Blog | BANT: 30 Questions You Need to Ask To Qualify Your Prospects

BANT is a fast and easy scheme for qualifying leads that has everyone excited.

With BANT, you have the opportunity to learn everything you need to know from a prospect in a structured and precise way. This saves a huge amount of time for both you and them, helping you get on the road to providing the solution they need.

While there are many different lead qualification strategies, BANT is especially attractive thanks to its high success rate and the way it can be easily adapted in inbound sales and marketing campaigns.

The BANT system is also very simple:

• Budget: Whether the lead has the necessary funds to move forward. While funds can often be allocated, a high-level decision-maker must be convinced that the project is a true priority – potentially worth diverting resources from other wants.
• Authority: Whether the lead has the authority to sign off on the buy. The larger a client enterprise, the more distributed the authority is. Larger companies tend to establish a full committee for major purchases, leading to long-term consensus sales.
• Need: Whether the proposed solution will meet the prospect’s needs. Like most other factors, need is three-dimensional: It exists in multiple “layers” throughout the client firm and must be peeled with apt questioning to be truly understood.
• Timeframe: Sales pros can be lured into unwinnable situations by basing the timeline on “when you’d like to have this live” – most clients will say as soon as possible! To avoid this, start with the key future events the solution will be used for and work backward.

By combining these factors, BANT turns some conventional sales wisdom on its head. This makes it much easier to avoid common sales pitfalls and move forward to an effective go-live.

BANT Lead Qualification is the Winning Formula

By approaching the topics in this order, you go from the biggest issue that stops a sale in its tracks – no budget – to the one that’s more of an inconvenience, a client timeframe less compatible with your own.

Ultimately, it could save you and your lead weeks of frustration.

Naturally, BANT will adapt to your style in terms of the exact questions you ask. However, there are proven lines of questioning that will help you get the answers you need. These questions help you figure out the priority level of the project and zero in on the most authoritative stakeholders.

Next time you try the BANT strategy, try these questions to get to the heart of the matter:

Budget

1. How much do you spend on similar products and services?

2. Who leads the financial decisions in this part of the business?

3. How much do you expect to invest in this solution?

4. What does your typical budget allocation process look like?

5. What do you need from me before you’re ready to secure funds?

Authority

6. What is your decision-making process for buys like this one?

7. How can I help you position this for other decision-makers?

8. Which team member will determine if this was a success?

9. Which team members will work with the solution daily?

10. Which decision-maker has the most influence on this process?

Need

11. What motivated you to look for a new solution at this time?

12. What will the consequences be if the problem isn’t solved?

13. What roadblock are you most concerned about in this process?

14. What do you hope to achieve when this solution is in place?

15. How important is this problem compared to others in your business?

Timeframe

16. When is the latest you want to have a decision set in stone?

17. How does this solution tie into your future initiatives?

18. Do you have the time and resources to start implementation now?

19. Do you have a current vendor you’ll need to let go of?

20. Realistically, when would you like to have this problem solved?

BANT has taken off like a rocket in inbound sales circles because it is flexible and powerful. Armed with these questions, you’ll be able to get the real story from prospects, qualify them as leads, shift focus to other decision-makers if necessary, and drive toward a successful sale.

Taking BANT Up a Notch

The BANT framework is an excellent playbook to go by when measuring a sales prospect. That being said, some additional questions can also help you to understand the customer needs and wants and help set baseline expectations. Depending on your prospect, some of these additional questions may help augment your more traditional BANT questions. For example, you'll want to understand any regulatory issues that may be industry-specific, or any upcoming changes that will need to be considered.

Here are a few more:

21. What industry challenges are you currently facing?

22. Are there specific integrations or compatibility requirements for your team?

23. Have you tried similar solutions in the past? What worked or didn't work?

24. What kind of training and onboarding support do you expect?

25. Are there any upcoming changes or expansions in your organization?

26. What concerns or reservations do you have about implementing a new solution?

27. How do you measure success in terms of ROI?

28. Are there any regulatory or compliance considerations that need to be addressed?

29. How will this solution facilitate collaboration among different teams in your organization?

30. How excited are you to get started?!

We know this is a lot of information to take on at the beginning of the sales process, but ultimately, it will all help you build a stronger relationship with your customer and ensure you can realistically deliver to meet their must-have, and hopefully their "nice-to-haves!" Remember, your goal at this stage is to identify a right-fit customer and help lay out realistic expectations that your team can handle once you close the sale.