GPCT And ANUM Qualification

Few months before, I have written an article about BANT. It’s a life saver for anyone who are new to the journey of opportunity qualification. Being a framework that has been developed 5 decades before, it also comes with few limitations in evaluating the current customer. In modern age, the he way a customer makes a purchase decision is different. They are more informed than before. Also decision making is also more complex now in corporate scenarios. So the age old methodologies may not be the good choice for large deals. GPCT and ANUM are the two options we can consider.

GPCT Opportunity Qualification

It stands for Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timelines.

• G – Goals: Long Term, Mid Term and Short Term Goals. Here we are trying to identify what exactly made them go for a solution/purchase and how is it aligned with their goals. We should also try to understand goals form an individual and company perspective.
• P – Plans: Roadmap, execution plan, current progress. Here we are trying to understand the customer’s plan and how they are aligned with the goals. We will also try to understand they have tried to source/execute this before.
• C – Challenges: Challenges, mitigation plan, deal breakers, org constraints. Here we are trying to understand the challenges faced by customers. We should also try to understand whether our proposition can help them to overcome the state challenges and to what extend. Another perspective we need to understand is, any attempts they have done before to mitigate these challenges.
• T -Timelines: Deadline, procurement timeline, priority. We are trying to gauge the importance of this project from a timeline perspective here. It will give a clear perspective whether this is of an immediate need or something that can be wait.

GPCT becomes more powerful when tagging BA/C&I. Let’s see what it is.

• B – Budget : Approvals/availability/limitations of budget, ROI expectation, sponsor. This will give us a fair idea about the spending ability of customer. These insights can also help in tailoring the pitching.
• A – Authority : Decision maker, decision process, preferences. This will help us to understand who should we talk to. It will prevent selling to wrong person and reaching to the right person in the end.
• C&I : Consequences and Implications: Best and worse case scenarios, risk identification and mitigation plan. Here we are trying to understand about what will happen if things go south. Or how is it going to impact the customer in case of a success.

Now let’s look ANUM.

It stands for Authority, Need, Urgency, Money.

• A – Authority : Decision maker, decision structure. Here, we will try to understand who the decision maker is. This will help us to understand whether we are speaking to the right person and how the account mapping will look like. In enterprises, there can be multiple decision makers.
• N – Need : Goals, Problem Statement, Consequences of not having it. From these information we should be able to understand the real need of the customer and how they expect to be addressed.
• U – Urgency : Timeline, Priority, Importance, show stoppers. This will set the basics right. This will also help us to understand about the necessity of procurement.
• M – Money : Budget allocation, sponsor. This will give us a fair idea about the budget and spending ability of customer.

These frameworks can just be used as signals to make decision. There are also a lot of other factors in play. Like previous experience in working with customer, relationship with customer, technological edge, etc. There is no right and wrong. It’s all about you to decide on which framework to choose and to which extend.

Happy Selling..