The B2B Sales Glossary
200 plain-English definitions across sales strategy, RevOps, account management, and outbound - each linked to how we put it into practice for IT and SaaS companies.
SALES STRATEGY
48 terms
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
Targeting a defined set of high-value accounts with coordinated, personalized campaigns.
Account-Based Selling
A sales approach that treats individual accounts as markets of one.
Average Contract Value (ACV)
The average annualized revenue per customer contract.
Buyer Persona
A semi-fictional profile of an individual decision-maker - role, goals, and buying behavior.
Channel / Partner-Led Sales
Selling through third parties - resellers, agencies, or partners - rather than only direct.
Clawback
A provision that recovers paid commission if a deal churns or is canceled early.
Commission
Variable pay earned as a percentage of the revenue a rep closes.
Commission Accelerator
A higher commission rate that kicks in above a quota threshold.
Compelling Event
A time-bound trigger that creates urgency for the buyer to act now.
Competitive Differentiation
The specific, defensible ways your offer is better than the alternatives.
Demand Generation
Marketing activity that creates awareness and interest to fill the top of the funnel.
Discounting
Reducing price to win or accelerate a deal - often at the cost of margin and anchoring.
Freemium
A model offering a free tier to drive adoption, with paid upgrades for advanced value.
Go-to-Market (GTM) Strategy
The overall plan for how a company reaches its market and converts it into revenue.
Ideal Customer Profile (ICP)
A precise definition of the companies most likely to buy, succeed, and expand with you.
Inbound Marketing
Attracting buyers by creating valuable content they find when researching.
Land and Expand
Winning a small initial deal, then growing it through expansion over time.
Lead Generation
The process of attracting and capturing prospective buyers' interest and contact details.
Market Segmentation
Dividing the market into groups that share attributes affecting how you sell to them.
MEDDIC
A B2B qualification framework: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion.
On-Target Earnings (OTE)
A rep's total expected pay at 100% quota attainment - base plus variable.
Positioning
How you want your offer to be perceived relative to alternatives in the buyer's mind.
Price Anchoring
Presenting a reference price first to shape how subsequent prices are perceived.
Product-Led Growth (PLG)
A motion where the product itself drives acquisition, conversion, and expansion.
Quota Attainment
The percentage of quota a rep or team actually achieves in a period.
Ramp-Adjusted Quota
A reduced quota for new reps during their onboarding ramp period.
Rules of Engagement
The documented rules for who owns which accounts and how deals are routed.
Sales Compensation Plan
The structure of base, variable pay, and incentives that drives rep behavior.
Sales Cycle Length
The average elapsed time from first contact to a closed deal.
Sales Funnel vs Pipeline
The funnel is the conceptual buyer journey; the pipeline is the actual list of live deals in your CRM.
Sales Motion
The repeatable way a company acquires customers - defined by how buyers learn and how they buy.
Sales Quota
A revenue or activity target assigned to a rep or team, derived from funnel math - not from a CEO's wish.
Sales Territory
A defined set of accounts assigned to a rep, ideally balanced by opportunity rather than headcount or geography.
Sales-Led Growth
A motion where human sellers drive acquisition through outreach, demos, and negotiation.
SAM / SOM
Serviceable Addressable Market and Serviceable Obtainable Market - the realistic slices of TAM.
Sandbagging
Reps deliberately understating or holding back pipeline to ensure they beat targets.
Tiered Pricing (Good/Better/Best)
Packaging the offer into ascending tiers so buyers self-select up.
Total Addressable Market (TAM)
The total revenue opportunity if you captured 100% of your market.
Total Contract Value (TCV)
The total value of a contract over its entire term, including one-time fees.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
The one thing that makes your offer distinctly better than every alternative.
Usage-Based Pricing
Pricing that scales with how much a customer uses the product.
Value Metric
The unit you charge by that scales with the value the customer receives.
Value Proposition
A clear statement of the value a customer gets, for whom, and why it beats alternatives.
Value-Based Pricing
Pricing anchored to the outcome and ROI you deliver, not to your cost or competitors' rates.
Vertical Specialization
Focusing sales and messaging on specific industries rather than selling horizontally.
Whitespace Analysis
Mapping untapped revenue opportunity within existing accounts.
