B2B sales can be a complex and challenging process, and having an effective sales methodology in place can make all the difference.
While you may have an effective sales process encapsulating the steps you take to move a potential customer through your sales funnel, methodologies serve as roadmaps to guide your sales team, a broader philosophy or set of practices that can inform how a sales process is built and conducted.
When leads are qualified properly, less time is wasted on people not likely to buy from you, so you can hone in on the ones who are. This is why sales qualification methodologies are imperative to your strategy.
In this blog, we will look at the most popular sales methodologies and lead qualifications, so you can choose a strategy that works for you.
SPIN
First up is a sales strategy that comes from Neil Rackham's 1988 classic book, 'Spin Selling.' In his book, Rackham argues that salespeople must abandon traditional sales techniques and build value as trusted advisors to win larger consultative deals.
The strategy focuses on asking good questions in the right order, using active listening, and translating the prospects’s needs into your product’s features—principles that align particularly well with inbound sales.
SPIN stands for the four stages of the questioning sequence:
Situation
Problem
Implication
Need Payoff
Rackham strategy emphasises that closing is less important than most salespeople and managers think, whereas questioning is more important than most salespeople and managers think! Moreover, great reps focus on preventing, not handling, objections.
Successful closing depends on getting the right commitment, and salespeople who close at high rates tend to ask the same types of questions in the same order, following the pattern of SPIN, where each question type plays a different role in moving the buyer towards the sale.
As B2B products become increasingly complex, this approach positions reps to deeply embed their businesses in customer organisations, delivering the consultative selling that modern buyers crave. Studies show that SPIN selling can improve sales productivity by 17%.
SPIN selling is strategic and consultative, focusing on building value through effective questioning and active listening to align customer needs with product features.
SPIN can also complement low-pressure methods like the Sandler System. It’s important to note that, unlike SNAP selling, the SPIN approach deemphasises closing techniques.
NEAT™
The NEAT™ qualification methodology, created by the Richard Harris Consulting Group, was designed to replace outdated processes with a new-era methodology.
It’s an evolved methodology from BANT, ANUM, and AN, and is an acronym for:
Need
Economic impact
Access to Authority
Timeline
NEAT is comprehensive and customer-centric, addressing specific needs, economic impact, access to authority, and timelines for a tailored solution approach.
By focusing on the customer's needs, sales professionals can provide tailored solutions that genuinely address their pain points. By focusing on energy and alignment, the methodology recognises that customers are not just looking for a product or service and may be seeking a partner who can help them achieve their goals.
On the flipside, NEAT is not suitable for some industries that value efficiency, may not suit some salespeople, and requires significant time and energy to get right.
SNAP
Jill Konrath, the originator of the SNAP selling methodology, came up with the idea after being frustrated in her first year of sales; she realised that many of her prospects were distracted by other priorities, projects, and challenges.
Assuming her prospect is risk-averse and easily put off by complexity, risk, or anything that takes too much of their time, she coined the term “frazzled customer syndrome” and devised the methodology to appease their jumpy temperaments.
SNAP stands for:
Simple
iNvaluable
Align
Priorities
SNAP selling is practical and customer-focused, simplifying options, providing invaluable insights, aligning with customer needs, and prioritising solutions to create a quantified gap for decision-making.
Konrath’s book also offered a granular view of buying decisions, namely allowing access, the choice to move away from the status quo, and changing resources.
BANT
The oldest sales methodology on this list, BANT was implemented by IBM in the 1950s and remains a simple and effective qualification method.
Budget
Authority
Need
Timing
BANT is traditional and efficient, emphasising budget, authority, need, and timing for quick lead qualification and short sales cycles.
BANT’s focus on budget and authority allows for early qualification of leads, saving time in the qualification process and ensuring a short sales cycle while also being flexible and reliable.
On the other hand, BANT is seller-focused and not the fastest framework to implement.
ANUM
ANUM was developed by Ken Krogue, and it’s pretty much similar to BANT’s approach, with significant emphasis placed on authority:
Authority
Need
Urgency
Money
ANUM was eventually reduced to just AN, Authority and Need, which cuts out any discussion of timeline and money.
Money is the last priority because this particular sales framework depends on the rapport that you have with the decision-maker and takes into account that companies don’t always have a fixed budget for the solutions that you propose. ANUM is authoritative and urgent, focusing on decision-making power, needs, urgency, and money to streamline lead qualification and move prospects through the process effectively.
ANUM saves time for the reps by making them contact the decision-maker and ensuring that the potential lead can be moved down the process. On the other hand, it qualifies leads on the decision-making power, which means if someone is a gatekeeper, they would be disqualified, even if they could lead to the right person.
