Leads

LEADS BAPT (Budget, Authority, Pain, Timeline, and Target)

Real qualified leads are the route to success for sales people. In many organisations there are discussion on what a lead is. We want to focus on sales leads, which shall be followed up from inside or field sales.

The Lead Rating is based on how strong the Budget, Authority, Pain, and Timeline (or BAPT) are for each lead, and are defined within each lead’s detailed view.

Whether each lead falls into your named accounts/target market will also influence it’s score.

  • 1. Target – Is the lead in my named accounts/target market? (0-10 points)
  • 2. Budget – Is there budget allocated? (0-5 points)
  • 3. Authority – Do we have contacts to the right authority confirming
    the project? (0-5 points)
  • 4. Pain – Is there a pain and implication? (0-5 points)
  • 5. Timeline – Is there a defined timeline? (0-5 points)

You can rate each of the BAPT qualifiers using a traffic light system, with Green worth 5 points, Yellow worth 3 points, Red worth 1 point, and Grey (unknown) worth 0. This total plus the Target score gives each lead it’s overall Lead Rating.

Budget

If your customer has made the decision to acquire a solution, then a budget has been allocated. Usually your counterparts within the account need to apply for extra budget prior to the financial year. If there is no budget allocated, then the project needs to be financed from existing budgets or postponed to the next financial year.

Questions to ask your prospect:

  • In which phase of the evaluation are you?
  • Is there Budget allocated?
  • Could you disclose in which range it is going to be?
note In early stages, there will be not much insight to budgets. However, it is still very important to know in which stage your prospect is!

Rating

Green: Budget is allocated to project, rough estimation of size available.

Yellow: Budget has been applied or will be applied shortly. No information on size.

Red: Budget could not be confirmed, or is too low.

Grey: Unknown. Need to discover

Authority

If you are talking to the right level of Authority, it will allow you to qualify the lead quickly and continue to develop it and convert it to a deal/opportunity quickly.

Ideally, a person that can make decisions or has great influence to decision makers has the right level of authority. You can qualify this usually very easy by asking discovery question on the decision process, budget approval levels or the business implication of the project.

Questions to ask your prospect:

  • What is your role in the evaluation?
  • Is there an executive/business sponsor?
  • Who will lead the technical evaluation?
  • Who will approve the spending?
note A person with the right authority will have answers to the above.

Green: Lead contact is verified as decision maker or potential champion.

Yellow: Authority level needs to be confirmed.

Red: This person does not have the right level of authority

Grey: Unknown. Need to discover

Pain

If there is no pain with implications to business, then it is very difficult to get budgets for projects these days. Therefore, it is critical to qualify if the potential opportunity you uncovered is a driven by a real pain or just a “would be nice to have”.

Business Pain drives investments! Departmental efficiency or improvements projects risk being treated with less priority.

Questions to ask your prospect:

  • What are the customer’s pain points?
  • Is there any business implication?
  • What happens if you cannot solve it?

Rating

Green: Clear, strong pain and business implication

Yellow: Pain is not so strong or clear. Need to quantify and understand business implication.

Red: No clear pain. Cannot identify business implication.

Grey: Unknown. Need to discover.

Timeline

To develop a solid pipeline you need to know when you can potentially close this opportunity. Timelines are great indicators to understand where the client is in his buying process. Are they still screening the market (vague timeline no specific cornerstones), or is there a set deadline where certain milestones are defined or maybe a formal Request for proposal has been issued.

Questions to ask:

  • Is there a deadline for having the issue (pain) fixed?
  • When do you want to decide on solution?

Green: Clear timeline and process setup

Yellow: Rough timeline identified

Red: No timeline or very vague information

Grey: Unknown. Need to discover