The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million

by Mark Roberge

the first qualifying matrix we used at HubSpot was BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing). As we reviewed sales opportunity after sales opportunity, it became apparent that, in our context, the “N” in BANT (“Need”) had become the most important component of the discovery process. HubSpot salespeople who established a strong “Need” with their prospective buyers had very high lead-to-customer conversion rates. A well-developed “Need” sounded like this: “The buyer is adding two salespeople in Q4 and needs to increase lead flow by 20 percent by the start of the quarter in order to support the sales expansion. If they do not increase lead flow, the new salespeople will need to resort to cold calling, which has been unsuccessful for the team in the past. The expanded sales team will likely fail at accelerating customer acquisition if the company does not increase lead flow proportionately.”