ChAMP
ChAMP stands for:
Challenges
Authority
Money
Priority
ChAMP is insightful and challenging, identifying buyer intentions through challenges, authority, money, and priority to align prospects with business goals. Although very similar to BANT, ChAMP’s focus on buyer intentions means it’s great at identifying prospects that are a good fit for your business, especially if you have a clear ICP that focuses on specific pain points.
However, the framework might leave some holes for qualification; the method helps you determine who your decision-makers are, but not necessarily what criteria they need to make a final decision. Neither does it give a way to consider competitors, the decision-making process, or external success indicators.
FAINT
Initially developed by Mike Shultz, it introduces interest as a qualification factor and solves a major problem that a lot of bigger prospects have.
Funds
Authority
Interest
Need
Timing
FAINT is flexible and human-centric, considering funds, authority, interest, needs, and timing to cater to varied organisational budgeting structures and prospect interests.
using funds rather than budget as a qualification, which deals with organisations with funds but no set budgets but doesn’t work as well for organisations with set budgets. Moreover, including interest as a qualifying factor allows sensitivity to the human aspect of the prospect and how interested they really are in your solution.
MEDDIC
This framework was developed during the 1990s by Jack Napoli and Dick Dunkel. This framework primarily focuses on knowing more about your prospects.
Metrics
Economic buyer
Decision criteria
Decision process
Identify pain
Champion
MEDDIC is thorough, focusing on metrics, economic buyers, decision criteria, process, pain points, and champions for accurate lead qualification and deal success. Given the level of detail this framework would have you uncover, it can certainly help you accurately qualify the lead and, as a result, experience a lesser amount of failure.
On the flipside, this framework has a very lengthy process of qualifying leads, wherein an immense amount of tracking and recording of data are required, making it unsuitable for use by small B2B agencies.
NOTE
NOTE is a newer technique pioneered by Sean Burke, then CEO of KiteDesk. It has seen a lot of adoption amongst companies because it solves the seller-centric nature of BANT by being buyer-centric.
Need
Opportunity
Team
Effect
This technique is buyer-centric and needs-driven, evaluating needs, opportunities, team dynamics, and effects to align solutions with customer pain points and goals.
Instead of focusing on budgets and financing, it qualifies based on what the prospects are actually needing. When selling to a potential customer, the sales team starts by identifying the customer’s specific pain points and challenges before going on to determine the customer’s budget, decision-making process, and timeline for making a purchase.
SPICED
Although it’s not clear who developed SPICED, they must’ve been deeply attuned to sales psychology. The five-step sales qualification framework that guides your sales reps to answer these questions:
Situation
Pain
Impact
Critical event
Decision
SPICED is psychologically rooted and persuasive, guiding sales reps through situations, pain, impact, critical events, and decisions to create customer buy-in and validate the sale idea. Based on the assumption that customers will overvalue positive information supporting their idea and create a psychological buy-in to further validate their great idea, when used successfully, it gives the impression that the customer came up with the idea of the sale!
Conceptual Selling
Founders Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman urge salespeople not to lead with a pitch, and instead they encourage sales reps to uncover the prospect’s concept of their product and understand their decision process.
In this way, conceptual selling is unique compared to other methods as it is centred around the idea that buyers are more likely to buy into concepts of solutions rather than actual goods or services.
You are encouraged to ask five types of questions:
Confirmation questions
New information questions
Attitude questions
Commitment questions
Basic issue questions
As a result, conceptual selling is insightful and personalised, uncovering prospect concepts, attitudes, commitments, and issues to tailor solutions effectively. The sales methodology hinges around giving information, receiving information, and receiving confirmation, and in this way stray from the binary of ‘qualified’ or ‘unqualified’ leads.
Conceptual selling allows for a deeper understanding of the prospect's needs and decision-making process, leading to more personalised and effective sales pitches.However, this approach may require more time and effort upfront to uncover the prospect's concept of the product, potentially lengthening the sales cycle.
SCOTSMAN®
This methodology stands for:
Solution
Competition
Originality
Timescales
Size
Money
Authority
Need
SCOTSMAN® is one of the most comprehensive and detailed lead qualification methodologies, covering solutions, competition, originality, timescales, size, money, authority, and needs for a holistic sales approach.
GPCTBA and C&IT
GPCTBA C&IT purports to be a comprehensive qualification framework. Developed by Pete Caputa to address the changes in sales since BANT was introduced by IBM, the three-part process has evolved due to the fact that buyers are further along the buying process and have already done research before hopping on a call.
