Community / Sales Glossary
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Sales Glossary

60 terms. Every definition has a formula or benchmark where it matters.

Compensation
Accelerator

An Accelerator is a commission rate multiplier that activates once a rep exceeds a specified quota threshold — typically...

Metrics
ACV (Average Contract Value)

ACV is the annualized value of a customer contract, normalizing multi-year deals to a per-year figure for consistent com...

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Team
AE (Account Executive)

An Account Executive is the core quota-carrying sales role responsible for managing the full sales cycle from qualified ...

Metrics
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue)

ARR is the annualized value of all active subscription contracts in a business — the north-star metric for SaaS companie...

Formula available →
Process
BANT

BANT is an older sales qualification framework developed at IBM that evaluates prospects along four dimensions: Budget (...

Team
BDR (Business Development Representative)

A BDR is functionally similar to an SDR but the title is often used specifically for roles focused on outbound prospecti...

Pipeline
Best Case

Best Case is a forecast category that includes all committed deals plus additional pipeline the rep believes has a reali...

Metrics
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

CAC is the total sales and marketing spend required to acquire a single new customer. It includes salaries, commissions,...

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Process
Champion

A Champion is an internal stakeholder at the prospect organization who believes in your solution and is willing to activ...

Metrics
Churn Rate

Churn Rate is the percentage of customers or revenue lost in a given period due to cancellations or non-renewals. Revenu...

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Compensation
Clawback

A Clawback is a provision in a sales compensation plan that requires a rep to return previously paid commissions if a cu...

Process
Close

In sales, the Close refers to the moment a deal becomes committed revenue — typically when a signed contract or purchase...

Outbound
Cold Outreach

Cold Outreach is the practice of initiating contact with a prospective customer who has had no prior interaction with yo...

Compensation
Commission

Commission is the variable pay component of a sales rep's compensation, tied directly to closed revenue or other defined...

Formula available →
Pipeline
Commit

Commit is the forecast category for deals a rep is confident enough in to stake their professional reputation on closing...

Outbound
Connect Rate

Connect Rate is the percentage of outreach attempts that result in a meaningful live conversation with a prospect. For c...

Formula available →
Team
CRO (Chief Revenue Officer)

The CRO is a C-suite executive who owns all revenue-generating functions of the business — typically including sales, ma...

Team
CSM (Customer Success Manager)

A Customer Success Manager is the post-sale relationship owner responsible for ensuring customers achieve their desired ...

Pipeline
Deal Slippage

Deal Slippage is the percentage of deals that were forecasted to close in a given period but did not — they either pushe...

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Process
Decision Criteria

Decision Criteria are the formal and informal requirements a prospect uses to evaluate vendors and select a solution. Fo...

Process
Discovery Call

A Discovery Call is the first substantive sales conversation focused on understanding the prospect's current situation, ...

Compensation
Draw

A Draw is an advance on commissions paid to a sales rep — most commonly used during a ramp period when a new rep is buil...

Process
Economic Buyer

The Economic Buyer is the person at a prospect organization who controls the budget for a purchase and whose signature o...

Retention
Expansion Revenue

Expansion Revenue is additional revenue generated from existing customers through upsells (moving to a higher tier or ad...

Metrics
GRR (Gross Revenue Retention)

GRR measures the percentage of revenue retained from existing customers over a period, counting only churn and contracti...

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Retention
Land and Expand

Land and Expand is a go-to-market strategy where the initial sale is intentionally sized small — targeting a single team...

Metrics
LTV (Customer Lifetime Value)

LTV is the total revenue a business expects to collect from a customer over the entire duration of their relationship. I...

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Process
MEDDIC

MEDDIC is a qualification and deal execution framework used primarily in enterprise B2B sales. The acronym stands for Me...

Process
MEDDPICC

MEDDPICC is an extended version of MEDDIC that adds two additional qualification dimensions: Paper Process (the legal, p...

Metrics
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

MRR is the monthly equivalent of ARR — the total contracted monthly subscription revenue across all active customers. It...

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Process
Multithreading

Multithreading is the practice of building relationships with multiple stakeholders across different functions and level...

