Complete B2B Sales Qualifying Guide
A deep dive into every qualifying framework that B2B sales teams can use. Each framework has a unique approach to understanding the level of opportunity that exists within each sales interaction.
Intro
B2B Sales Organizations are some of the most diverse organizations in existence, leveraging a vast variety of techniques and processes to grow their revenues.
However, despite the many different philosophies used to build B2B Sales teams, all B2B Sales teams require one crucial activity no matter their Sales Process. B2B Sales Organizations must have a Lead Qualifying Strategy in place to drive their Sales Process.
A Healthy Lead Qualifying Strategy consists of two components: The B2B Qualifying Framework best suited for the Sales Organization, and the Process they use to apply the Framework during every Prospect interaction.
This Guide will explore, in detail, the history, philosophy, and nuances, of the 6 B2B Qualifying Frameworks that have become the most widely adopted to date. Thus, ensuring you have the knowledge to evaluate and enhance your existing B2B Qualifying Strategy to achieve your desired business growth.
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Set the stage
B2B Sales Organizations compete daily to win new clients. Leveraging new tech products and sales strategies, building thought leadership content and hosting webinars, all in the pursuit of business growth.
Business Growth can typically be achieved in two distinct ways. Sales Leaders can:
1) work to optimize an existing process within the organization; or
2) pursue growth by adding new resources to the organization.
A crucial component in an Organization’s path to Sales Growth is their process used to qualify B2B Leads. Lead Qualifying takes place throughout the entire sales cycle, from the first interaction, typically until the opportunity is closed-won or closed-lost.
Details uncovered through Qualifying are often the main knowledge components transferred between Business Development team members and Sales team members. This transference happens as the opportunity moves through the sales process.
Sales Organizations will benefit immensely from having a clear and thoughtful process surrounding their Lead Qualifying Strategy. Firstly, these organizations will see increased health and accuracy of their sales pipeline, as well as deals closing faster and at a higher rate. Finally, Sales team members’ happiness will increase as they spend time on only the most impactful activities.
What is a B2B Lead?
Simply put, a B2B Lead describes someone, either an individual or an organization, that has an interest in a Sales Organization’s Product or Service. However, interest comes in many different forms.
Leads can materialize from many sources, depending on the strategy a Sales Organization implements. For example Blog Sign-up Forms, Webinar Attendees, Trade Shows, and Cold Calling can all produce Leads for a Sales or Marketing Team.
Typically, Leads are categorized as either “Hot”, “Warm” or “Cold”.
Cold Leads typically describe a potential customer or prospect that is inactive. In other words, if the “lead” has not engaged in a two-way conversation or has not interacted with the Sales Organization for a period of time, it would be considered Cold. Many organizations refer to cold leads as suspects.
Warm Leads are either referrals from current customers or recent interactions between the Prospect and the Sales Organization. They have potentially downloaded a “Free Trial” of the product or submitted a “Contact Us” inquiry, as examples. These leads are typically managed by a Business Development team member and require nurturing before being considered a “Hot” Sales lead.
Hot leads are ready to be engaged in a more focused sales conversation. They are interested in the product or solution. The sales team needs to move them into a Qualifying Phase (or Pre-Qualifying Phase) to understand the scope and quality of the opportunity. This is where a Qualifying Framework is required.
Sales Lead vs. Marketing Lead
Leads can be broken into two further categories. Often, Sales Organizations rely on multiple channels to engage their prospects. As a result, the leads that they utilize to initiate their sales process can come from two primary sources.
A Marketing Lead is a potential prospect that has been attracted to the organization through some form of marketing effort. Typical examples of marketing efforts include content publishing, webinars, advertisements, and industry events.
All companies have a different process for managing a Marketing Lead once it is captured. These leads are often handed over to the Sales Team at a specified point in the B2B sales process. Some would require interaction between the Prospect and the Company’s marketing team to consider it viable, and ready to be handed over to sales. Others may hand them over as soon as the proper contact details are captured.
A Sales Lead describes a prospect that has been engaging with a member of the Sales Team. Cold Calling, social media outreach, and networking are the typical avenues that a Sales Professional would use to begin a conversation with a Prospect.
Once there is a proper amount of two-way communication between the Prospect and Sales, the conversation becomes a Sales Lead.
Where do leads come from?