The acronym stands for:
Goals
Plans
Challenges
Timeline
Budget
Authority
Negative consequences
Positive implications
GPCTBA and C&IT are modern and holistic, focusing on goals, plans, challenges, timelines, budgets, authority, negative consequences, and positive implications for a thorough lead qualification process. You need to understand your prospect’s business model, buying process, goals, etc., to persuade them to convert.
As it focuses on considering positive as well as negative aspects of the deal, this makes the GPCTBA/C&I framework stand out from other sales qualification frameworks.
Sandler System
This system was developed in 1967 by David Sandler and focuses on having sales reps act as consultants rather than pushy salespeople.
Sandler was inspired by footage of WWII submarine staff moving from compartment to compartment, closing doors behind them, to avoid flooding throughout.
The Sandler Selling System requires the same procedure to avoid ‘disaster' on a sales call. Your goal is to move through each compartment, or step, of the selling system to arrive safely at a successful sale.
In this way, the strategy concentrates on asking the right questions during the qualifying process instead of pushing a product on someone who doesn't need it. A whopping 88% of salespeople with Sandler training said their sales strategy improved.
Solution Selling
Solution Selling is a sales methodology where a salesperson holistically considers a prospect's needs so they can recommend specific products or services that will best accommodate their individual problems and concerns.
With solution selling, customers’ needs are listened to intimately. It’s all about understanding the prospect’s needs and which products or services will benefit them most.
On the other hand, solution selling often requires following a question-and-answer format; this can lead to a conversation that’s quite stale and inflexible.
You may also find that reps rely too heavily on their set of questions and don’t allow the conversation to flow naturally. Moreover, with 67% of the B2B buyer’s journey now done digitally, buyers already know the solution they need, so this approach may be too static.
Target Account Selling
Target Account Selling is personalised and efficient, focusing on highly qualified leads with specific criteria but requiring significant resources for research and outreach. It identifies prospects based on specific factors such as deal value, ideal customer persona, industry, revenue, pain points, buying signals, and budget. The focus is more on personalised sales resources for these highly qualified leads.
This method allows for a more focused and efficient approach to sales, leading to higher conversion rates and a better return on investment for the agency.
However, this method requires significant resources for research and personalised outreach, potentially making it more time-consuming and costly compared to mass marketing approaches.
Command of the Sale
Command of the Sale denotes selling in a commanding manner with some urgency, some degree of bravado, extensive product knowledge, and exceptional situational awareness.
This selling method can help B2B agencies assert control over the sales process, create a sense of urgency, and showcase their expertise, leading to faster decision-making and potentially higher sales volumes.
However, the commanding approach may come off as aggressive or pushy, potentially alienating potential clients and damaging long-term relationships.
Gap Selling
Gap Selling is a methodology rooted in highlighting the gap between where a prospect's business currently stands and where they would like it to be.
Its underlying premise rests on addressing problems as opposed to touting products. Despite a lengthy qualification process, the gap selling method will be most effective with teams that are afforded the time and money to be able to understand the prospect’s situation holistically.
By focusing on addressing a prospect's specific problems and needs rather than pushing products, a B2B agency utilising the gap selling method can build stronger, more trust-based relationships with clients.
The qualification process for gap selling may require a significant investment of time and resources, potentially limiting the agency's ability to quickly scale or work with a larger volume of clients.
Challenger Sale
Built around a sales process that focuses on teaching, tailoring, and taking control of the sales experience. Using the Challenger sales model, Dixon and Adamson argue that with the right sales training and sales tools, sales reps can take control of any customer conversation.
The Challenger Sale method can help B2B agencies establish themselves as industry experts, build strong relationships with clients, and ultimately increase sales through a more structured and proactive approach.
Implementing the Challenger Sale method may require significant changes to the existing sales process, which could take time and resources to fully adopt and train sales teams effectively.
When evaluating which sales methodology is right for your small B2B agency, it is important to consider your team's style as well as the needs and response patterns of the clients with whom you are interacting. Each sales method has its own unique strengths and is a proven strategy for successful B2B selling.
Nearly 60% of the companies with over 10,000 employees surveyed in the “State of Sales Methodologies in B2B SaaS” report said the methodologies they've chosen have more than paid for themselves. But whatever methodology you adopt, the ultimate sales methodology is authenticity and honest communication!
It’s important to keep in mind that qualifications are a useful way of driving the conversation, but they aren’t the be-all and end-all of the sales process. After all, if the problem is large enough to put an executive-level priority at risk, they will find the money!
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