“Not everyone is a prospect”

While you may be willing to sell your offering to anyone with a pulse this is generally a waste of time. If your market is that big you shouldn’t be prospecting in the first place.

Qualification has three components.

-Is the prospect a buyer of what you’re selling?

-Is the prospect a buyer now?

-If not, when will the prospect be a buyer or what would make them consider buying?

The topic of questioning is highly specific to any given industry but using BANT is a soldi framework.

BANT stands for

Budget - Can they afford your product or service and has the spend been earmarked?

Authority - Can the prospect you’re working with actually make the decision or are there are there other stakeholders that need to be involved?

Need - Does the prospect really need your offering? If not, and the still end up buying, they may cancel.

Timeline - When do they need your offering? This is key managing your pipeline and know what to spend your time on in any given month/quarter/year.

If a prospect does not have the above there’s a good chance you’re wasting your time.