Willingness to Pay (WTP)
The maximum a customer would pay for your offer given the value they receive.
Win Rate
The percentage of qualified opportunities that convert to closed-won deals.
REVOPS
56 terms
30-60-90 Day Plan
A structured ramp plan defining goals for a new rep's first three months.
AE:SDR Ratio
The balance of closers to pipeline-generators on a sales team.
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
The annualized value of a company's recurring subscription revenue.
Battle Card
A concise reference that helps reps win against a specific competitor or objection.
Bookings vs Revenue
Bookings is the value of signed contracts; revenue is what's recognized as delivered.
Bottom-Up Forecast
A forecast built by summing individual deals and segments rather than top-down targets.
Burn Rate
The rate at which a company spends cash in excess of revenue.
CAC Payback Period
How many months of gross margin it takes to recover the cost of acquiring a customer.
Commit vs Best Case
Commit is what you're confident will close; best case is the optimistic upside.
Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ)
Software that automates building accurate quotes for complex products and pricing.
Conversion Rate
The percentage of prospects that advance from one funnel stage to the next.
CRM Data Hygiene
Keeping CRM data clean, complete, and current so pipeline and forecasts are trustworthy.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
The total sales and marketing cost to acquire one new customer.
Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
The total gross profit a customer generates over their entire relationship.
Deal Desk
A cross-functional function that reviews and approves complex or non-standard deals.
Deal Stage
A defined phase in the pipeline reflecting how far a deal has progressed.
Discovery Call
The early conversation where a rep uncovers a prospect's needs, pain, and process.
Forecast Accuracy
How closely the forecast matches actual results over time.
Forecast Category
The tag (commit, best case, pipeline, omitted) that classifies a deal's likelihood.
Gross Margin
Revenue minus the direct cost of delivering it, as a percentage.
Key Performance Indicator (KPI)
A quantifiable metric used to track progress toward a specific objective.
Lead Routing
Automatically assigning incoming leads to the right rep or team.
Lead Scoring
Ranking leads by fit and engagement to prioritize sales effort.
LTV:CAC Ratio
The ratio of customer lifetime value to acquisition cost - a core efficiency benchmark.
Marketing/Revenue Attribution
Assigning credit for revenue to the marketing and sales touches that influenced it.
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
The recurring subscription revenue normalized to a monthly figure.
Mutual Action Plan (MAP)
A jointly owned timeline of steps both buyer and seller commit to toward a close.
North Star Metric
The single metric that best captures the core value a company delivers.
Objection Handling
Addressing a buyer's concerns in a way that moves the deal forward.
Pipeline Coverage
The ratio of open pipeline to your target; a healthy band is typically 3-4× quota.
Pipeline Velocity
How quickly value moves through the pipeline - a function of deals, value, win rate, and cycle.
Product Demo
A presentation showing how the product solves the prospect's specific problem.
Proof of Concept (POC)
A limited trial that proves the product works for the buyer's specific use case.
Ramp Curve
The trajectory of a new rep's productivity from hire to full quota.
Revenue Leakage
Revenue lost to process gaps - under-billing, missed renewals, unapplied price increases.
Revenue Operations (RevOps)
The function that aligns sales, marketing, and customer success around one revenue process, data set, and tech stack.
Rule of 40
A SaaS health benchmark: growth rate plus profit margin should sum to at least 40%.
Runway
How many months of operation remain at the current burn rate.
SaaS Magic Number
A measure of sales efficiency: new ARR generated per dollar of sales and marketing spend.
Sales Certification
A gate confirming a rep can perform a skill before doing it live.
Sales Coaching
Ongoing one-on-one development to improve rep skills and deal execution.
Sales Dashboard
A live view of the metrics that show pipeline, forecast, and team health.
Sales Enablement
Equipping reps with the content, training, tools, and coaching to sell effectively.
Sales Forecasting
Predicting future revenue by building it bottom-up from segment, new-vs-existing, channel, and weighted pipeline.
Sales Kickoff (SKO)
An annual event to align the sales team on strategy, goals, and enablement.
Sales Methodology
A framework for how reps engage buyers - e.g. MEDDIC, SPIN, Challenger.
Sales Process
The defined sequence of stages and actions a deal moves through to close.