B2B Leads can be generated through 2 main channels, Inbound and Outbound B2B Sales Efforts. Companies most often rely on a mix of both channels to grow their sales revenues.
Inbound Leads
An Inbound Lead occurs when an individual initiates the first step in connecting to the Sales Organization. Inbound lead generation is much like a magnet in the sense that it pulls prospects into the organization or towards a solution. These individuals connect with a company because they have some level of interest in the sales organizations’ solutions.
A company may leverage the following B2B Marketing strategies to attract inbound leads:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Contact Us Forms
- Blog Sign-ups
- Webinars
- Useful and Unique Free Tools and Resources
Outbound Leads
Business Development Teams are typically established to “hunt” for new business opportunities. An outbound lead is generated when the Sales Organization successfully connects with a target prospect and has a meaningful two-way conversation.
Typically, outbound leads are generated from:
- Cold Calling
- Email Outreach
- Social Media
- Networking Events
- Referrals
Qualifying a Lead
Arguably, the most crucial part of the early stages of the Sales Process is qualifying the lead. Leads that exist within a Sales Organization are unqualified up until Business Development or Sales Team members begin to ask the prospect focused qualifying questions.
Why qualify a B2B lead
A lead must be qualified in order to become a viable sales opportunity. Qualifying efforts push the sales process forward. Thoughtful questions help attain valuable information about the opportunity that may lie before the Sales Organization. With the proper information gathered from the prospect, a more informed approach to matching a solution to the prospect’s needs unfolds.
When to qualify a B2B lead
Qualifying a lead should occur as early as possible in the engagement. Top Sales Organizations understand the importance of qualifying the key details early so that the sales team can approach the opportunity as expertly and well informed as possible.
Qualifying an Inbound Lead has a more natural flow, as it can be safely assumed that the prospect is reaching out for a reason. A Sales Organization expectably would ask questions to understand why the prospect was contacting them at that time.
A B2B Lead that is generated through Outbound Sales efforts is more complex to qualify. Firstly, the prospect needs to be interested in having a sales conversation with the sales organization. Therefore effort needs to be dedicated to building interest. Further, helping the prospect uncover a need for a solution that may exist within their organization will help transition to the upcoming qualifying process. Once the interest has built from the prospect, qualifying can begin.
How to qualify a lead
Qualifying B2B Sales Leads looks different for every Sales Organization. However, there are unifying themes to the type of information that should be gathered. Thus, helping the Sales Organization begin to understand the scope of the opportunity facing them. It is important to note, no single set of questions will work for every Sales Team. Therefore using a Qualifying Framework will ensure the proper points are discussed during qualifying.
Pre-qualifying (Research and Investigation)
Before engaging a Prospect in a Sales Conversation, a Pre-Qualifying phase usually takes place. By pre-qualifying, you are ensuring the best use of time. Dedicating your prospecting and sales efforts to the prospects most likely to close.
Pre-qualifying usually requires your sales team to have a sense of their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). Typical details that can be pre-qualified include: Prospect Geography, Size of Organization (Revenue, Number of Employees or Locations), the Role (title) of the Prospect, and any other easily identifiable traits shared amongst your current customers. This phase should look similar regardless of the Qualifying Framework your organization chooses to implement.
Taking the time to determine these initial characteristics helps optimize your B2B Sales Process. Ultimately crafting a more successful Lead Qualifying process generating a higher rate of Leads converting to Sales Opportunities.
Qualifying Frameworks
What is a qualifying framework?
When considering the Qualifying Phase of your sales process, a Framework helps to increase your team’s chances for success.
A few Key Benefits of using a Qualifying Framework
- Establishes the flow of the qualifying process (In what order should the key details be uncovered?
- Ensures nothing is missed during the discussion with a prospect
- Aligns different sales team members to a shared set of fundamental criteria
It may help to consider a B2B Qualifying Framework as more of a Qualifying Philosophy. There needs to be a consistent goal that the Business Development team is working to establish. That is to say, a set of criteria that indicates when a viable and attractive sales opportunity is present.
B2B Sales qualifying with BANT
History of Bant
IBM is credited with formalizing the most widely recognized Qualifying Framework used in B2B Sales, BANT.
First developed in the 1950s, this framework was used to quickly educate new salespeople on a key aspect of the sales process. This easy to remember acronym encouraged Sales Professionals to walk a prospect through a logical set of questions to ensure the lead was a genuine opportunity.
