Latest Techniques for Sales Leads

The lead generation process is long and must be aligned with an organization's overall demand generation process to create a smooth customer journey. A B2B marketer could potentially create a great lead generation campaign with a thought leadership blog post and an even better landing page. A robust lead management and lead qualification method can help you achieve a higher conversion rate with your outbound marketing and inbound lead generation methods.

There are a number of different frameworks and sales lead methodologies, which can be beautifully represented by their acronyms. The most commonly used methodologies are BANT and CHAMP. There are many more that can be added to the list in the future. Let's start with BANT for now.

BANT methodology (budget, authority, need, timing)

The BANT methodology was invented by IBM. It is considered one of the faithful and original lead qualification methodologies and is used in a variety of businesses and markets. It covers all the broad lines to determine who is qualified and who is not. The BANT methodology seeks to investigate and answer the following four questions:

• Budget - Does the prospect have the money to pay for your product or software?
• Authority - Does the prospect have the authority to make the purchase decision?
• Need - Does the prospect have the business need or desire you can fulfill?
• Timeline - When does the prospect plan to buy?

When you get the answers to all four of these core questions, you will have a fully qualified prospect ready for a final call.

While simple and fast, BANT has few fundamental flaws and lacks some modern aspects of the buying process. Specifically, BANT's Authority rating can have multiple people or a commission to sign the purchase. So it is very important to involve all relevant stakeholders and secure the buy-in of every individual. The modern lead generation process uses multiple sources including content marketing and social media to find the next qualified lead and your lead generation strategy must stay up to date so that your landing page is geared towards effectively generating leads from your target audience. You can always use the latest lead generation tool or lead generation software to improve your conversion rate. You can even hire an agency that provides lead generation services for a better conversion rate. However, clearly defining the process your organization uses to qualify leads can have a positive impact on your bottom line.

CHAMP methodology (challenges, authority, money and prioritization)

The CHAMP methodology invented by Insight Squared is the modern and new sales-ready lead qualification approach developed to overcome the drawbacks of the BANT methodology. CHAMP stands for:

Challenges

Problems and challenges are the first things to discuss with the prospect before discussing the budget. Your prospect buys things because they have a challenge, and when you have the solution, you have the real start of an "opportunity." By listening to the potential customer's problems and concerns, you can find out if there is an opportunity for you to offer your product and show how it can be helpful in solving their problems.

The best way to understand your prospect's pain or need is to ask them questions that will help you determine if the prospect is the best fit for your product.

Challenge questions

• Are you facing challenges that you would like to change with your current solution?
• How long have you had this challenge? Why did you decide to fix this problem now?
• What drives your interest in our solution?
• What goals do you want to achieve by resolving this pain?
• The answers to the above questions will help you determine if your product really suits your prospect.

Authority

It is always good to inquire about the prospect's authority. You need to ask potential customers questions that will help you map out the organizational structure of their business. When selling, time equals money. Asking for the authority simply means that you don't want to waste your time and energy talking to the wrong person. It doesn't matter if the first contact has low authority, they can direct you to the right person.

Once you know what the decision makers are, it becomes your job to reach them for further discussion.

Ask authority

• Who is involved besides yourself to realize this solution in your company?
• What would your role be in the decision-making process?
• How are purchasing decisions made for a product like ours and who is involved in looking at this solution?
• What are the concerns they may have? If they have potential concerns, how do you think we should address them?

Money

In sales, money becomes a crucial topic to discuss. Never start your qualifying question here. If your potential customer can't afford the product or service, you can't sell them. First, figure out your prospect's challenges and problems and then find out what their expectations are about the investment they need to make, giving you the opportunity to pique their interest in the benefits they can have exclusively when they are in your product or solution to invest.

Asking for money

• What are your expectations of the investment required to purchase the solution?
• Do you have an allocated budget for this project?
• Is your finance team or CFO involved in approving this?
• What is the typical budget allocation process?
• Have you reserved the budget for this project?

Prioritization

In the sales process, the timeline is a function of prioritization. This is about your prospect's priority when they need to solve their problems and challenges. You have to be very specific when discussing their timeline and priority list. When your potential customer says he needs to fix this problem in the next week, he's actually saying "this is a top priority." This is where you should train to find your prospect's business plan.

Ask for prioritization

• When did you plan to start the implementation?
• Do you currently have the contract? If so, when should it be renewed? Are there cancellation fees?
• Do you have the time and bandwidth to start the implementation now?
• How important is this to you and where does this stack up in terms of priority and urgency?

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If your prospect answers these questions, you can be sure that you are a perfect match if you think your product will successfully meet the prospect's needs.

Your existing lead generation strategy can be improved with a few tweaks to how you conduct your lead generation marketing, be it inbound marketing or outbound lead generation techniques. Once you've identified your buyer personality and figured out the media where your target audience can be found, the journey to filling your lead generation funnel has only just begun. B2B lead generation processes can vary from industry to industry, but the principles governing this methodology can help you optimize your process by ensuring that your sales team's efforts are not in vain and are spent on a high-quality lead.

By using CHAMP as a sales methodology, you can accurately qualify your opportunity and compare it with other sales methodologies. By adding CHAMP, as a method for your lead qualification, you should also work on understanding the "D" decision or buying process of your prospects.

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