The A-Z of Sales Terminologies 100+ Sales Acronyms
Get familiar with some of the commonly used sales terms. Reference this glossary to brush up on sales jargon before that important meet.
All
ABC: Always be Closing
It is a sales strategy for reps, encouraging them to take all the steps necessary to close a sale.
AB Testing
Also known as AB Split Testing, the term refers to experimenting A and experiment B to compare which one performs better.
ABE: Account-based Everything
Also known as ABR or Account-based revenue. It is a framework that enables personalized care and management of customer accounts throughout the entire customer life cycle.
ABM: Account-Based Marketing
ABM is a strategic framework that engages individual customer or prospect accounts with focused and hyper-personalized marketing.
ABS: Account-Based Selling
Also known as ABD or Account-based Development Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD) is a B2B framework that enables hyper-personalized and multi-point engagement for high-value accounts.
ACV: Annual Contract Value
ACV is defined as the financial value that the subscriber pays the company based on the subscription agreements.
AE: Account Executive
Sales team members who close the deals with sales qualified opportunities.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
A set of algorithms and methodologies which includes neural networks, regression and classification systems that businesses use to analyze business data and make decisions.
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
AIDA is a strategy of motivating people to purchase by grabbing their attention, increasing their interest in a product, making them desire the product, and enabling them to act. AIDA often corresponds to advertisement strategies.
AM: Account Manager
An account manager is an individual who manages a large group of customer accounts
API: Application Program Interface
A technical framework that allows data exchange between two platforms.
ARPA: Average monthly recurring revenue
The mean of the amount of revenue received per month
ARR: Annual Recurring Revenue
ARR is defined as 12 times MRR or Monthly Recurring Revenue.
B2B: Business-to-Business
Refers to sales and transactions between businesses. For example, a company that sells software products like CRM to other businesses.
B2C: Business-to-Consumer
Refers to the sales or transactions where a business sells the product directly to the end-user. For instance, a book publisher sells the books directly to customers.
B2C2B: Business-to-Consumer-to-Business
Refers to sales transactions were, companies sell products or services to customers to understand the market reception and eventually get business customers.
BAB: Before-After-Bridge
BAB refers to a cold emailing technique where you open by describing the pain point of the target audience or customer and then talking about how it would be different if that pain point did not exist.
BANT: Budget-Authority-Need-Timeline
A strategy to figure out what is the right time to make a sale to a prospect.
BD: Business development
BD refers to the process or the department that is charged with developing working relationships and exploring opportunities for growth for the organization.
BDR: Business Development Representative
Sales reps who are responsible for exploring new ways in which the business can expand.
BOFU: Bottom of the Funnel
Refers to the final stage of the sales process where the customers make the payment for the purchase.
BI: Business Intelligence
The use of internal company data to make informed decisions about products and the market.
BR: Bounce rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of email addresses that did not reach the recipient’s inbox as it was returned by the email server.
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
The cost to acquire a new customer. This cost is generally the aggregate of the spending, salaries, bonuses, commissions, and overhead, divided by the total number of customers acquired during that period.
Read more about calculating customer acquisition cost
CAGR: Compounded Annual Growth Rate
CAGR is the measure of growth over different periods. It is the rate of return that is needed for an invested to grow from its starting balance to its current value, assuming that the profits were reinvested at the end of each period of the plan.
CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing
CAN-SPAM is the set of laws for commercial emails. It gives the recipients the right to opt-out of receiving marketing emails. It also enlists the penalties that companies can face if they do not adhere to these laws.
CCR: Customer Churn Rate
A metric that is used to measure the retention value of customers.
CTR: Click Through Rate
The ratio the number of times people click on an ad to the number of times people see that ad.
CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value
A prediction of how much profit a single customer will bring to the company during the entire relationship with the company.
CMRR: Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue
A formula that is used to predict the Monthly Recurring Revenue in the upcoming fiscal year.
COB: Close of Business
The time at which the business closes. Usually, it is 5 PM, often referred to as EOD or End of Day.
