In this blog, we will explore:
- How to Create and Use Criteria to Qualify Leads Effectively
- Why This Process Helps You Qualify Leads More Effectively
- Conclusion
- FAQs about Qualifying Lead
There are fantastic methods to qualify leads, such as BANT and MedPICC. BANT looks at budget, authority, need, and timing, and those are four good things to consider as part of the process. But there are times when you may not get this information until the second or third call. One of the challenges people face in sales is that they do not have enough early-stage conversations based upon what they are a good fit for in order to see whether that prospect is the right type of person for them to work with. BANT is a great qualification process, but it often happens at the second stage. The focus here is how to qualify your leads at an early stage in the process to make sure that you do not waste time.
Explore More: How to Improve Lead Handoff Using Automation (And Stop Losing Hot Leads)
How to Create and Use Criteria to Qualify Leads Effectively
Start With a Criteria Sheet
The best way to start is to think about a criteria sheet. The idea is to create criteria for the perfect customer you want to work with. The perfect customer does not exist, and there will always be nuances, different elements, and some positives and negatives at certain people. But you want more of the positives than the negatives. You do not want customers who are going to cause you more problems later down the line. As a salesperson, what you are going to get is grief from other parts of the department and potentially even have deals taken off you from customers you implement and sell things to that were not a good fit.
Why You Need Criteria for Your Business
One of the best ways to do this is to create some criteria based upon who you are a good fit for. Sales is no different from any other kind of selection process. You need a criteria. What you want to do is create a criteria for your business and then use that to qualify your leads.
Example: Building a Criteria Sheet for a Software Company
For example, take a fictitious business that sells software into financial companies. Not every lead is always going to be a guaranteed perfect opportunity. There are going to be people that meet you, refer you, hear about you, and think you do X when in reality you do Y. What you want to do in the early stages of the process is create a criteria of the perfect customer you want to work with.
At the end of each criteria, you give a yes or no answer, and that yes or no answer gives you a score out of 10 that enables you to say whether this is a good fit for you to work with that person or prospect or whether it is not.
In the software example, the software tends to be sold to very big companies. So one criteria might be that the people that buy it have over 250 employees. The reason is because the software itself costs quite a bit of money, say $50,000 a year. You are not going to find many very small businesses that are going to invest that amount in a piece of software like that. Another criteria might be that they need an IT team to implement the project and manage its implementation. Another might be that their best customers tend to work within a certain area of financial services, for example, trading.
Within just a few elements, you have already created several criteria of a potential customer that could be a better fit than just trying to sell the software into anyone. In addition to that, you might add that they have already got some existing systems in place, maybe because your software is a replacement to that system. You might also add that the software only works well under a three-year contract, so the people you work with need to be able to see three years ahead before they see the return on the investment. Other criteria might include whether they seem enthusiastic about solving the problem, how friendly and engaging they are, whether the decision needs to be signed off by a director, and whether the project timescale to implement is going to take six months plus.
Why Criteria Will Change Depending on the Business
In a few minutes, you can create 10 elements that help define your ideal customer. These criteria will change depending on your business. If you are selling social media services into a small business, your criteria might be whether they have any social media accounts, whether they see any value in social media, and whether they are prepared to invest in social media. The key thing is that you need to create a set of criteria that are unique for your business.
The Real Purpose of a Criteria Score
The reason for doing this is not so you can just say no to people. The whole idea of having a criteria score is to ask the right questions so that you can see whether it is worth giving more of your time to a lead.
Turning Criteria Into a Simple Score
The scoring mechanism is simple. If the score is 0 to 3, they are probably not the right fit for you. You are probably going to spend a lot of time chasing them when there are too many barriers that are going to stop that project from moving forward. If they score 4 to 6, they could be a good fit, but maybe there are a couple of key questions that make the project really important. If they score 7 to 10, they have said yes to the things you wanted them to, and you know this is a good fit. This is the perfect sweet spot customer for you to work with, and you should be looking to spend more of your time and effort engaging with them.
Why Some Questions Matter More Than Others
There may also be prospects that sit in the middle where you are not sure if they are a good fit or not. In that case, identify the top four questions that are really important for you. For example, they need to be able to spend the money in order to work with you. They may need to have some existing systems in place. They may need to be able to see that the business case can take three years to pay back. And they may need to be able to handle a six-month-plus implementation project. Unless they give positive answers in those areas, you should be concerned about whether you should move them forward and spend more time engaging with them.
Create Your Own Criteria Based on Your Ideal Customer
The key thing is to create your own criteria based upon your ideal customer. Who are you a good fit for? It does not have to be perfect, but who do you want to work with? Or, if you do not know, who do you not want to work with? Sometimes the best thing to do is to list the people you do not want to engage with.
Ask Open Questions to Find the Right Information
Once you have the criteria, you ask open questions that help you find the information. If one of your criteria is 250 employees, you might ask, “How many people do you have working for you?” If they say they have 100 people in their business, your ideal is 250, so that would score a zero. You are not doing this live in front of the person, but you are doing some internal calculations yourself to see if this is a good fit customer.
