Salespeople know that qualifying opportunities with the BANT Method (budget, authority, need, and timing) is quick and effective. Try our version of Bant sales qualification too for free.
Budget + Authority + Need + Timing
The first thing to know when sounding out a prospect company, of course, is if there is a budget available. In plain terms, do they have the money? This is the most basic qualification of a prospect. So early on the salesperson should discover if the budget is available to be allocated for this particular purchase.
As with all four of these factors, an authority should be answered as close to the beginning of the sales cycle as possible. To wit: Does the person with whom you are in contact have the authority to make this purchase? In most cases the answer to this question will be “no” and that person will have to submit the purchase to another or others for approval. In that case you’re going to want to know who will be the ultimate authority—or, if more than one person, authorities.
The question of need will be the actual force that will motivate your potential sale through to approval and purchase by the target company. The higher the need, the more your contact—and everyone else in the approval process—will be motivated to obtain your product or service.
Along with all the information above you are of course going to want to know how long this sales cycle is going to take. This begins with the timeframe they’ve already established (most have) for purchasing and/or implementing a product or service such as yours.
Free Sales Tool: The Pipeliner CRM BANT Sales Qualification Tool
The BANT qualification sales strategy has been around for decades and is still as effective as it was back in the day. It’s a powerful tool because it very quickly sums up the value of sales opportunity — it’s an instant qualification tool you can implement into your sales pipeline and sales processes seamlessly.
Salespeople worldwide memorize this acronym and mentally run through it whenever qualifying an opportunity, and sales management routinely trains salespeople to remember it.
Budget + Authority + Need + Timing
Now you can make BANT part of all your sales strategies—and hit the ground running with BANT Sales Qualification tool evaluated opportunities, every time.
Download your BANT Qualifier for free now.
Comments (5)
Thank you for these free tools, John!
Following the BANT principles when it comes to prospecting new clients is important in order to make sure that this is a win-win situation for both sides. Not considering your prospect’s budget, authority, needs, and the time it will take for the entire deal to go through is not just risky, it’s also an entire waste of time for you and the resources you just spent should one of the elements be missing.
I would also like to recommend this read: https://www.process.st/bant-sales-qualification/. It contains a free checklist on how you can better improve your sales process if you are needing one. 🙂
this is a great tool
great