Do a quick Google search, and you'll come across a plethora of acronyms related to this. BANT (shout out 1950s IBM), SPICED, MEDDIC, SPIN. Just to name a few.

While they all provide a good structure and help guide conversations, sticking to one religiously and expecting it to drive great results is a myopic view. You can't simply hire a bunch of new college grads, give them a script, ask them to get BANT and expect your sales org to be successful. Even though this is what a majority of SaaS companies do. Wonder why over hiring and layoffs occur all the time.

So you may be wondering - what's the best way to approach this if I can't trust the qualification frameworks as gospel? A good analogy I like to use is looking at how a doctor diagnoses an ailment. Figure out what the issue is, what the ideal outcome(s) looks like…and prescribe a solution on how to get there. Ask lots of questions, but make it conversational and unscripted. Nothing is worse than a rigid, interrogation-esque conversation that happens when you run through a list of questions. This is the current state of a large amount of SaaS discovery/demo conversations.

The SPICED framework is one of the better ones around. The doctor analogy is often referenced in conjunction with it. As described here, your prescribed solution should help them achieve their desired outcomes—and that prescription requires you to solve the source of their pains, not just the symptoms. The critical event (CE) portion is a great way to not only figure out when a prospect is looking to have a solution in place, but also guide next steps as a deal progresses beyond initial discovery.

What lead qualification framework are you using? Hit us up on Twitter.