BANT has evolved drastically over the past 7 decades. Many companies have adopted their own versions of BANT qualifying. Taking the opportunity to mold the framework to their individual or industry needs.
Components of BANT sales qualifying
IBM wanted to establish, first and foremost, that the Prospect Organization they were contacting had the Budget available for new computer purchase of this magnitude. At the time, businesses’ decisions were conducted primarily based on what was, and was not, allocated for in the budget. If funds had been earmarked for Equipment upgrades, new technology purchases, or a particular department had a discretionary budget that could be directed towards the purchase of a new Computer, sales team members from IBM were off to a great start.
Once there was an established budget, the sales team was required to ensure they were engaging and prospecting the individual who held the proper Authority. Certainly, everyone in an organization at the time would have wanted the latest technology to help optimize their day-to-day processes. However, not all of those individuals had the Authority to make a purchasing decision of that size. IBM’s team needed to ensure they were talking to a decision-maker or else the conversation would have nearly no likelihood of progressing further in a meaningful direction.
Next was the phase where the true Need that existed within the organization was established. Was a new computer thought of as a flashy new toy? Or was it regarded as a device that helped revolutionize a part of the Prospects organization? In other words, what was compelling the Prospect to spend a large sum of money on the new device? Establishing Need is the first truly conversational part of the Qualifying process as it can be widely open-ended. Needs for various solutions can differ drastically from one organization to another.
Finally, a Timeline needed to be discussed to ensure IBM’s resources were being focused in the direction that proved most pressing. Resources were surely limited, so the urgency with which the Prospects wanted to address their “compelling need” required addressing. Further, this led to sales members and prospects discussing the decision-making process, understanding the resources that the prospect organization may need to allocate to the implementation of such a revolutionary piece of technology, and ultimately establishing a proper sales pipeline for new business.
BANT Qualifying Philosophy
There is no debate as to why the Budget comes up first. Having Sales Professionals qualify that BUDGET was available within a Prospects organization before moving any further was paramount. For instance, talking to the right person, who even has a compelling need and timeline available to implement a solution tomorrow does not help at all if there is no money to afford the solution.
In the 1950s, IBM was manufacturing the IBM 650s, a magnetic drum data processing machine, selling over 2,000 models over the course of 8 years, mostly to universities and businesses across the US. The units leased for around $3,400 per month (about the cost of a top of the line Cadillac at the time). Therefore, the budget was a top-of-mind issue that needed to be addressed as early as possible.
Authority typically rested on the shoulders of one individual. Connecting with, and nurturing individuals who held roles of influencer, evaluator, end-user, and gatekeeper was just not happening. Sales professionals needed to ensure they were speaking with the “Person in Charge” as early as possible. The number one goal was to confirm the prospect on the other end of the line or across the desk could sign on the dotted line for a new purchase decision.
In a typical firm with 100 to 500 employees, an average of seven people are involved in most buying decisions. (Gartner Group – Insights into Buying Journey)
Determining or confirming someone’s Need for your solution is arguably the most important component of BANT qualifying. Selling a new IBM 650s Computer to a University or Business was probably not easy. They had been operating (expectedly) well up until that point, why would they require a new, expensive, addition to their facility?
The IBM Sales Person would need to highlight a gap or challenge that existed for the Universities in order to build that need. Maybe they processed data slowly or required 5 people to complete one process. A Computer could help you reduce the time and complexity of those tasks. After a compelling need for your solutions is established, the sales process becomes easier from that point forward.
Who uses BANT?
The short answer? No one.
But also, everyone.
It is the foundation that all other B2B Qualifying Frameworks are built off of. The Godfather of B2B Sales Qualifying, if you will.
Think of a Pizza. Originating in Italy, Pizza was simply doughy crust, tomato sauce, and white cheese. It was delicious. However, it didn’t excite everyone. Humans became inspired. People wanted Pepperoni. Some wanted it deep dish. Others wanted to fold it into a calzone, and some even wanted Pineapple as a topping.
The point is, the core components of the original Pizza are still there. However, it doesn’t look or taste the same for everyone now, as it did back in 997 AD. Good things evolve. Sales Organizations take the same approach and mold BANT to fit their unique solution and process.
BANT may be a little outdated for the modern B2B sales process. But the foundation is critical to know, as a stepping stone to framing your Sales Lead Qualifying process.