If another criteria is whether they can afford to invest £50,000 a year in the software, you might ask, “Which other systems have you invested in in the past?” If they mention a software system that you know costs over £50,000 a year, then you know they have invested at that level before, so that would score a one. Another way you could ask that question is, “How much of a problem is this causing you as a company?” or “What challenges is this creating for you as a business?” or “What financial impact does this problem create for you?” If they say it is causing them millions of pounds a year, then you know they are open to investing £50,000 to solve it.
If you want to know whether they have an IT team, you might ask, “What resource have you got available for project implementation?” If they say they have no one in their team available to help, then that would score a zero. If you want to know whether they are in the trading space, you might ask, “What areas do you want to invest in for the future?” If they say they are looking to move into trading because they think it is a really popular area, then that matches what you do and could score a one.
Build a Score From the First Conversation
The point is that you ask open questions around the what, the how, the tell me more, the who, or the when, depending on the criteria. These open questions are going to enable you to find the right information out. Over time, what you are doing is building a score based upon that prospect and making sure that in that first conversation, you can see if they are a good fit to work with.
Adjust the Criteria Over Time
The criteria will adjust over time, and that is important. It is about making sure that you measure each of your deals and the conversations you have. You can then start to see whether you need to change some of the criteria in order to sell more of your product. The reality is that it is about creating the criteria and then matching it.
What to Do With a Middle-Ground Score
If you end up with a question score of five and you are in that space of whether to commit more time or not, then look at the answers to the questions in red, the key criteria that make it important for you as a business. If the answers to those key questions were zero, zero, zero, and one, then out of the top four questions you only had one positive, which would probably make you say at the end of the conversation that you may be unable to help because you help companies in a different area. But if those answers had all been ones, then you might say, let’s explore another conversation to see whether you can move things forward and see if you are a fit to work together.
Why This Process Helps You Qualify Leads More Effectively
The key thing around this process is to create the criteria and then ask the questions that enable you to get an outline score. When you do that, and you start to measure each of your leads effectively, it is going to help you know whether to spend more time, whether you have to call it quits at that point, or whether it is a hot lead that you really want to focus on and engage with.
Creating a simple scoring criteria like this can make a massive difference in helping you qualify your leads. It can help you see whether you are a good fit, whether it is worth committing time, whether it is worth committing energy and emotion into the deal, or if it is one of those ones where you need to say, “Great opportunity, but it was not for us.”
Conclusion
BANT, MedPICC, and other methodologies are fantastic ways to use sales theories to help do the right things. BANT especially, budget, authority, need, timing, is a powerful way to see whether someone is a good fit. But you may not get that information until point two or three in the deal. This is a great method to make sure in that first one or two meetings that you qualify people out if they are not a good fit for you so you can focus your time elsewhere.
Create that criteria. Plan your deals more effectively. Score them in the right way so you can spend better time on the deals that are going to get you somewhere. The key thing is do not waste time chasing people that are never going to go anywhere. They are not going to be a good fit for you. Focus on the ones that are going to help you hit the numbers you want to and the success that you want.
FAQs about Qualifying Lead
1. What is BANT?
BANT is a very simple process. It stands for budget, authority, need, and timing. Budget is how much you are willing to spend on this project. Authority is whether this person has the capability to make a decision, whether they are an influencer, or whether they are just a “get me more information” type of person. Need is what the need or the pain or the issue is that you are trying to solve. Timing is how soon you are trying to fix this.
2. What is MEDDIC?
MEDDIC is another methodology. The framework itself stands for metrics, economic buyer, decision criteria, decision process, identifying pain, and champion. Metrics are the qualifying metrics for the solution. The economic buyer is the person who is going to say yes. Decision criteria is how they evaluate vendors. Decision process is how the decision is made internally. Identifying pain is understanding why change is needed. The champion is the internal supporter who drives the deal forward.
3. Are you going to get all the MEDDIC information in the first meeting?
You are probably not going to get all the MEDDIC information in the first meeting. But as you continue the process of discovery, you are going to get glimpses of information. You are definitely going to figure out the pain or the issues that the ideal customer might be facing, and that is part of the process.
4. What is the real purpose of a criteria score?
The whole idea of having a criteria score is to ask the right questions so that you can see whether it is worth giving more of your time to a lead. It helps you see whether you are a good fit, whether it is worth committing time, whether it is worth committing energy and emotion into the deal, or if it is one of those ones where you need to say, “Great opportunity, but it was not for us.”
5. How does the scoring mechanism work?
If the score is 0 to 3, they are probably not the right fit for you. You are probably going to spend a lot of time chasing them when there are too many barriers that are going to stop that project from moving forward. If they score 4 to 6, they could be a good fit, but maybe there are a couple of key questions that make the project really important. If they score 7 to 10, they have said yes to the things you wanted them to, and you know this is a good fit. This is the perfect sweet spot customer for you to work with.
6. What should you do with a middle-ground score?
If you end up with a question score of five and you are in that space of whether to commit more time or not, then look at the answers to the questions in red, the key criteria that make it important for you as a business. If the answers to those key questions were zero, zero, zero, and one, then out of the top four questions you only had one positive, which would probably make you say at the end of the conversation that you may be unable to help because you help companies in a different area. But if those answers had all been ones, then you might say, let’s explore another conversation to see whether you can move things forward and see if you are a fit to work together.
