  In all reality they know that the owner of the company, or the controller, or some VP is actually the final decision-maker.  So, the way to clarify this is to ask a simple follow up question.  Something like this, “So Mr. Customer, who’s the person who makes the final decision here.” They say, “I am.”  You simply follow up with, “Perfect, so when it comes time to execute documents you’ll be the one to sign, correct?”  If there’s someone higher up the decision-making ladder they’ll say, “Oh no, that’s our VP of Finance, Ms. X.”  Now you know who the true decision-maker is and can ask another question to better understand the decision-making process.  “Oh okay, could you tell me what that process looks like?”  You may never actually have access to that decision-maker, but at least you've gained clarity on the process.

Need – this is your opportunity to summarize and confirm what you’ve learned in the discovery meeting, detail any next steps or action items required on either side, and even give a little foreshadowing as to the solution you’re going to provide. “So today we talked about X, Y, and Z being the challenges you’re facing and we talked about $X being a viable budget for a solution that will meet those needs, correct?”  Give them a chance to confirm, clarify or even object.  Better to have these things come out now than to have to address them during your proposal presentation.  Don’t move on until everyone’s on the same page.  Once you’re back in alignment finish with something like, “I’m confident we’ll be able to meet your needs with our offerings (be specific if you already have something specific in mind.)”

Timeframe – after you’ve done this a few times the transitions through each of these steps become pretty smooth.  Once you’ve summarized the meeting and verified that you’re in alignment it’s pretty natural to say, “So when would you like to have that final decision made?”  They may have a specific date in mind or a compelling event which is dictating the decision timing.  This is the perfect time to flesh that out by following up with, “What’s driving that timeframe for you?” or “What happens if you haven’t made the decision by then?” If there are no driving factors or those factors are weak, then you know you’ve got a weak deal.  If your products require extended implementation periods this is your chance to clarify expectations on how long it will take to “go-live” after docs are executed.

That sales manager I’ve been raving about had a very smooth way of getting through B-A-N-T and keeping it very conversational.  I was honestly never quite as smooth as him and I’m probably still not.  The way I get through B-A-N-T is to simply come out and say, “There are four more pieces of information I need to walk away from every discovery meeting with; Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe.”  Then I walk through each of the steps as detailed above.

It helps to imagine B-A-N-T as a four-legged stool.  If one or more of the legs of a stool are short or are missing, then the stool can’t stand.  If any of the four components of B-A-N-T are weak or are not clear, then you have a weak opportunity.  This doesn’t mean that you walk away from that opportunity.  It does allow you to more accurately assess the current closing probability of that opp.  It also gives you a clear view of which components need to be strengthened in order to nurture the opportunity (if it’s worth it).

There’s no silver bullet in sales.  B-A-N-T is not a stand-alone tool which will magically make you a sales stud.  I believe that it’s one component to a successful sales repertoire.  If you will commit yourself to consistently following some fundamental methodologies and processes I assure you that you’ll be able to more accurately forecast your funnel and that will lead to hitting your numbers.

If you’re not using B-A-N-T today, give it a try on your next discovery meeting.  If it works for you, then share it with your peers.

Thanks for reading,

Todd Scarborough

[email protected]

@toddscar

If you enjoyed this post, then here are some of my other posts you may like:

F-I-D-O - The Secret to Maintaining a Full Sales Funnel

Stop Selling Cloud!!!

PTSD = My Business Superpower