The BANT approach to Sales

Building relationships with customers is fun.   Selling your item or service to those customers that you have relationships with is also fun.   But time unfortunately, is a limited commodity, especially for salespeople.   It is very possible to waste significant time chasing after leads that have a very low chance of returning your time investment.    IBM’s BANT formula is a time-honored method of determining which sales prospects have the highest probability of resulting in a large sale.   BANT is simple – just four simple steps.

• B (Budget)  –   Does the prospective company that you are selling to have the budget for what you are selling?
• A (Authority)  –   Does the prospect that you are pitching to have the authority to make a purchasing decision?   If not, who does, and how can you approach that individual?
• N (Need)   –    Does the business need what you are selling?   Why?
• T (Time)    –    Do you know the timeframe in which the company will need the solution?   How urgent is their need?

The BANT process is an useful tool for framing specific questions that you might ask your prospect to gauge the approximate status of these four dimensions.    The BANT method forces the salesperson to ask himself/herself some hard questions about the prospect to determine whether the effort is worthwhile.     Questions like “why is the prospect taking the time to talk to me?”, “what does the company need from us, and how urgent is that need?”, and “does this person have the authority to make a purchasing decision or will I have to work up the ladder?”   help the salesperson better understand the context of the sale, and thus makes it alot easier to make the sale itself, or alternatively, when to leave a prospect alone.    The BANT method helps salespeople define their prospect’s needs, problems, urgency, and wants.