Engineering Your Sales Process for Speed Using NTENT

Decades of sales methodologies have produced numerous frameworks and acronyms for B2B sellers to follow when looking to optimize their sales process. While they are not entirely incorrect, traditional sales methodologies can miss the mark when implemented in today’s sales landscape. 

NTENT is a modern and actionable framework that helps sellers prioritize customer experience and effectively guide their buyers through the sales process.

Many B2B companies shape their sales processes using familiar frameworks like MEDDIC, RAIN, or BANT. Some sales methods, like the Sandler Selling System, have been around for decades. That particular sales method predates the Internet but is still recommended by 96% of sellers trained in using the system. 

Traditional Methodologies

• • 1967 – Sandler Selling System
  • 1978 – Miller-Heiman, Strategic Planning
  • 1988 – Solution Selling (SPI)
  • 1988 – SPIN Selling
  • 1991 – Value Selling 
  • 1993 – Customer-Centric Selling
  • 1996 – MEDDIC
  • 2002 – RAIN Selling
  • 2005 – Baseline Selling
  • 2011 – The Challenger Sale

Traditionally used sales methods have their merits but can be too linear a framework for modern sales. They were also built for a buying environment that has since evolved. NTENT is built to help sellers adapt and develop customized sales journeys for today’s buyers. It looks at optimizing your sales process for efficiency through a framework developed from a customer experience standpoint instead of purely a philosophical one. 

NTENT is a framework introduced by Skaled CEO Jake Dunlap, author of The Innovative Seller: Keeping Pace in an AI and Customer-Centric World. The book is built around “The 4Cs of Innovative Selling”, which act as a guide to keeping up with change and innovation within the industry. The third “C,” Customized Sales Journey, is the basis for which NTENT was formed.

Building a customized sales journey comes with understanding how people actually make buying decisions and adapting to those buying behaviors. This forward-thinking allows sellers to meet customers where they are, providing a great experience, and ultimately driving to Closed/Won faster.

In this article, we will briefly breakdown the NTENT framework, how it compares to traditional sales methods, and how it works to speed up your sales process. 

While acronyms can be fun, catchy, and memorable, if they fall short upon execution, they offer little to no benefit. This framework is designed to not only be actionable but help your sales teams meet and exceed the expectations of modern-day buyers.

• • Next Steps 
  • Teams
  • Education
  • Numerical Priority
  • Time to Impact

How NTENT Principles Help Optimize Your B2B Sales Process 

Next steps

The first principle of NTENT addresses one of the most critical parts of engineering your sales journey for speed: Next steps. Buyers typically operate on limited time, juggling multiple responsibilities. They rely on their salesperson to guide them through the process and maintain the deal’s forward momentum. Any stall in the process leaves room for uncertainty and can even cause frustration in the buyer if they feel they are responsible for orchestrating the next steps.

Do you know the next steps or not? 

Keep the forward progression simple because once you lose that momentum, you could lose your buyer altogether. Other methodologies like BANT consider the sales timeline from the perspective of qualifying the lead. That mindset puts the focus on how long the buyer needs to make the purchasing decision. The next steps principle in NTENT instead focuses on ensuring the timeliness of that forward progression toward that final decision. Today’s sales landscape shows up to 40%  of deals are lost to “no decision,” making it crucial to reduce friction and make the process as seamless as possible. 

Teams

One of the primary ways NTENT strays from traditional methodologies is its inclusion of the Teams principle. Other common frameworks used by B2B sellers, like the MEDDIC Sales Qualification Framework, speak to identifying champions and decision-makers. These individuals are traditionally presumed to be the central figure in closing a deal. Since the development of these traditional frameworks, a more complex decision-making process has emerged in the modern buying environment.

How do people buy today? 