Sales Ramp Time
How long a new rep takes to reach full productivity; structured onboarding shortens it.
Sales Tech Stack
The set of tools a revenue team uses to find, engage, close, and retain customers.
Sales Velocity
The amount of revenue a team generates per day, derived from pipeline dynamics.
Seasonality
Predictable patterns in revenue tied to time of year or buying cycles.
Single Source of Truth
One authoritative system (usually the CRM) where revenue data lives.
Stage Exit Criteria
The conditions that must be true to advance a deal to the next pipeline stage.
Talk Track
A prepared, proven way to frame value or respond in a sales conversation.
Time to First Deal
How long a new rep takes to close their first deal - a key ramp metric.
Weighted Pipeline
Pipeline value adjusted by each deal's stage probability of closing.
ACCOUNT & CS
45 terms
Account Expansion
Growing revenue within existing customers through upsell, cross-sell, and usage growth.
Account Management
Owning the ongoing commercial relationship with a customer - renewal, expansion, and strategy.
Account Plan
A strategy document for retaining and growing a specific key account.
At-Risk Account
A customer showing signals - low usage, poor sentiment - that predict churn.
Buyer Enablement
Giving buyers the tools and information to navigate their own purchase internally.
Churn Save
Retaining a customer who was actively at risk of leaving or canceling.
Contraction (Downgrade)
A reduction in a customer's spend without full churn - fewer seats or a lower tier.
Cross-Sell
Selling a customer an additional, complementary product or service.
Customer Advocacy
When customers actively promote you through referrals, reviews, and testimonials.
Customer Churn
The rate at which customers or revenue are lost; usually a symptom of an upstream problem.
Customer Effort Score (CES)
A metric of how easy it was for a customer to get something done.
Customer Experience (CX)
The customer's overall perception across every interaction with your company.
Customer Health Score (CHS)
A composite metric that predicts whether an account is likely to renew, expand, or churn.
Customer Journey
The full path a customer takes from first touch through onboarding, value, and renewal.
Customer Onboarding
The structured process of getting a new customer to first value.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
A short-term measure of how satisfied a customer is with a specific interaction or period.
Customer Success (CS)
The function focused on ensuring customers achieve their desired outcomes.
Customer Success Manager (CSM)
The role that owns adoption, value realization, and health for a book of accounts.
Customer Success Plan
A documented plan of the customer's goals and the steps to achieve them.
Escalation
Raising a customer issue to higher priority or seniority for resolution.
Executive Business Review (EBR)
A senior-level strategic review with a customer's leadership.
Expansion MRR
The additional monthly recurring revenue gained from existing customers.
Expansion Revenue
Additional recurring revenue from existing customers via upsell and cross-sell.
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
The percentage of recurring revenue retained, excluding any expansion.
Logo Retention
The percentage of customers (by count) retained over a period.
Multithreading
Building relationships with multiple stakeholders in an account, not just one.
Named Account
A specific high-value account assigned to a dedicated owner.
Net Negative Churn
When expansion revenue from existing customers exceeds revenue lost to churn.
Net Promoter Score (NPS)
A loyalty metric based on how likely customers are to recommend you, scored from -100 to +100.
Net Revenue Retention (NRR)
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a year, including expansion and churn.
Pooled Coverage
A model where a team of reps serves many accounts collectively rather than 1:1.
Proactive vs Reactive CS
Whether customer success acts ahead of issues or only responds after them.
Product Adoption
The degree to which a customer actively uses the product's key features.
Quarterly Business Review (QBR)
A structured periodic meeting with a customer to review value delivered and plan ahead.
Reference Customer
A satisfied customer willing to vouch for you to prospects.
Relationship Mapping
Charting the strength and nature of relationships across an account.
Renewal
A customer's decision to continue their subscription for another term.
Renewal Rate
The percentage of contracts up for renewal that actually renew.
Save Rate
The percentage of at-risk customers that customer success retains.
Single-Threaded Deal
A deal or account that depends on a relationship with just one person.
Stakeholder Map
A view of the people in an account, their roles, influence, and relationship to you.
Time to Value (TTV)
How long it takes a new customer to realize meaningful value from the product.
Trusted Advisor
A relationship where the vendor is sought out for strategic guidance, not just support.