CR: Conversion Rate
The number of people who take an action is divided by the number of people that you reached out to. A higher conversion rate generally indicates good marketing and sales strategies.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management
Software platforms that assist businesses and institutions manage customer data and interactions. For instance, LeadSquared is an example of a CRM.
CMS: Content Management System
The computer program, usually a software service, that is used to create, store, update and manage digital content.
COGS: Cost of Goods Sold
The incremental cost of producing one good, such as a subscription.
CPC: Cost Per Click
The advertising metric based on which an advertising revenue model is created. Websites bill advertisers based on this metric.
CPI: Cost Per Impression
An advertising metric based on which advertising revenue is calculated. Websites bill advertisers based on how many times an advertisement is seen.
CTA: Call-To-Action
A phrase or a sentence telling people what to do. CTA is usually added at the end of blogs or in marketing collateral. CTA examples include phrases like “Buy Now”, “Sign Up Today”, “Schedule a call” and so on.
CX: Customer experience
The collection of all the interactions that a customer has with a business, which includes visiting the website, being on call with support staff or salespeople, and so on.
CxOs: C-Level or C-Suite Executives
A term to collectively refer to Chief Officers such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and so on.
DSO: Day Sales Outstanding
The time after acquiring a client before getting the payment.
DBA: Database Administrator
The Person in charge of creating and managing the tables and databases related to the organization.
EBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization
The standard account procedure for most large companies.
EOD: End of Day
The closing hours of the business, typically 5 PM.
EOM: End of Month
An short form for the expression “End of Month”.
EOM: End of message
An email lingo is included in the subject line to indicate that the subject itself is the message and there is no further content in the body of the message.
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning
The software platform for centralizing purchase, inventory, human resource management, product planning and more.
ESP: Email service provider
A company that provides the software services needed for email campaigns and communication.
FAB: Features, Advantages, Benefits
A strategy for sales reps that allows them to focus on features, advantages, and benefits of a product or service to a customer.
FY: Fiscal year
The 12-month duration that a company uses to mark its account period. This includes activities like budgeting, financial reporting, and forecasting. FY may or may not align with the calendar year.
FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
A method of creating apprehension about competing companies in the minds of the prospects to gain a competitive advantage.
FMV: Fair Market Value
The price at which a reasonably interested prospect would be willing to pay for the product or a service.
GBU: Global Business Unit
A semi-autonomous component of a multinational corporation with focus on a specific vertical, a specific set of functions or products.
GTM: Go-To-Market
The time taken for a product to be launched to the market. GTM strategy involves the roadmap for launching a product to get competitive advantage.
ICP: Ideal Customer Profile
A description of the customer you are trying to sell to. ICP includes age, sex, job description, income, demographics, and more. It involves the behavioral and psychological aspects of the customers.
ILV: Inbound Lead Velocity
The rate at which the number of incoming leads is increasing.
ISV: Independent Software Vendor
An organization that makes software products for mass markets.
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
A cloud computing service that offers virtualized hardware infrastructure via subscription services. The subscriber can use this infrastructure to run their own software.
IPO: Initial Public Offering
Refers to the stock issued by a private company for the first time.
KPI: Key performance indicator
KPI is a metric that you measure or keep track of to understand how your business is performing. There are numerous KPIs that track and measure different aspects of the business. Sales KPIs include lead response rate, call connect rate, and others.
L2RM: Lead to revenue management
A customer engagement strategy that combines metrics, goals, and processes to get new customers and upsell to current customers, causing increased overall growth.
LAARC: Listen-Acknowledge-Assess-Respond-Confirm
A strategy for handling objections from interested prospects. LAARC is a strategy to change the minds of potential customers who are apprehensive about making the purchase.
LAIR: Listen-Acknowledge-Identify the objection-Reverse the objection
A strategy for handling objection by presenting the objection in reverse. The sales rep listens to the concerns that say that back to show that they understand. Then they show that the objection is not the primary reason for not making the purchase and the truth is the opposite of what they think.
LDR: Lead Development Representative
A person who is responsible for connecting with potential customers at the early stage of the buying process.
