{"id":160,"date":"2017-10-31T23:54:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-31T23:54:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/?p=160"},"modified":"2018-07-01T18:16:35","modified_gmt":"2018-07-01T18:16:35","slug":"buyer-focused-deal-qualification-meetup-summary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/2017\/10\/31\/buyer-focused-deal-qualification-meetup-summary\/","title":{"rendered":"Buyer-Focused Deal Qualification (Meetup Summary)"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"nolwrap\"><p>Last night, I attended the NYC Enterprise Sales Forum\u2019s meetup on \u201cBuyer Focused Deal Qualification\u201d with Sean Burke, CEO of KiteDesk. Sean shared his team\u2019s qualification framework, NOTE, which stands for Need, Opportunity, Team, Effect.<\/p>\n<p>The KiteDesk process begins when SDR pre-qualify outbound contacts or inbound leads using an Ideal Client Profile (ICP).\u00a0 In Miller Heiman language, they have determined their economic buyer is either the head of sales or CMO, the user buyers are SDRs, AEs, and sales managers, and their technical buyers are legal and finance\/procurement.\u00a0 When SDRs book discovery meetings, they set the tone for buyer-focused qualification by framing the forthcoming call as \u201cAn opportunity to help you (the prospect) see if we are a fit for you\u201d or \u201cThe call we are scheduling is for you to qualify us.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The discovery call, led by an AE (not the SDR), covers the first two elements of the qualification framework as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Need: \u201cDo I need it?\u201d &#8211; Here, the AE is working to identify a <strong>measurable factor<\/strong> tied to a business issue the prospect is trying to achieve, or equivalently, to a problem the prospect is trying to solve. As Sean described it, this is \u201cNot about what the product does (features), but rather what it does for you.\u201d During Q&amp;A, Sean offered that it is often necessary to lead the prospect to the need (\u201cChallenger\u201d-style)<\/li>\n<li>Opportunity: \u201cIs it worth the effort\/work\/pain it will take me to implement it?\u201d &#8211; Here, the AE is working to quantify the <strong>value<\/strong> of the measurable factor.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sean\u2019s goal, wisely, is to disqualify as many \u201cpoor fit\u201d prospects as possible.\u00a0 The tell-tale sign is when prospects are unable to express the high-level business objectives of their company; they see the trees, not the forest. He shared that 48% of prospects do not make it past the discovery call.<\/p>\n<p>In a second call, the AE moves on to the next element:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Team: \u201cWho has to do the work to achieve the opportunity? How will I get my team to adopt the new solution?\u201d \u2013 Sean emphasized that the WHO here is the implementation \/ change management team, not the purchase decision making team.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As the sale progresses, Sean seeks to identify a guide \u2013 a \u201cmobilizer\u201d in Challenger language or a \u201cCoach\u201d in Miller Heiman language.<\/p>\n<p>The final step comes after the prospect has a made a decision to buy (as opposed to building or deferring) and are now deciding on whether to buy from you versus a competitor.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Effect: \u201cWhat is the timeline for achieving the opportunity?\u201d For KiteDesk, this comes in the proof-of-concept\/trial stage since the data they collect allows them to quantify the ROI by quarter.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>While not officially in the NOTE framework, Sean revealed that budget and urgency (aka timing) will develop naturally if the opportunity is large enough.<\/p>\n<p>Sean argued rather adamantly that his framework is different than BANT+D+C (budget, authority, need, and timing + decision + competition). I guess I\u2019ve become jaded since I have yet to come across a framework that is not a reordering of synonyms of this decades-old but still spot-on framework. For me, the \u201cN\u201d and \u201cO\u201d map to the \u201cN\u201d in BANT; the \u201cT\u201d and the buyer pre-qualification map to the \u201cA\u201d in BANT and to \u201cdecision\u201d; and, the \u201cE\u201d maps to the \u201cT\u201d in BANT.\u00a0 NOTE is just missing the \u201cB\u201d in BANT, but KiteDesk does pick that up along the way, just not as part of early qualification.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, during Q&amp;A, and audience member brought up the importance of understanding alternative options being considered \u2013 inaction, in-house build, or a competitor.\u00a0 This is the last piece of BANT+D+C.<\/p>\n<p>So, while NOTE is not novel, and in fact not as comprehensive as BANT+D+C, the discussion was lively and I very much appreciated how buyer-centric qualification is becoming the new normal in account-based B2B sales.<\/p>\n<p>[If you want to go deeper, here is a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kitedesk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/NOTEChecklist-%C6%92.pdf\">direct link<\/a> to Sean\u2019s eBook on the NOTE framework.]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night, I attended the NYC Enterprise Sales Forum\u2019s meetup on \u201cBuyer Focused Deal Qualification\u201d with Sean Burke, CEO of KiteDesk. Sean shared his team\u2019s qualification framework, NOTE, which stands for Need, Opportunity, Team, Effect. The KiteDesk process begins when SDR pre-qualify outbound contacts or inbound leads using an Ideal Client Profile (ICP).\u00a0 In Miller [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Buyer-Focused Deal Qualification (Meetup Summary)","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-160","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sellingsherpa.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/SeanBurke.png?fit=600%2C338&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9j2qV-2A","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":506,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160\/revisions\/506"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sellingsherpa.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}