BANT Framework – The Recipe To Acquire Highly Qualified Leads

To delve deep into the customers’ buying persona, there are certain key bits of information that are absolutely critical to their buying decision. If these data points are clear from the start, it becomes much easier to plan for confirmed leads in the sales outreach. BANT Framework (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeframe) is one of the pivotal B2B sales processes for lead generation as it helps to qualify leads during the prospect discovery call.

Using these points to collate customer data in the very first conversation, cuts short the time taken for client insights recording by the sales team.

What is BANT?

BANT is a sales qualification methodology through which the representatives determine whether a prospect is an ideal fit based on their budget  range, stakeholder’s influence, need for the product/service, and buying timeline.

How to Use BANT Sales Framework Efficiently

• Understanding the budget beyond dollars: 

  Currently, businesses offer various subscription models, therefore the price factor is not much of an issue. For example, a business can ask about the prospect’s expected ROI to understand the price budget that the prospect has in mind, and if the ROI aligns with the price, then it’s a good reason to qualify the prospect on the budget step.

• Pinpointing the decision-making authorities:

  The number of decision-makers can be one or more so it’s essential to map them first. Knowing the stakeholder’s job title, role, and priorities while finding ways to connect with them helps a lot. The more contacts, the fewer chances of this lead slipping through the hands

• Deciding the criticality of a problem:

  Before knowing how crucial a problem from the prospect’s point of view is, it’s essential to get answers to these questions –

1. Is the prospect fully motivated to solve the problem?
2. What if the problem is not a priority now but later on it might become one?

The prospect can mention a need that might be valid but the priorities of a team and executive leadership may differ in most cases. This difference will inevitably cause hurdles in the BANT sales process down the road. It is necessary to unveil the needs of prospects, teams, and leaders as early in the journey as possible.

• Preparing the timeline for the sales process:

  With the details of budget, authorities, and needs, the only thing left to know is the buying timeline of the prospect. Identifying whether it’s a process comprising months of email threads and approvals or a simple yes-no type of deal, will help to plan the pipeline and close the account.

Staying notified through multiple channels

Even though this step doesn’t explicitly come under the BANT sales process, it’s an important one that helps in staying ahead of any delays, concerns, or objections that the prospect has. To uncover new needs of the prospects and to know more about them, here is a checklist –

• Following their social media
• Signing up for their newsletter
• Attending the publicly open events of the enterprise-market prospects
• Keeping a tab on the deals in the pipeline

These steps may also help discover additional stakeholders, who can be contacted later in the BANT sales process. Staying in the loop informally strengthens the chances of acquiring a BANT-qualified lead, and provides a holistic picture of the prospect’s needs.

Using digital tools to track progress

Digital tools that keep track of the sales pipeline and help in managing customer relationships better, prove helpful while implementing the BANT framework. With the help of these tools, one can balance multiple prospects simultaneously and it becomes easier to precisely determine the last conversation pick-up point with each client. The tools also help to know how much more effort is required to close the deal.

The BANT sales process drives the generation of highly qualified leads and amplifies the chances of conversion.

At OnDot Media, we carefully implement different sales frameworks including BANT to generate highly qualified leads. If you are looking for a B2B lead generation and demand generation company to help you globally, look no further.