How to Use BANT to Qualify Prospects in 2023

How to Use BANT to Qualify Prospects in 2023

BANT is one of the most successful and well-known frameworks for lead generation and qualification. It’s been around for over 60 years, and experienced marketers and sales professionals still rely on it to this day.?

That being said, the world and our way of life have changed dramatically in those 60 years. Believing that one can just repeat the same practices from the past without any adjustment or adaptation is a recipe for failure, and it fuels critics to proclaim: “BANT is dead!”

But BANT is pretty much alive and filling many sales pipelines with high-quality prospects. In this article, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide on how to successfully implement BANT in your sales strategy in 2023.

But first, let’s see what BANT is in more detail.

What Is BANT?

Sales qualification is a meticulous process that a company uses to determine whether the lead generation efforts bore fruit, or in other words,? the likelihood of the initially generated leads becoming actual paying customers. The goal is to assess the quality of the prospects within the pipeline, so account executives can focus only on prospects that can and want to make a purchase - which is easier said than done.

How can a sales professional be certain that a lead is not worth pursuing? Moreover, how can one make such decisions as quickly and accurately as possible?

This is where BANT comes in. The only way for a sales professional to make smart decisions about the prospects within the sales pipeline is to get to know those prospects better and extract relevant information from them. BANT is a sales qualification methodology that provides structure and guidance for sales professionals in their information-gathering quest.

BANT was developed by IBM in the 1950s, and thanks to its efficiency, it’s still used by thousands of companies worldwide. The methodology is designed to assess the prospect based on their budget, authority, need, and urgency. Four factors together determine how likely the prospect is to make a purchase in the near future. These four factors also make up the BANT acronym (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline).

Considering all the changes in consumer behavior and current business trends, how should sellers use these four factors to make accurate decisions that empower growth?

How to Use BANT in 2023?

For many, BANT is a one-stop shop for information that sellers need to make a good business decision. This might still work in 2023, but sellers need to be more mindful of what makes today’s purchasing process more unique.?

For instance, in the past, businesses were selling one-time-purchase licenses for their products, which were really expensive. And, since BANT was developed during that time, it made sense for the first and most important factor to be considered to be the prospects’ budget.

If we talk about the BANT methodology in very general terms, then knowing the prospects’ budget is still relevant and very important. However, for today’s subscription-based, personalized services where prospects can pay anywhere from $10 to $1000 per month, conversations about the budget should have a completely different form. Instead of asking, “Do you have a budget for this product?” sales professionals should ask, “What features and functionalities do you want to get for the price of X?”

What this means is that sellers can still use the BANT methodology in 2023, if they’re mindful of the nature and trends of business operations today. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how that would look like.

1. Contextualized Budget

As we’ve mentioned before, the pricing structure of offered products or services has changed dramatically in the past decade. Instead of having a fixed end price for any product or service, almost all companies have now adopted a personalized, subscription-based approach where customers or clients are expected to pay on a monthly basis and only for the features that they use.

This means that conversations about budget with your prospects should also change. The budget factor is still important, and questions relating to the prospects’ budget are very informative for sellers, but the inquiries need to search for information beyond the dollar amount.

Sales professionals should try to find out prospects’ willingness to pay for specific features, functionalities, or services. To give an example, it would be helpful to know if the prospect needs a more affordable, basic solution, or if they’re willing to subscribe to a premium service as that’s something they value more.

To summarize, in most cases, businesses today can overcome the budget incompatibility issue by offering subscription-based services or products. Because of this, lead qualification should be focused more on understanding the unique value that your products/service have for the prospect, rather than a final number as a price.

Example Budget Questions:

• How much are you currently spending on this issue/need? And, what’s not working/missing?
• Do you have an estimate on how much your company is losing on a weekly/ monthly basis due to this problem? Alternatively, how much will your company gain by solving this issue/need?
• How do those estimations affect the budget you have set aside?
• How much are you willing to pay for the features and functionalities you had in mind?
• Are you willing to pay more for more or better features and functionalities?
• Are there features/services that you’re willing to let go of for a better (smaller) price?
• What are the returns/gains that you’re expecting to see (in a specific period of time)?
• How big of a factor is the price in your overall purchasing decision concerning this product/service?

2. Identify the Decision-Makers

The second aspect of successfully using BANT to qualify leads in 2023 is finding the right person who can make a purchase. What this means is that most of the time, the people who initially expressed interest in your products or services don’t necessarily have the authority to make the purchase.

Because of this, it’s very important to understand if the person you’re in contact with is someone who can buy your product or service, and if not, if they’re willing to give you access to someone who can.

Today, most decisions (for B2B transactions) are made by a group of people rather than an individual. Therefore, instead of asking for a meeting with the prospect’s manager or CEO, you should try to understand who’s involved in the decision-making process, and how the decision is being made. Only after that, if applicable, you should ask if going forward, you can meet the stakeholders or the person who’ll have the biggest influence in the decision-making process.

