What Is BANT In Sales?
BANT is a sales qualification framework.
What does that mean? Let’s break it down. ⬇️
In sales, qualifying is the process of determining whether a prospect has the potential to become a customer.
In order to qualify, you have to ask questions.
BANT is basically just a way to remember which questions to ask when you’re qualifying.
The three most common sales qualification frameworks
There are at least a dozen different sales qualification frameworks to help salespeople remember the key points to address during qualifying.
The most common sales qualifying frameworks are BANT, CHAMP, and MEDDIC.
B – Budget
A – Authority
N – Need
T – Timeline
CH – Challenges
A – Authority
M – Money
P – Prioritization
M – Metrics
E – Economic Buyer
D – Decision Criteria
D – Decision Process
I – Identify Pain
C – Champion
There are various different sales qualification frameworks because every sale is different. If you’re selling SaaS to enterprises, you’ll want to have a different sales qualification framework from if you’re selling advertising to SMBs.
On the other hand, all sales processes share common traits (e.g., who is buying, how much they can spend, when they want to move forward), which is why you’ll notice that the different sales qualification frameworks are similar to each other.
Which is the best sales qualification framework?
Originally developed internally at IBM in the 1950s, BANT is by far the most popular sales qualification framework.
But some dissenters have arisen as of late, proposing their own frameworks instead.
In our opinion, however, most other qualification acronyms are just BANT rip-offs.
Take CHAMP, for example.
“M” stands for “Money,” which is just another way of saying “Budget.”
And “P” for “Prioritization” is just another way of saying “Timeline.”
And the CHAMP creators didn’t even bother to change the “A”—it stands for “Authority” in both BANT and CHAMP.
“BANT has fallen out of favor recently, but it’s not just the methodology—it’s also how you use it. It fails when salespeople use it like a checklist, meaning they ask prospects a series of rote questions without truly listening to their response or attempting to add value.”
The point is: the qualification framework is only as good as the salesperson doing the qualifying.
The primary questions for BANT
Budget: How much is the prospect willing to spend?
Authority: Who makes the buying decision?
Need: What is the prospect’s pain point?
Timeline: When is the prospect planning to buy?
A list of questions for each letter in BANT
Budget
- Have you thought about what you’d be willing to spend for something like this?
- If the problem were solved, how much would that be worth to you?
- How much are you spending on the current solution for this problem?
- Do you already have a budget set aside for something like this?
- If not, would you consider creating a budget for something like this?
Authority
- Last time you made a purchase like this, who was involved in the decision?
- If we were to send over a contract, who would need to sign it?
- If we get to the point of making a purchase, who will authorize the payment?
- For SMB: Are you the 100% owner of the business? Do you have any partners?
Need
- What motivated you to start looking for a product like ours?
- Have you looked into similar solutions in the past?
- Do you have a current solution in place?
- How much do you estimate that your pain point is costing you per year?
- How much revenue are you missing out on without this solution?
Timeline
- When would you like to have this solution in place?
- Do you have a deadline for when you need to get this started?
- Are you shopping for other similar products or services?
- Is your current product or service coming up on renewal soon?
BANT helps with anticipating objections in sales
Almost every single objection in the history of sales can be traced back to one of the letters in BANT.
- “This is too expensive” — Budget
- “I need to talk to my partner” — Authority
- “It’s just not a priority” — Need
- “We’re going to wait” — Timeline
Qualifying with BANT enables you to anticipate the most common objections. Once you’ve anticipated the objections, you can handle them even before the prospect has a chance to say them, like a sales ninja.