Is BANT Still Relevant? (Part II)

In my last blog post, I posed the question about whether BANT (budget, authority, need and timeframe) is still relevant. This post provided perspective on the applicability of BANT today and the importance of demand type in providing context. Specifically, understanding the type of demand your organization creates will dictate how BANT should be applied as part of the organization’s selling motion.

In this post, I’ll go into a deeper discussion of how to apply BANT for new paradigm offerings – solutions that solve a known problem more effectively.

New Paradigm Demand and BANT

Similar to new concept solutions, bringing a new paradigm solution to market has widespread implications that affect decisions on lead qualification criteria, messaging and tactics. The organization must agree on the relative importance of the criteria associated with BANT combined with the expectations on who should obtain this information and when. Specific considerations include:

• Budget. From a budget perspective, because the problem is known but the way in which a solution addresses it may not be well understood, the prospective buyer may or may not have budgeted for the solution. The prospective buyer is likely spending money to address the problem, but the solution may be incomplete or may not be unified (e.g. the problem is being addressed by multiple solutions with different budget allocations). It’s unreasonable to expect detailed budget criteria to be identified early in the process or by marketing or lead development.
• Authority. Similar to the approach of new concept demand, emphasis should be on identifying and validating the personas who participate in the buying process and understand the business value of the proposed solution. The prospective buyer must be able to navigate within the organization to get budget approval and drive consensus. Marketing, lead development and sales contribute to this process of identification, engagement, verification and qualification.
• Need. Two levels of need must be assessed: the business need the prospective buyer is trying to solve for, and the fit of the solution for the prospective buyer. The prospective buyer must acknowledge and agree that the current solution isn’t optimal and is potentially hindering the business. Marketing and lead development are responsible for identifying a prospect in a target market who is dissatisfied with a current solution or willing to learn more about an alternative. Urgency for driving change must also be identified.
• Timeframe. The timeframe is aligned to the prospective buyer and the organization’s ability and motivation to mobilize resources around a solution within a defined timeline. Resources can include people, budget and the ability to prioritize both. The prospective buyer’s sense of urgency makes timeframe relevant.

We recommend that organizations assess the type of demand they are creating for their various solutions and markets. Once this is understood, they can determine how different demand types map to different qualification criteria and requirements across the stages of the Demand Waterfall^®. BANT continues to influence these criteria, but expectations of marketing, lead development and sales need to be aligned for lead delivery and handoff requirements.

In my next blog post, I’ll address the role of BANT as it pertains to the established market demand type.