Download this article as a PDFEarly on, I watched a salesperson spend the best part of a week courting a prospect who was never going to buy. Lovely conversations, real rapport, and no budget, no authority to sign, and no actual need. A week of effort poured into a lead that any decent qualification would have filtered out on day one. That is the whole case for qualifying, in one painful example.
What Is Lead Qualification?
Qualifying a lead dramatically increases your chances of a sale. Qualification is simply the process a lead goes through as it moves down the sales funnel toward becoming a customer. So how does it actually work? One of the most efficient methods is B.A.N.T.
- Budget. Are the prospect’s funds actually available?
- Authority. Are you talking to the people who make the decision?
- Need. Is there a real problem you can solve?
- Timeline. Is the problem long-term or short-term?
The B.A.N.T. Method
B.A.N.T. cuts straight to the questions every business needs answered about a prospect. Is it worth putting your staff to work researching a company that cannot afford your services? Is it worth delivering a brilliant pitch to someone who, it turns out, cannot sign anything? Is there a genuine problem for you to improve, or are your services simply not needed here? And if there is a problem, how long are you and the prospect each willing to spend on it, and can that be accommodated?
Putting It to Work
Answer those four, honestly, and you have a realistic, reliable and efficient way to qualify the leads in your pipeline, so your best effort goes where it can actually turn into a sale.