LTV: Lifetime Value
A formula for calculating how much value a customer generates. LTV is given as the average MRR per account times customer lifetime divided by the Customer Churn Rate.
LVR: Lead Velocity Rate
The speed at which a company is growing monthly with its qualified leads.
MAP: Marketing Automation Platform
The technology that automates sales and marketing efforts and converts high-quality leads into customers. It replaces the tedious and manual process with automated solutions.
MoM: Month-over-month
Changes in any metrics when compared to the previous month. MoM is generally more volatile than Quarter-over-Quarter or Year-over-year changes. MoM generally reflects events like holidays, economic issues, or natural disasters.
MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead or a prospective customer who has shown interest in your product or service and meets the requirements that are determined by the marketing criteria. MQL generally means that the customer is more likely to become a customer in the future.
MQR: Marketing Qualification Representative
The internal sales rep who follows up leads with engaging marketing content.
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue
The monthly recurring revenue that a company acquires from recurring billing. It is a net sum of the new recurring accounts, upsells, loss from downsells, and cancellations.
MTD: Month-to-date
A period starting from the first day of the month to the current date.
ML: Machine Learning
Set of algorithms for business data mining and analysis.
MOFU: Middle Of The Funnel
The stage is the sales funnel where the prospect gets in touch with the company for more information regarding the product or the service.
NAV: Net Assessment Value
Value per share in a mutual fund.
NLP: Natural Language Processing
Processing of natural language, such as spoken words, or written text, using AI and ML methods. NLP is commonly implemented in chat bots and AI assistants.
NPS: Net Promoter Score
NPS is a customer satisfaction metric that measures the likelihood that an existing customer will recommend your business to a friend or family. NPS ranges from 0 to 10 with 0 being least likely and 10 being the most.
OKRs: Objectives and Key Results
A strategy to define and track outcomes through qualitative and quantitative metrics. OKRs were initially used at Intel and are now used across multiple companies to track employee performance, including Google.
OTE: On Target Earnings
A sales pay structure that uses commissions over a base earning.
OOO: Out of office
This abbreviation is used as a part of a sentence to inform that you are not in your workplace. For instance, “I am OOO till the coming Monday.”
PaaS: Platform as a Service
Cloud computing service that offers software platform to the client, such as Salesforce, Slack and others.
PoC: Point of Contact
An entity who coordinates the flow of information to and from an organization.
PLM: Product Lifecycle Management
The process of managing a product across its entire lifecycle, from the ideation to the deployment and termination phase.
P&L: Profit and loss
A statement is used to determine a company’s financial performance. It lists the expense and income of the company and determines the net profit and loss.
PQL: Product Qualified Lead
A customer who has met a set of requirements and has a high chance of purchasing the product.
QoQ: Quarter-over-quarter
Change in a metric with relation to the previous quarter. QoQ values are more volatile than year-over-year values but less than month-over-month values.
QTD: Quarter-to-date
The time starting from the beginning of the current quarter of the calendar year to the current date.
RFP: Request for proposal
An invitation sent out by a company to vendors to bid for products or services.
ROI: Return on investment
The returns a company gets back by investing time, money, and talent on a project.
SaaS: Software as a service
A cloud computing paradigm where a business provides its clients with services through software. An example of software as a service is the Windows operating system where you can access Microsoft services through the installed operating system.
SAL: Sales accepted lead
A lead who is accepted by the sales team because they have been considered as someone worth putting effort into. SALs are generally prospects who have shown great interest in the product or the service that the company is offering.
SDR: Sales development representative
A type of sales representative who works on outbound sales prospecting.
SFA: Salesforce automation
Software that automates numerous tasks in the Salesforce software suite that is otherwise repetitive and tedious.
SFDC: Salesforce.com
Refers to the Salesforce CRM software platform.
SLA: Service level agreement
A contract between departments or businesses that sets goals and expectations for the service. For example, in the case of a marketing SLA, the sales team provides what type of lead they are expecting from the marketing team.
SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound
A strategy for setting up goals and objectives for businesses.
SMB: Small and medium-sized business
Describes businesses with lower annual revenue, typically between 5M to 200M USD. It may also refer to companies with 100 or fewer employees.
SPIN: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need
A “hurt and rescue” strategy of selling where the sales rep finds the pain point or “hurt” of the prospect. They then show how the product their selling can rescue them from their problem.
SQL: Sales qualified lead
Refers to a high-quality lead with a potential opportunity. With an SQL, there is a much higher chance of closing the deal.
SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
A model for identifying where an organization or an individual is doing well and what they can do to improve further. It helps identify future goals.
TED: Tell me, explain to me, Describe to me
A reminder to ask open-ended questions to prospects to gather more information surrounding their requirements.
TOFU: Top of the Funnel
The part of the sales funnel where the prospect simply enters the screening process.
UX: User Experience
A concept that covers all aspect of the user’s interaction with the product, business or the service that impacts the user’s emotions, viewpoint, and attitude towards the brand.
UI: User Interface
The visual elements that allows the user to interact with the product or service. For a website, it refers to the design elements and layout. For an app, it refers to the app design.
VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol
A protocol that is used in softphones or browser phones that are typically used to make sales calls.
VM: Virtual Machine
Software emulation of computer hardware that allows users to run a separate system on top of a host system.
WFH: Work from home
Used to mention that the person is working from their home.
WIIFM: What’s In It For Me?
A basic principle of persuasion. If the prospect does not gain anything from the purchase, they will not make the purchase.
WOM: Word of Mouth
Information that is passed on verbally, often crucial in Social Selling.
YTD: Year-to-date
A period starting from the beginning of the calendar year to the current date.
A
ABC: Always be Closing
It is a sales strategy for reps, encouraging them to take all the steps necessary to close a sale.
AB Testing
Also known as AB Split Testing, the term refers to experimenting A and experiment B to compare which one performs better.
ABE: Account-based Everything
Also known as ABR or Account-based revenue. It is a framework that enables personalized care and management of customer accounts throughout the entire customer life cycle.
ABM: Account-Based Marketing
ABM is a strategic framework that engages individual customer or prospect accounts with focused and hyper-personalized marketing.
ABS: Account-Based Selling
Also known as ABD or Account-based Development Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD) is a B2B framework that enables hyper-personalized and multi-point engagement for high-value accounts.
ACV: Annual Contract Value
ACV is defined as the financial value that the subscriber pays the company based on the subscription agreements.
AE: Account Executive
Sales team members who close the deals with sales qualified opportunities.
AI: Artificial Intelligence
A set of algorithms and methodologies which includes neural networks, regression and classification systems that businesses use to analyze business data and make decisions.
AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action
AIDA is a strategy of motivating people to purchase by grabbing their attention, increasing their interest in a product, making them desire the product, and enabling them to act. AIDA often corresponds to advertisement strategies.
AM: Account Manager
An account manager is an individual who manages a large group of customer accounts
API: Application Program Interface
A technical framework that allows data exchange between two platforms.
ARPA: Average monthly recurring revenue
The mean of the amount of revenue received per month
ARR: Annual Recurring Revenue
ARR is defined as 12 times MRR or Monthly Recurring Revenue.
B
B2B: Business-to-Business
Refers to sales and transactions between businesses. For example, a company that sells software products like CRM to other businesses.
B2C: Business-to-Consumer
Refers to the sales or transactions where a business sells the product directly to the end-user. For instance, a book publisher sells the books directly to customers.
B2C2B: Business-to-Consumer-to-Business
Refers to sales transactions were, companies sell products or services to customers to understand the market reception and eventually get business customers.
BAB: Before-After-Bridge
BAB refers to a cold emailing technique where you open by describing the pain point of the target audience or customer and then talking about how it would be different if that pain point did not exist.
BANT: Budget-Authority-Need-Timeline
A strategy to figure out what is the right time to make a sale to a prospect.
BD: Business development
BD refers to the process or the department that is charged with developing working relationships and exploring opportunities for growth for the organization.