Upsell
Selling a customer a higher tier or more of what they already buy.
Voice of Customer (VoC)
Structured collection of customer feedback to guide decisions.
AI OUTBOUND
51 terms
A/B Testing
Comparing two variants of a message to see which performs better.
Account Executive (AE)
The closing role that owns deals from qualified opportunity to signature.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of emails that fail to deliver to the recipient's server.
Business Development Rep (BDR)
A rep focused on outbound prospecting to generate new pipeline.
CAN-SPAM & GDPR Compliance
Legal rules governing how you may send commercial outreach.
Clay
A spreadsheet-style platform for building automated enrichment and outreach workflows.
Claygent
Clay's AI research agent that finds and structures information from the web.
Cold Calling
Phoning a prospect who hasn't previously engaged with you.
Cold Email
Unsolicited outreach email to a prospect who hasn't engaged before.
Connection Request (LinkedIn)
An invitation to connect on LinkedIn, ideally sent before any pitch.
CRM Integration
Connecting outreach and enrichment tools so data flows into the CRM automatically.
Data Decay
The gradual loss of accuracy in contact data as people change jobs.
Data Enrichment
Augmenting lead records with additional, verified attributes from multiple sources.
Domain Reputation
Mailbox providers' trust score for your sending domain.
Dynamic Variables
Placeholders in outreach that auto-fill with each prospect's specific data.
Email Deliverability
Whether your emails actually reach the inbox rather than spam - governed by domain setup and reputation.
Email Sequence
An automated series of scheduled outreach emails to a prospect.
Email Verification
Checking that an email address is valid and deliverable before sending.
Email Warmup
Gradually building a sending domain's reputation before sending at volume.
Firmographics
Company-level attributes like industry, size, revenue, and location.
Funding Signal
News of a funding round indicating budget and pressure to scale.
GTM Engineering
Building the systems - data, enrichment, automation, integrations - that generate pipeline at scale.
Hiring Signal
Job-posting activity that indicates growth, pain, or a capacity gap.
Inbox Placement
Whether emails land in the primary inbox versus spam or promotions.
Intent Data
Signals that indicate an account is actively researching a solution like yours.
Intent Data Provider
A service (e.g. Bombora, 6sense) that tracks accounts researching a category.
List Building
Compiling a targeted set of accounts and contacts to reach out to.
Meeting Booked Rate
The percentage of outreach that converts into booked meetings.
Multichannel Outreach
Coordinating outreach across email, phone, LinkedIn, and other channels.
No-Show Rate
The percentage of booked meetings where the prospect doesn't attend.
Open Rate
The percentage of recipients who open an outreach email.
Personalization at Scale
Tailoring outreach to each prospect using data, automated across many contacts.
Pipeline Generation
The end-to-end activity of creating qualified sales opportunities.
Prospecting
The activity of identifying and reaching out to potential customers.
Reply Rate
The share of outreach recipients who respond - the core efficiency metric for cold outbound.
SAL / SQL / MQL
Stages of lead qualification: Marketing-, Sales-Accepted, and Sales-Qualified Leads.
Sales Cadence / Sequence
A scheduled series of outreach touches across channels to engage a prospect.
Sales Development Rep (SDR)
A rep focused on inbound lead qualification and pipeline generation.
Sales Opportunity
A qualified potential deal that has entered the pipeline.
Sender Score
A reputation rating for your sending IP or domain used by mailbox providers.
Sending Domain
A dedicated domain used for cold outreach to protect the primary brand domain.
Sending Limits
Caps on how many messages or requests you can send per day to stay safe.
Signal-Based Selling
Timing outreach to real-world buying signals instead of blasting a static list.
Social Selling
Building relationships and pipeline through social platforms, mainly LinkedIn.
Spam Complaint Rate
The percentage of recipients who mark your email as spam.
SPF, DKIM & DMARC
Email authentication standards that prove your messages are legitimate.
Technographics
Data about the technologies a company uses.
Trigger Event
A specific occurrence that signals an account may be ready to buy.
Waterfall Enrichment
Querying multiple data providers in sequence to maximize coverage and accuracy.
Webhook
An automated message sent between apps when an event occurs, enabling real-time workflows.
Website Visitor Identification
Tools that reveal which companies visit your site without filling a form.
