In an ideal world, sales reps would only focus their efforts on “sales ready” opportunities. While this makes intuitive sense, the problem is that it is based on the often false assumption that sales reps are so busy that they don’t have enough time to work on opportunities that are not as sales ready.
In thinking about my early experience in sales, I recall a key point from the CEO of the company I was working at about the economic concept of “opportunity cost.” The classic definition of opportunity cost is the cost of an alternative that must be foregone in order to pursue a certain action. So, in theory at least, as sales rep should not waste time with what appear to be sales leads that aren’t sales ready, since that time could be better spent on more qualified opportunities. The CEO’s point was basic but profound: most employees have some excess time on their hands, and, accordingly, the actual opportunity cost may in fact be zero.
While every sales rep dreams of opportunities with BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeframe), sometimes there simply are not enough BANT opportunities to keep most sales reps fully productive. It also discounts the importance of the sales rep working leads that aren’t quite ready to buy. Here reps need to spend more time acting as a consultative resource and helping companies better define their needs, building a business case that supports budget, and creating a sense of urgency based on a compelling ROI.
One of my favorite expressions is that “action, creates action” because it implies what I have found to be a very important sales truth. By engaging in more customer conversations even with leads that aren’t ready to buy, sales reps will identify new opportunities and not be as reliant on marketing leads with BANT. Sales reps should expand their customer base and develop deeper relationships with existing customers by engaging in conversations that allow them to identify new business opportunities.
Bottom line: There is a lot of opportunity out there. It just isn’t all BANT.