BDR: Business Development Representative
Sales reps who are responsible for exploring new ways in which the business can expand.
BOFU: Bottom of the Funnel
Refers to the final stage of the sales process where the customers make the payment for the purchase.
BI: Business Intelligence
The use of internal company data to make informed decisions about products and the market.
BR: Bounce rate
Bounce Rate is the percentage of email addresses that did not reach the recipient’s inbox as it was returned by the email server.
C
CAC: Customer Acquisition Cost
The cost to acquire a new customer. This cost is generally the aggregate of the spending, salaries, bonuses, commissions, and overhead, divided by the total number of customers acquired during that period.
Learn more about calculating customer acquisition cost
CAGR: Compounded Annual Growth Rate
CAGR is the measure of growth over different periods. It is the rate of return that is needed for an invested to grow from its starting balance to its current value, assuming that the profits were reinvested at the end of each period of the plan.
CAN-SPAM: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing
CAN-SPAM is the set of laws for commercial emails. It gives the recipients the right to opt-out of receiving marketing emails. It also enlists the penalties that companies can face if they do not adhere to these laws.
CCR: Customer Churn Rate
Customer churn rate is used to measure the retention value of customers.
CTR: Click Through Rate
The ratio the number of times people click on an ad to the number of times people see that ad.
CLTV: Customer Lifetime Value
A prediction of how much profit a single customer will bring to the company during the entire relationship with the company. Learn how you can improve Customer Lifetime Value for your business.
CMRR: Committed Monthly Recurring Revenue
A formula that is used to predict the Monthly Recurring Revenue in the upcoming fiscal year.
COB: Close of Business
The time at which the business closes. Usually, it is 5 PM, often referred to as EOD or End of Day.
CR: Conversion Rate
The number of people who take an action is divided by the number of people that you reached out to. A higher conversion rate generally indicates good marketing and sales strategies.
CRM: Customer Relationship Management
Software platforms that assist businesses and institutions manage customer data and interactions. For instance, LeadSquared is an example of a CRM.
CMS: Content Management System
The computer program, usually a software service, that is used to create, store, update and manage digital content.
COGS: Cost of Goods Sold
The incremental cost of producing one good, such as a subscription.
CPI: Cost Per Impression
An advertising metric based on which advertising revenue is calculated. Websites bill advertisers based on how many times an advertisement is seen.
CTA: Call-To-Action
A phrase or a sentence telling people what to do. CTA is usually added at the end of blogs or in marketing collateral. CTA examples include phrases like “Buy Now”, “Sign Up Today”, “Schedule a call” and so on.
CX: Customer experience
The collection of all the interactions that a customer has with a business, which includes visiting the website, being on call with support staff or salespeople, and so on.
CxOs: C-Level or C-Suite Executives
A term to collectively refer to Chief Officers such as Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and so on.
D
DSO: Day Sales Outstanding
The time after acquiring a client before getting the payment.
DBA: Database Administrator
The Person in charge of creating and managing the tables and databases related to the organization.
EBITDA: earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization
The standard account procedure for most large companies.
EOD: End of Day
The closing hours of the business, typically 5 PM.
EOM: End of Month
An short form for the expression “End of Month”.
EOM: End of message
An email lingo is included in the subject line to indicate that the subject itself is the message and there is no further content in the body of the message.
ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning
The software platform for centralizing purchase, inventory, human resource management, product planning and more.
ESP: Email service provider
A company that provides the software services needed for email campaigns and communication.
F
FAB: Features, Advantages, Benefits
A strategy for sales reps that allows them to focus on features, advantages, and benefits of a product or service to a customer.
FY: Fiscal year
The 12-month duration that a company uses to mark its account period. This includes activities like budgeting, financial reporting, and forecasting. FY may or may not align with the calendar year.
FUD: Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
A method of creating apprehension about competing companies in the minds of the prospects to gain a competitive advantage.
FMV: Fair Market Value
The price at which a reasonably interested prospect would be willing to pay for the product or a service.
