Discovery builds the bridge to selling your solution and closing the deal.

There are hundreds of sales methodologies – each with their own unique values and drawbacks. Every worthwhile sales methodology focuses leans into deep discovery; discovery that listens to understand and takes action to drive the deal forward.

Throughout this blog we will lean into different methodologies that can help you connect to clients need and demonstrate the value of your product = sale!

One of my favorite sales methodologies is BNAPR

What does this crazy acronym mean?

• Before Scenario: How is there current state?
• Negative Consequences: What negative impacts is the business facing from their current state
• After Consequences: These create a vision for how life can be better for the buyer after working with you
• Positive Business Outcomes: Positive Impacts resulting from implementing the solution
• Required capabilities: What are their metrics and capabilities that are required to move forward with your product?

We discussed how BANT is the foundation of your sales process, well BNAPR is the structure you build from. It enables the client to explain what their current state is and the negative impacts. Getting the client to admit what is not working and how they want the future state to be – makes the client feel empowered to trust you as a consultant and partner in the process. You can then guide them through the Positive Business Outcomes (measurable ROI and time to value) from implementing your project.

Asking a client for their required capabilities in discovery and checking in on these capabilities throughout the sales cycle is vital. It ensures that you can meet their needs and proactively objection handle if competition comes into play. It gives you the power to say ‘if all of your required capabilities can be met with our solution can you move forward,’ (trial close) and hold them accountable to that discovery agreement (we’ll dive into DA’s next month).

Example BNAPR Questions:

B- Before Scenario

• Tell me about your company?
• How are you currently doing xyz? (ex: How is your bank currently handling loan applications? Face to Face – email)
• use this time to really dig into their current state – what is working? What gaps do they have in their current processes?

N- Negative Consequences

• How are these challenges impacting you?
• How much time are you losing by doing xyz?
• What cost is associated with doing xyz?
• I give the example of a lender who is still doing paperwork face to face; the negative consequence is that they lose a lot of clients because with COVID more clients want to do everything electronically. this loss of revenue impacts the banks goals to grow and add another branch.
• This is where you really dig into the pain

A- After Scenario?

• If you had a magic wand how would your future state look?
• How would you fix xyz?
• What’s your program roadmap?
• How can the way you’re doing things today be improved?
• How do you see addressing these challenges affecting the business?

P- Positive Business Outcomes

• If you were to have that ideal solution, how would that positively impact your business?
• What key outcomes do you want to realize?
• If you were to pinpoint one area in the customer journey that you want to be most positively impacted, which would that be? Why?

R- Required Capabilities

• What is required to get you to your future vision?
• Which requirements are most important to you? Why?
• Which requirements are most important to other stakeholders in the business? Why?

BNAPR empowers YOU and the CLIENT to have meaningful conversation. You can fully understand their business and goals, while helping to build value with the client on how your product can help them achieve their goals.

BNAPR is meaningful because the client is driving the conversation – you lead the questioning, but the client is admitting what works and doesn’t work. You dig into that pain to ensure they have a deeper understanding of why they need to act now and how you can help them (consultative).

Assignment: Pull up two accounts – a past opportunity (closed won/lost) and fill out the BNAPR steps – think about how this line of questioning would have helped close the deal.

Now pick an open opportunity and strategize how you can use BNAPR/BANTC to push the deal to a PO (purchase order).

BNAPR and BANTC both work together to discover pain and provide a solution to the client. These are essential to any discovery and ongoing sales negotiation.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!