Jacco Van der Kooij has a great article up titled BANT Sales Qualification for a New Era. BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline) has been around for decades as a way to qualify sales prospects. Personally, I’ve used BANT for many years as it’s logical and a great starting point in the absence of a more specific methodology (most sales people don’t use any methodology). Only, Jacco argues that BANT needs to be modernized based on factors like SaaS being less of an upfront expense so budget isn’t as big of a concern as it used to be, decision making often goes through a process, as opposed to a specific person, and more. Here’s Jacco’s modern BANT with a new order:
- N = Need = Impact on the customer business
- T = Time-line = Critical event for the customer
- B = Budget = Priority for the customer
- A = Authority = Decision Process the customer goes through
Every entrepreneur needs to go read BANT Sales Qualification for a New Era right now.
What else? What are some more thoughts on modern BANT sales qualification?
David Cummings on Startups 
Thank you, I enjoyed the article. BANT and this update to BANT (and the diagrams) really seems to cover the essentials.
I’m personally a big fan of Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling:
S = Situation questions = Who makes the decision for this sort of SaaS buy? Do you have budget? What timeline do you have to implement a SaaS solution?
P = Problem questions = Are you concerned about your current legacy sales / hiring / marketing / customer service system? Are you losing business to competitors who use more cost effective, easier to use and more powerful SaaS systems?
I = Implications of problems questions = So we’ve established that you are unhappy with the cost, complication and limitations of your legacy systems, and you’d like to implement our SaaS suite. What would be the possible consequences to your market share / profitability if you keep your current systems vs updating to our SaaS as your competitors already have?
N = Need / payoff to solving the problems questions = You’ve told me you are 100% confident that your core product / service is better than your competitors. So, if we updated from your legacy marketing system with our leading SaaS marketing automation system and leveled the playing field, could you retake market share leadership in your industry?
David, what do you think about GPCT, when compared to the Modern BANT? Have you ever used the first one?
I understand they might be complementary frameworks, but both are trying to focus more on the customer point of view before really offering something, right?
Good post David. I would say that for SaaS startups selling to large enterprises, budget is even more of a hurdle in our model. Big companies have been so accustomed to that big upfront expense, with limited recurring cost, that adding recurring dollars to their annual budget can be a real challenge. Probably less so for the SMB market but a real issue for Fortune 1000 and above.
What a great post for a Thoughtful Thursday….
I agree to a great extend that the Sales Qualification and Decision Making process needs to be modernized based on todays generation of decision makers, organizational structures, fast paced business environments, and many more…. This article served as a great exercise for our sales team to review our qualification process and value messaging architecture…. Can only recommend to bring this article and thoughts to your sales and marketing teams…..
How does this apply to other geographical regions with different cultures, different ways of making decisions? Europe?
What do you guys think?
Thanks again,
Adrian