G
GBU: Global Business Unit
A semi-autonomous component of a multinational corporation with focus on a specific vertical, a specific set of functions or products.
GTM: Go-To-Market
The time taken for a product to be launched to the market. GTM strategy involves the roadmap for launching a product to get competitive advantage.
I
ICP: Ideal Customer Profile
A description of the customer you are trying to sell to. ICP includes age, sex, job description, income, demographics, and more. It involves the behavioral and psychological aspects of the customers.
ILV: Inbound Lead Velocity
The rate at which the number of incoming leads is increasing.
ISV: Independent Software Vendor
An organization that makes software products for mass markets.
IaaS: Infrastructure as a Service
A cloud computing service that offers virtualized hardware infrastructure via subscription services. The subscriber can use this infrastructure to run their own software.
IPO: Initial Public Offering
Refers to the stock issued by a private company for the first time.
Intellectual Property Rights
This can apply to almost everything related to sharing, visualizing, or using the CRM platform, such as HTML codes, software development, labels, user I.D.s, passwords, and everything else.
Invoice
An invoice is a bill or commercial report that a supplier gives to a consumer that details the items, quantities, and agreed-upon value for products or services.
K
KPI: Key performance indicator
KPI is a metric that you measure or keep track of to understand how your business is performing. There are numerous KPIs that track and measure different aspects of the business. Sales KPIs include lead response rate, call connect rate, and others.
L
L2RM: Lead to revenue management
A customer engagement strategy that combines metrics, goals, and processes to get new customers and upsell to current customers, causing increased overall growth.
LAARC: Listen-Acknowledge-Assess-Respond-Confirm
A strategy for handling objections from interested prospects. LAARC is a strategy to change the minds of potential customers who are apprehensive about making the purchase.
LAIR: Listen-Acknowledge-Identify the objection-Reverse the objection
A strategy for handling objection by presenting the objection in reverse. The sales rep listens to the concerns that say that back to show that they understand. Then they show that the objection is not the primary reason for not making the purchase and the truth is the opposite of what they think.
LDR: Lead Development Representative
A person who is responsible for connecting with potential customers at the early stage of the buying process.
LTV: Lifetime Value
A formula for calculating how much value a customer generates. LTV is given as the average MRR per account times customer lifetime divided by the Customer Churn Rate.
LVR: Lead Velocity Rate
The speed at which a company is growing monthly with its qualified leads.
M
MAP: Marketing Automation Platform
The technology that automates sales and marketing efforts and converts high-quality leads into customers. It replaces the tedious and manual process with automated solutions.
MoM: Month-over-month
Changes in any metrics when compared to the previous month. MoM is generally more volatile than Quarter-over-Quarter or Year-over-year changes. MoM generally reflects events like holidays, economic issues, or natural disasters.
MQL: Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead or a prospective customer who has shown interest in your product or service and meets the requirements that are determined by the marketing criteria. MQL generally means that the customer is more likely to become a customer in the future.
MQR: Marketing Qualification Representative
The internal sales rep who follows up leads with engaging marketing content.
MRR: Monthly Recurring Revenue
The monthly recurring revenue that a company acquires from recurring billing. It is a net sum of the new recurring accounts, upsells, loss from downsells, and cancellations.
MTD: Month-to-date
A period starting from the first day of the month to the current date.
ML: Machine Learning
Set of algorithms for business data mining and analysis.
MOFU: Middle Of The Funnel
The stage is the sales funnel where the prospect gets in touch with the company for more information regarding the product or the service.
N
NAV: Net Assessment Value
Value per share in a mutual fund.
NLP: Natural Language Processing
Processing of natural language, such as spoken words, or written text, using AI and ML methods. NLP is commonly implemented in chat bots and AI assistants.
NPS: Net Promoter Score
NPS is a customer satisfaction metric that measures the likelihood that an existing customer will recommend your business to a friend or family. NPS ranges from 0 to 10 with 0 being least likely and 10 being the most.
O
OKRs: Objectives and Key Results
A strategy to define and track outcomes through qualitative and quantitative metrics. OKRs were initially used at Intel and are now used across multiple companies to track employee performance, including Google.
