Sales Leadership Glossary

AI SDR (AI Sales Development Representative)

An AI SDR is an artificial intelligence system that automates the traditional SDR role of prospecting, outreach, and meeting booking without human int...

Account Executive (AE)

An account executive is a sales professional responsible for managing the full sales cycle — from qualified opportunity through negotiation and close....

Account-Based Marketing (ABM)

Account-based marketing is a B2B strategy that concentrates sales and marketing resources on a defined set of high-value target accounts, using person...

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the annualized value of active recurring subscriptions, excluding one-time fees. It is the primary growth metric for...

Average Contract Value (ACV)

Average contract value (ACV) is the average annualized revenue per customer contract. It determines sales team structure, compensation, and go-to-mark...

Bookings vs Revenue

Bookings represent the total value of signed contracts in a period, while revenue is the amount recognized according to accounting standards. A $120K ...

Buyer Signals

Buyer signals are digital behaviors and engagement patterns that indicate a prospect is moving toward a purchase decision, including website visits, c...

Champion (Sales)

A champion is an internal advocate within the buying organization who has influence, access to the economic buyer, and a personal stake in your soluti...

Channel Sales

Channel sales is a go-to-market model where a company sells through third-party partners, resellers, distributors, or referral networks rather than (o...

Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)

A Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is a C-level executive responsible for all revenue-generating functions including sales, marketing, customer success, an...

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total cost of acquiring a new customer, including sales and marketing expenses divided by the number of custome...

Data Enrichment

Data enrichment is the process of appending additional information to existing contact and company records in your CRM, such as phone numbers, email a...

Demand Generation

Demand generation is the marketing function focused on creating awareness and interest in a product or service to drive qualified pipeline for the sal...

Discovery Call

A discovery call is the first qualifying conversation between a sales rep and a prospect, designed to uncover pain points, budget, timeline, and decis...

Enterprise Sales

Enterprise sales is a complex, high-ACV B2B sales motion targeting large organizations, characterized by long sales cycles, multiple stakeholders, and...

Go-to-Market Strategy (GTM)

A go-to-market strategy is the plan for how a company brings its product to market, including target customer definition, pricing, distribution channe...

Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)

Gross revenue retention measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, excluding any expansion revenue. ...

Inside Sales

Inside sales is a sales model where reps sell remotely via phone, email, video, and digital tools, as opposed to field sales where reps meet prospects...

Intent Data

Intent data consists of behavioral signals that indicate a company or individual is actively researching solutions in your category, enabling sales te...

LTV to CAC Ratio

The LTV to CAC ratio compares the lifetime value of a customer to the cost of acquiring them, with a 3:1 ratio considered the benchmark for healthy Sa...

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a methodology for ranking prospects based on their likelihood to convert, using a combination of demographic fit (firmographics) and b...

MEDDPICC

MEDDPICC is a sales qualification methodology that stands for Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Paper Process, Identify Pa...

Magic Number (SaaS)

The magic number is a SaaS efficiency metric that measures how much new ARR is generated for every dollar spent on sales and marketing, calculated as ...

Mid-Market Sales

Mid-market sales targets companies between SMB and enterprise, typically with 100-1,000 employees and deal sizes of $25K-$100K ACV, blending elements ...

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the predictable, recurring revenue a company earns each month from active subscriptions, and it's the building bloc...

Multi-Threading

Multi-threading in sales means building relationships with multiple stakeholders within a buying organization to reduce single-point-of-failure risk a...

Mutual Action Plan (MAP)

A mutual action plan is a shared document between buyer and seller outlining the agreed-upon steps, owners, and timeline needed to evaluate and close ...

Net Revenue Retention (NRR)

Net revenue retention measures how much revenue a company retains and expands from its existing customer base over a period, including upsells, downgr...

On-Target Earnings (OTE)

On-Target Earnings (OTE) is the total expected annual compensation when a salesperson hits 100% of their quota, combining base salary plus variable pa...

Pipeline Coverage Ratio

Pipeline coverage ratio is the multiple of qualified pipeline needed to hit a revenue target, typically expressed as 3x-4x of quota....

President's Club

President's Club is an annual top-performer recognition program, typically awarded to the top 10-20% of sales reps who exceed their quota, often inclu...

Product-Led Growth (PLG)

Product-led growth is a go-to-market strategy where the product itself drives user acquisition, expansion, and retention — reducing reliance on tradit...

Quota Attainment

Quota attainment is the percentage of a salesperson's or team's revenue target that has been achieved, calculated as (Actual Revenue ÷ Quota) × 100....

Quota to OTE Ratio

The quota to OTE ratio measures the expected revenue target relative to a salesperson's total compensation, with 5:1 being the standard benchmark for ...

Ramp Time

Ramp time is the number of months it takes a newly hired sales rep to reach full productivity, typically defined as the point where they consistently ...

Revenue Operations (RevOps)

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is the strategic alignment of sales, marketing, and customer success operations under a single function to drive predictab...

SPIFFs (Sales Performance Incentive Fund)

SPIFFs are short-term incentive payments offered to sales reps for achieving specific behaviors or outcomes, like booking demos for a new product or c...

Sales Capacity Planning

Sales capacity planning is the process of modeling how many sales reps are needed to hit a revenue target, accounting for ramp time, attrition, quota,...

Sales Cycle Length

Sales cycle length is the average number of days from first meaningful contact with a prospect to a closed-won deal, and it's one of the four variable...

Sales Development Representative (SDR)

A sales development representative (SDR) is a sales professional focused on outbound prospecting and lead qualification, generating pipeline for accou...

Sales Enablement

Sales enablement is the practice of providing sales teams with the content, tools, training, and data they need to engage buyers effectively and close...

Sales Forecasting

Sales forecasting is the process of predicting future revenue based on pipeline data, historical trends, and rep-level deal assessments, and it's the ...

Sales Qualified Lead (SQL)

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a prospective customer that has been researched and vetted by marketing and/or SDRs and meets the criteria to be pursu...

Sales Velocity

Sales velocity measures how quickly a company generates revenue, calculated as (Number of Opportunities × Average Deal Size × Win Rate) ÷ Sales Cycle ...

Sales-Led Growth (SLG)

Sales-led growth is a go-to-market strategy where revenue is primarily driven by a sales team engaging prospects, as opposed to product-led growth whe...

Sandler Selling System

The Sandler Selling System is a consultative sales methodology focused on uncovering the prospect's pain, establishing budget upfront, and qualifying ...

Territory Planning

Territory planning is the process of segmenting and allocating accounts, industries, or geographic regions to individual sales reps to maximize covera...

Value Selling

Value selling is a sales methodology focused on articulating the measurable business outcomes and ROI a prospect will achieve, rather than competing o...

Waterfall Enrichment

Waterfall enrichment is the practice of querying multiple data providers sequentially for each record, using the next provider only when the previous ...

Win Rate

Win rate is the percentage of sales opportunities that convert to closed-won deals, calculated as closed-won deals divided by total closed deals (won ...