From the many sales qualification frameworks in use across the sales profession, we think these 5 are the best. First though, let’s make sure we understand what sales qualification is and why it’s essential.

What is sales qualification?

Before a customer becomes a customer, they’re a prospective customer, or a ‘lead’, as they are often called in Sales. A lead can turn into an opportunity and an opportunity can turn into a customer.  To say a sale is qualified, is to confirm that a product or service is a good fit for a customer. Therefore, sales qualification is the act of assessing or ‘qualifying’ the fit.

What is a sales qualification framework?

A sales qualification framework helps a sales professional conduct a thorough assessment by applying a set of fixed criteria. In the early stages of a sales conversation with a new lead, a sale professional will perform a discovery call. The outcome of the discovery call often decides whether the lead is qualified or qualified out. Making the right decision is not always immediately obvious, which is where sales qualification frameworks come in. A sales qualification framework helps sales professionals determine whether the relationship should continue. 

Why use a sales qualification framework?

Not every lead is worth investing your time in, as not every lead is going to be a good fit for your product or service. Sales qualification allows you to quickly differentiate between prospects with a vague interest and genuine leads that represent a future sale. Knowing which leads have the potential to become future sales will help you allocate your resources better. Once a lead completes a qualifying framework, you can predict the closing timeline and forecast your sales revenue more confidently and accurately which in turn produces a higher return on investment.

1. BANT 

Developed by IBM, BANT is the old faithful of sales qualification frameworks.

BUDGET: Is the prospect capable of buying?

• Do you have a budget set aside for this purchase? What is it?
• Does trial of the product create the budget?

AUTHORITY: Does your contact have the authority to sign off the deal?

• Whose budget will the purchase come out of?
• Who else will be involved in the purchasing decision?
• Have you made purchasing questions for similar products?

NEED: What’s the business pain your solution solves?

• What challenge does this purchase solve?
• Why do you feel it’s worth solving?
• Why hasn’t it been addressed before?

TIMELINE: When is the prospect planning to buy.

• When do you need a solution in place by?
• Do you have any other priorities at the moment?

2. CHAMP

Often called a modern version of BANT, the focus of CHAMP is to put the prospect first by asking questions about their challenges, meaning a need or pain the prospect is experiencing.

CHALLENGES: What’s the challenge the prospect is facing?

• What is driving your interest in our solution?
• Which are the challenges you looking to solve with this solution?
• What are the consequences if the paint is not solved?

AUTHORITY: Who is involved in the decision-making process?

• Who is involved in making this solution happen at your company?
• How are purchasing decisions made for products like ours?

MONEY: Does the prospect have a budget for the project?

• Do you have budget allocated to the project?
• What is your typical budget allocation process?
• Is this an important enough priority to allocate funds?

PRIORITISATION: How important or urgent is the solution?

• Do you currently have a contract? When is the renewal?
• What are the implications if you don’t solve the problem?
• What is a realistic timeframe from now to contract signature?

3. FAINT

A framework is designed for use with early stage concepts usually on the innovation or early adoption stage of the adoption curve where a budget must be created for.

FUNDS: The initial focus is on organizations that have the financial capacity to buy. There may not be a budget today, but they have the financial wherewithal to spend.

• If we could prove ROI, do you have the capacity to buy in the next 6 months?
• If the solution could save you £100k a year, would you be able to generate a budget for it?

AUTHORITY: The goal is on finding individuals who are budget holders or decision makers that have the authority to allocate said funds.

• Whose budget do you think this could come from? 
• Suppose the budget was created, would you be one of the decision makers in signing the contract?

INTEREST: Focus on generating interest from the buyer on achieving a future reality that is better than the one they have today.

• Say the budget did exist, if I could solve this pain would it make your life easier?

NEED: Identify the most specific problem the solution solves.

• What business problems would the solution solve?
• Why do you feel the problem needs to be solved?

TIMING: The goal is to establish and agree upon a future timeframe to implement the solution. 

• What’s the latest date you would like to start tackling the problem?

4. SCOTSMAN

Created by the Advanced Selling Skills Academy and is one of the rigorous qualification frameworks available.

SOLUTION: What is the value of our product or service relative to the clients needs? e.g. it saves them money, prevents risks, creates sales.

COMPETITION: Who are we competing with, including any incumbent.

ORIGINALITY: What unique benefits does my product/service offer that my competition doesn’t?

TIMESCALE: What are the clients timescales? Do they work with our capacity?

SIZE: What is the scope of the opportunity? e.g. how many sites/licenses/users required

MONEY: Does the client have the budget required?

AUTHORITY: Who is the budget holder? Who is the decision. Maker?

NEED: Does the client recognise a need for our solution? 

5. MEDDPICC

Pioneered by sales author David Weiss MEDDPICC is an advanced version of MEDDIC; a technique founded at PTC corporation.

METRICS: What is the business case? e.g. increase revenue by 25%, reduce costs by 5%, increase uptime by 2%

ECONOMIC BUYER: Who signs the contract? What are the professional/personal wins for that person?

DECISION PROCESS: What’s the timeline for the evaluation? Whose in the buyer center? 

DECISION CRITERIA: What’s the formal decision criteria? e.g. Features required

PAPER PROCESS: What’s the internal paper process? e.g. Proposal > Contact > Signature. 

IDENTIFY PAIN: What are high level reasons for change? What’s the implication of no change?

CHAMPION: Who has the power and influence the opportunity?

COMPETITION: Who are the competition? What are their strength?

Conclusion

Sales frameworks tend to suggest a linear approach of question asking. Some prescribe this more than others. BANT has been around for many decades. It’s simple and when used properly it works, but you could argue that asking budget questions off the bat could be the best way to scare your prospect away. CHAMP is quite specific in that you should start your qualification with being clear on the customer’s challenges. All good salespeople know they must create value before they discuss cost.

With any of these frameworks there’s nothing really stopping you from qualifying out of sequence. Information doesn’t always come in the first meeting or from the first person you speak to you. Information is often presented in a non-liner format. Therefore, you could be at risk of missing key information if you don’t apply flexibility to your approach.

From the 5 frameworks we’ve shared, we think the longer frameworks SCOTSMAN and MEDDPICC are the best, as they allow each stage to put a deeper focus on each individual stage of qualification. The shorter frameworks cram more questions into less stages which places a heavier reliance on the salesperson to remember the right questions. For example, both BANT and CHAMP do not have a specific stage of qualifying for competition.

Advice

Notice that each of the frameworks we’ve picked out specifies the qualification of ‘Authority’ or in the case of MEDDPICC – the economic buyer. This is because understanding which individual or individuals are responsible for signing the cheque is paramount to your success. In larger organisations where politics comes into play, this can become unclear, using relationship mapping software can help you distinguish budget holding decision makers from influencers.

Above all, any sales qualification framework is only as good as the responses your questions evoke. When using any sales qualification framework, the key to qualifying with conviction is to always ask questions with genuine interest and ensure you listen actively. You must care about your prospects and always do the right thing by them. If the product isn’t right for them, then just qualify it out and move on to the next. In order to build long lasting relationships, empathy should come first. Take an honest approach built on integrity and your sales numbers will follow.