OTE: On Target Earnings
A sales pay structure that uses commissions over a base earning.
OOO: Out of office
This abbreviation is used as a part of a sentence to inform that you are not in your workplace. For instance, “I am OOO till the coming Monday.”
P
PaaS: Platform as a Service
Cloud computing service that offers software platform to the client, such as Salesforce, Slack and others.
PoC: Point of Contact
An entity who coordinates the flow of information to and from an organization.
PLM: Product Lifecycle Management
The process of managing a product across its entire lifecycle, from the ideation to the deployment and termination phase.
P&L: Profit and loss
A statement is used to determine a company’s financial performance. It lists the expense and income of the company and determines the net profit and loss.
PQL: Product Qualified Lead
A customer who has met a set of requirements and has a high chance of purchasing the product.
Q
QoQ: Quarter-over-quarter
Change in a metric with relation to the previous quarter. QoQ values are more volatile than year-over-year values but less than month-over-month values.
QTD: Quarter-to-date
The time starting from the beginning of the current quarter of the calendar year to the current date.
R
RFP: Request for proposal
An invitation sent out by a company to vendors to bid for products or services.
ROI: Return on investment
The returns a company gets back by investing time, money, and talent on a project.
S
SaaS: Software as a service
A cloud computing paradigm where a business provides its clients with services through software. An example of software as a service is the Windows operating system where you can access Microsoft services through the installed operating system.
SAL: Sales accepted lead
A lead who is accepted by the sales team because they have been considered as someone worth putting effort into. SALs are generally prospects who have shown great interest in the product or the service that the company is offering.
SDR: Sales development representative
A type of sales representative who works on outbound sales prospecting.
SFA: Salesforce automation
Software that automates numerous tasks in the Salesforce software suite that is otherwise repetitive and tedious.
SFDC: Salesforce.com
Refers to the Salesforce CRM software platform.
SLA: Service level agreement
A contract between departments or businesses that sets goals and expectations for the service. For example, in the case of a marketing SLA, the sales team provides what type of lead they are expecting from the marketing team.
SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-Bound
A strategy for setting up goals and objectives for businesses.
SMB: Small and medium-sized business
Describes businesses with lower annual revenue, typically between 5M to 200M USD. It may also refer to companies with 100 or fewer employees.
SPIN: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need
A “hurt and rescue” strategy of selling where the sales rep finds the pain point or “hurt” of the prospect. They then show how the product their selling can rescue them from their problem.
SQL: Sales qualified lead
Refers to a high-quality lead with a potential opportunity. With an SQL, there is a much higher chance of closing the deal.
SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
A model for identifying where an organization or an individual is doing well and what they can do to improve further. It helps identify future goals.
T
TED: Tell me, explain to me, Describe to me
A reminder to ask open-ended questions to prospects to gather more information surrounding their requirements.
TOFU: Top of the Funnel
The part of the sales funnel where the prospect simply enters the screening process.
Territory Management
Territory Management is a function that separates the sales structure of your company into parts. This allows salespeople to share and group accounts in the CRM based on region, market and projected revenue.
U
UX: User Experience
A concept that covers all aspect of the user’s interaction with the product, business or the service that impacts the user’s emotions, viewpoint, and attitude towards the brand.
UI: User Interface
The visual elements that allows the user to interact with the product or service. For a website, it refers to the design elements and layout. For an app, it refers to the app design.
V
VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol
A protocol that is used in softphones or browser phones that are typically used to make sales calls.
VM: Virtual Machine
Software emulation of computer hardware that allows users to run a separate system on top of a host system.
W
WFH: Work from home
Used to mention that the person is working from their home.
WIIFM: What’s In It For Me?
A basic principle of persuasion. If the prospect does not gain anything from the purchase, they will not make the purchase.
WOM: Word of Mouth
Information that is passed on verbally, often crucial in Social Selling.
Y
YTD: Year-to-date
A period starting from the beginning of the calendar year to the current date.
