CAI BANT Framework — Simplified Scoring Rules

Overview

During the April 2026 HubSpot sales workflow review, Citrus America (CAI) finalized a simplified BANT scoring framework for sales qualification. The decision to simplify was deliberate — the goal is team adoption over nuance, with the understanding that scoring rules can be made more granular once the team is comfortable with the process.

This framework governs when a contact advances from MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) to SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) in HubSpot.

Scoring Rules

BANT Dimension	Required Score
Budget	3
Authority	3
Need	3
Timing	3 or 4

Budget, Authority, and Need must all be rated 3 to qualify.
Timing has slightly more flexibility — a score of 3 or 4 is acceptable.
No partial credit or weighted averaging is used at this stage.

Rationale

Miriam Framson (CAI) explicitly chose simplicity to ensure the sales team could adopt the framework without confusion:

"I want to get everyone on board and understanding what's happening... I think for the time being, if we just say set it up that if for the BANT, all of them should be a three, or with the timing, it can be three or four."

A point-based or threshold-weighted system was discussed as a future enhancement but deferred until the team is comfortable with the current rules.

Future Enhancements

The following improvements were noted as potential next steps once adoption is established:

Weighted point system — assign different point values per dimension and require a minimum total score.
More granular Timing options — expand the acceptable range or add sub-criteria.
Automation refinement — trigger additional workflows based on specific BANT combinations (e.g., high Need + low Timing = nurture sequence).

HubSpot Implementation Notes

BANT scoring is configured as a set of fields on the Contact record in HubSpot.
The SQL automation trigger fires when all four BANT conditions are met per the rules above.
A separate automation bug was identified and fixed in the same session: the MQL → SQL trigger was incorrectly linked to the field You juicing currently? instead of Are you already juicing?. Karly Oykhman was assigned to correct this and map existing data. See ^[1] for full action item tracking.

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