It is no longer just a singular person making the final buying decision. Sometimes, up to 8 people can be in the room when closing the deal, all bringing their own perspectives from different sides of the business. NTENT accounts for how sales journeys now need to be customized for teams as well as individuals. The seller then needs to make sure each team has a unified understanding of what they’re being sold. One team could focus on utility, while the other is focusing on ROI. There is sometimes crossover between teams, but each perspective must be addressed to demonstrate the overall value. A company doesn’t always move as a single entity through the sales journey. Different teams can be at different stages. This further emphasizes the need for sales journeys that adapt to the buyer to ensure an efficient sales process. 

Education

Not every buyer reaches you at the same point in their education process. This is why Education is the next principle in the NTENT framework. Depending on the type of preliminary research they’ve done, different people and teams can reach you at different levels. The best way to find out what level they are at is to ask. Similar to the SPIN selling method, the NTENT framework encourages asking your buyer questions. The difference is that the answers are not being used to sell them on particular features. Instead, they will guide you in customizing their buyer experience to fit their education level. 

Are you using something in the space already? Have you looked at pricing?

This proactive approach helps you gauge your buyer’s readiness to progress through their journey and determine the proper next steps for them. Whether they’re coming in cold, educated, or fully vetted, you can meet them where they are in their journey. This understanding helps sellers identify what information is still needed to get everyone ready to move forward. 

Related Content: Building Sales Processes for Cold, Educated, & Vetted Prospects

Numerical priority

In the NTENT framework, the Numerical priority principle transforms conversations of pains and needs into more quantifiable measurements. Many other frameworks include the pain and/or need principles in their framework. The most popular include SPICED, MEDDIC, BANT, and the Sandler Selling System. However, responses to the pain and needs questions often vary because they can be subjective. Instead of introducing this ambiguity to the process, numerical prioritization provides a quantifiable scale to help gauge where the deal sits in terms of importance. Putting this into practice requires a slight shift in how you pose your questions once you reach that step in the customer journey. 

From a numerical priority standpoint, where is this on your priority list?

This type of question will help you eliminate any ambiguity when it comes to understanding your buyer’s priorities. Variability can still occur when asking different teams to provide their rankings. Teams should agree that it’s, at a minimum, a top 5 priority. Large variations between teams need to be addressed to efficiently continue on through the sales journey. 

Time to impact

The final piece in the NTENT framework is Time to impact, a crucial element in rounding out the holistic intent of this framework in optimizing your sales process. From a customer experience standpoint, you have to ask yourself what matters to the customer most. What’s left in the sales process once the next steps have been established and the teams’ education and prioritization align?

What does the customer really care about?

At the end of the day, your customer does not care about a signed contract. They care about the benefits and utility they will gain from what you are selling and when they can begin to see the effects. This is a tangible outcome you can give your buyer to set clear expectations. When you understand what your buyer needs and when they need it, you can tailor your conversations to highlight how you can deliver. This will help shift the focus of your journey from a transactional deal to a well-rounded customer experience that leads to a closed deal. 

Related Content: Buyers Hate Sales Handoffs: Here’s How to Fix Yours

Customize Buyer Experiences With the NTENT Framework

The NTENT framework is a current and dynamic approach to customizing your sales journey and setting up your sales process for efficiency. It challenges sellers to drive the sales process from a customer experience standpoint. Traditional frameworks like MEDDIC, RAIN, and BANT, while useful, don’t fully align with today’s buyers’ needs and expectations. The NTENT principles – Next steps, Teams, Education, Numerical priority, and Time to impact – are as adaptable as they are actionable in creating customized sales journeys.

A unique aspect of the NTENT framework is the inclusion of the silent “I” – Intuition. 

A seller’s intuition plays a vital role in applying the framework to their sales process. The goal is not to move the buyer through their journey as fast as possible but at the speed best suited for them. This requires a process that is dynamic and nuanced in order to work efficiently and effectively for both buyers and sellers. NTENT isn’t just about adopting a new strategy. It’s about evolving from linear methodologies that put too heavy a focus on qualifying people. Instead, we invite you to rethink how you engage with your customers to adapt and develop customized sales journeys that take today’s buyers’ experience into account.