Example Authority Questions:

• What department/roles will be using the product/service?
• Will they be involved in the decision-making process?
• How does the decision-making process usually go for similar products/services?
• Would it be okay for us to schedule a meeting with your financial manager/CEO/stakeholders as we proceed with the negotiations?

3. Understand Urgent Needs

The third aspect of BANT is understanding the needs, priorities, and goals of your prospects. This is very closely related to the timeline aspect, and together they both paint a very telling picture of how important this deal is to your prospect and whether you can close it in the near future. Knowing your prospects’ needs and goals will help you determine how motivated they are to buy your product or service.

Because of this, asking about the consequences of not solving the problem, or asking if there are more urgent priorities that the prospect’s company is dealing with currently, will go a long way in knowing when and how intensely to pursue that prospect.

Sellers should ask priority and urgency questions early on. This will also give sales reps a more precise structure on how to qualify their leads and be ready to take immediate action to close a lead if that’s necessary.

Example Priority and Urgency Questions:

• When did you first identify this problem/need?
• How does this issue/need affect your company?
• What have you tried so far (what actions have you taken)?
• For the growth and progress of the company, how important is it to solve this problem as soon as possible or in XX amount of time?

4. Ask for a Closing Timeline

The final factor that completes the BANT framework is the timeline. Knowing how urgently your prospects need your solution, or even getting an exact date for when you might expect a final answer or commitment from them is very beneficial. Nevertheless, this is usually one of the hardest things to find out, mostly because the prospects themselves might not be sure, especially if the decision depends on more than one person and if they have other priorities, too.

Therefore, you might need to push a little to get a more precise or definitive answer. Don’t be afraid to do that as long as you’re polite and you explain to your prospect why that information is important to you. Knowing whether the purchase can happen tomorrow or months from now is crucial to the success of your business - prospects understand that, too.

However, unlike the questions that help you understand prospects’ needs and goals, the timeline as a factor should not be pushed too early on. After all, even if prospects can make a purchasing decision after one sales pitch, not many will want to commit before knowing more about your business and product. Therefore, allow for things to develop gradually before trying to get an answer about a possible timeline or purchasing due date.

Example Timeline Questions:

• What is the latest date before which you need to have this solution implemented?
• When do you expect us to be able to finalize our agreement?
• Going forward, what timeline can you give me for delivering the solution?

5. Stay Connected and Informed

This last step is not part of the official BANT framework, but it’s very useful and beneficial. What we really want to say by writing “stay connected and informed” is that the things said between you and the prospect are not rules set in stone, but opinions, projections, assessments, and other circumstantial things that could very well change.?

For instance, they can tell you that their highest priority is implementing the solution you offer. However, what if during negotiations something unexpected happens and solving this particular problem is no longer a priority for your prospect? To avoid any delays, blocks, or other hurdles along the road, it’s best to frequently check with your prospect if anything has changed. This is especially important if you notice a change. Don’t be afraid to initiate a conversation and reiterate some of the BANT questions to see if they have the same stance on it as before.

Also, you’ll not always have the opportunity to ask the prospect about everything early on or at once, especially if they have no urgency for your product or services. In that case, while you can’t dedicate your full attention, it’s best to still keep in touch with them from time to time. Things can change, and you’ll already have an established communication line.

Finally, staying connected with your prospect is a good way to gather additional information that might provide value for your sales process, and go beyond the BANT framework. That’s a great way to make sure you don’t miss out on anything important.

What to Avoid?

The biggest mistake sellers make when using BANT for lead qualification is using the questions too rigidly and literally. What this means is that some sellers simply write down the questions and treat the process as a checklist they must fill out. Therefore, they end up interrogating the prospect instead of having a meaningful conversation.

Because of this, you should not take the questions we provided as examples too literally, as they’re just an illustration of what it means to ask prospects about their needs, budget, and so on. In fact, the most successful application of the BANT framework in 2023 is one that’s personalized by the company’s sales team. Depending on the type and nature of your business, as well the specificity of the services or solutions you provide, your company should develop relevant questions that each seller can use in their qualification process.?

Still, we don’t want to imply that having personalized BANT questions for your company means that sellers can just read them to the prospects. On the contrary, these questions should inform sales professionals about the type and detail of information that they’re expected to gather from their prospects. But, they should not limit or make conversations rigid.

As a rule of thumb, sellers should always make prospects feel heard and ask BANT-related questions only when there’s an opportunity within the natural flow of the conversation. Avoid asking too many questions, one after another, or making the prospect feel pressured or uncomfortable.?

Conclusion

BANT is one of the oldest and most popular sales frameworks for qualifying leads and turning them into viable business opportunities. And, while some critics might claim that BANT is a thing of the past, the continuous use of BANT even today tells us that this methodology stood the test of time.

However, to use BANT to drive growth in 2023, you still need to adapt and adjust some of its factors to better fit the nature of business in the digital era. For instance, instead of focusing on the budget as a fixed price that the client might have allocated for their needs, you should contextualize that budget with a personalized approach and focus on value instead.

Also, don’t forget that you can always use new technologies to facilitate the process of gathering information, showing the prospect your offers, and scheduling meetings with the ones that pass through your BANT qualification framework.?