Is BANT dead?

BANT & Marketing ROI

I was talking with a friend in B2B marketing and we were working through the issues with BANT.  In particular the ‘A’ of BANT.  ‘A’ stands for Authority.  That is, does the lead contact have the authority to make a decision on the item being promoted?  And, how can this lead classification improve marketing ROI?

Target Marketing and Corporate Decision Making

In selling business-to-business (B2B) products & services, the question has to do with the decision making process within the target organization.  In large organizations and depending on the value of the capital good being sold, there is usually a committee.  Certainly, there are specific individuals in the organization that have more sway in the decision than others.  Certainly it is better to have VP or C-level backing for your proposal.  But do they truly have the authority to make the decision?  Most efficient managers have a vision and the proposed solution has to fit within that vision.  But there are always competitive solutions and there are almost always others involved to some extent in the decision.  And smart VPs and C-Level executives are going to want to delegate the decision into the organization so that they can own the choice and further enhance the success of the implementation.
The decision making group is either a formal or informal committee.  The committee can be made up of just direct reports in the department or it can be a multi-departmental group across all of the key departments in the organization.  These can include:

Finance
HR
IT
Marketing
Operations
Purchasing
Research & Development
Sales
Security

Some of these individuals can’t say ‘yes’ to a particular investment but they can say ‘no’.  Some of them are just worried about how the solution is going to affect their jobs.

B2B Purchase Authority

The definition of Authority needs to be expanded to now include terms, such as:

Individual is a ‘member of the committee’
This solution needs his/her blessing
This individual will be the prime mover in the implementation
This solution will impact my/my department’s daily workflow

Further, how should an inbound call be classified when the administrative assistant or a low level manager asks for information about your product/service?  Are they gathering information for the VP?  Are they just trying to learn about a topic?  Are they providing informational materials for the purchase committee?  Will they be recommending the solution to their boss based on their research?  Are they a member of an informal or formal purchase committee?

Enterprise Marketing

This has clear implications for how services are marketed to prospective customers.  For enterprise sales the primary objective for marketing is to support the sales team in developing and expanding their key relationships with each of the members of the purchase committee.  Without these relationships, sales will be at a significant disadvantage versus the competition. Using this new definition of contact and authority classification, marketers can improve their targeting to better support the sales team in accelerating sales and growth.

Here is another great post on this topic.  It compares BANT to SCOTSMAN and another mnemonic, but in each case we need to further detail out the Authority term:

(http://blog.market2lead.com/blueprint/2009/03/the-scotsman-vs-bant-for-effective-lead-management.html)

Let me know what you think.

 

Comments

[Guy R. Powell]

Mike,

BANT still has a following and does add some value, but I think you're very right that there are many better techniques. SCOTSMAN is one of those methods (by the way, nice post) but it seems to miss the influences of influencers and champions that don't really have decision authority but can help shepard the project through to approval. This is also the case when a junior level person calls in to a call center gathering information for the decision maker. From a call qualification perspective, it may fail both BANT and SCOTSMAN.

Look forward to your comments.

[www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1005010146]

Guy,
I discussed the topic of BANT not being as relevant as it once was a while ago on the Smashmouth Marketing Blog.

http://www.damphousse.org/2009/03/bant-its-not-always-lead-score.html?comment

Reality is that sales cycles are shorter, buyers are more savvy and companies aren't doing the long term planning that comes to play with BANT.

We recommend to our b2b appointment setting clients that finding the right person first and then meeting with them to present your value proposition is the way to go. As someone that sells our demand gen services for a living, I've closed many projects where the prospect didn't even know appointment setting was an option until I met with them.

BANT isn't dead, but it's not gospel either.