Process
Mutual Action Plan (MAP)

A Mutual Action Plan is a co-created, shared document that outlines all the milestones, owners, and deadlines required f...

Retention
Net Retention

Net Retention is another commonly used term for Net Revenue Retention (NRR). It measures the percentage of revenue retai...

Formula available →
Metrics
NRR (Net Revenue Retention)

NRR measures how much revenue a company retains and grows from its existing customer base over a 12-month period, includ...

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Process
Objection Handling

Objection Handling is the structured process of acknowledging, understanding, and resolving concerns that prevent a pros...

Compensation
OTE (On-Target Earnings)

OTE is the total annual compensation a sales rep earns if they hit exactly 100% of quota — it is the sum of base salary ...

Metrics
Payback Period

Payback Period is the number of months it takes for a customer's gross profit contribution to recover the cost of acquir...

Formula available →
Outbound
Personalization

Personalization is the practice of tailoring outreach messages to reflect the specific context, priorities, challenges, ...

Pipeline
Pipeline Coverage Ratio

Pipeline Coverage Ratio is the ratio of total pipeline value to the revenue quota for a given period. It answers the que...

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Pipeline
Pipeline Multiplier

Pipeline Multiplier is another name for Pipeline Coverage Ratio — the ratio of total pipeline value to quota. The term '...

Formula available →
Process
POC / Proof of Concept

A Proof of Concept (POC), sometimes called a pilot or trial, is a structured technical evaluation where a prospect uses ...

Process
QBR (Quarterly Business Review)

A Quarterly Business Review is a strategic executive meeting held between a vendor and a customer every quarter, typical...

Compensation
Quota

Quota is the revenue target assigned to a sales rep, manager, or team for a defined period — typically a quarter or fisc...

Compensation
Quota Attainment

Quota Attainment is the percentage of quota a rep has achieved in a given period, calculated by dividing actual closed r...

Formula available →
Retention
Ramp Time

Ramp Time is the period it takes for a newly hired sales rep to reach full productivity — typically defined as consisten...

Team
RevOps (Revenue Operations)

Revenue Operations is the function that aligns and optimizes the people, processes, data, and technology across sales, m...

Process
RFP (Request for Proposal)

An RFP (Request for Proposal) is a formal document issued by a prospect organization that solicits structured proposals ...

Process
Sales Cycle

The Sales Cycle is the total time elapsed from the moment a prospect becomes a qualified opportunity to the moment a dea...

Metrics
Sales Efficiency Ratio

The Sales Efficiency Ratio (also called the Magic Number in SaaS) measures how much net new ARR a company generates for ...

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Pipeline
Sales Forecast

A Sales Forecast is a projection of the revenue a sales team expects to generate over a defined future period — typicall...

Pipeline
Sales Velocity

Sales Velocity measures how fast money flows through your pipeline — specifically, how much revenue your team generates ...

Formula available →
Team
SDR (Sales Development Representative)

An SDR is an outbound prospecting specialist responsible for generating qualified meetings and pipeline for Account Exec...

Team
SE (Sales Engineer)

A Sales Engineer (also called a Solutions Engineer or Pre-Sales Engineer) is a technical specialist who partners with AE...

Outbound
Sequence (Cadence)

A Sequence (also called a Cadence) is a structured, multi-touch outreach program with a defined number of steps, channel...

Compensation
SPIFF

A SPIFF (Sales Performance Incentive Fund) is a short-term, targeted cash incentive offered to reps for selling a specif...

Outbound
Touch

A Touch is a single outreach attempt to a prospect — one email, one phone call, one LinkedIn message, or one voicemail. ...

Pipeline
Upside

Upside refers to pipeline that has a chance of closing in the period but is not included in either commit or best-case f...

Team
VP of Sales

The VP of Sales is the executive responsible for leading the sales organization — setting strategy, managing sales manag...

Pipeline
Weighted Pipeline

Weighted Pipeline adjusts raw pipeline value by the probability of winning each deal based on its current stage. Rather ...

Formula available →
Metrics
Win Rate

Win Rate is the percentage of qualified opportunities a sales team converts into closed-won deals. It is one of the four...

Formula available →
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