Sales terms

Sometimes it seems that the sales world has its own language, with complex technical terms and jargon. On this page, we try to explain the main sales terms for you, so that you are completely with us.  

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | 0-9

A

Account-based marketing

Account-based marketing, or ABM for short, is a strategy mainly used in B2B marketing. The strategy focuses on each individual customer and their needs to personalise the sale and message.

Account management

With account management or account management, you manage relationships with your customers. The account manager does this by providing sufficient service and support to the customers. This way, you can ensure that you can retain the customers and you can increase sales.

Closing techniques

Closing techniques are used at the end of a sales conversation to persuade the prospect or customer to make a purchase. As it were, you end your sales conversation with an appropriate closing technique.

Acquisition

Acquisition in sales is an important part of the sales cycle and refers to the process of seeking, finding and approaching new customers, with the aim of getting them to buy your products or your services. There are several ways to do this, for example cold calling, e-mail marketing and networking.

B

B2B and B2C

The biggest difference between B2B and B2C is that B2B focuses on selling products or services to other companies. An example is a manufacturing company. B2C focuses on selling to consumers in the private market, think supermarkets. Because of the big difference in target market, there is a lot of difference in the approach to marketing for the business.

BoFU

The bottom of the funnel of BoFu is the last step in the sales funnel. At this stage, prospects will decide whether to proceed to purchase. So it is important here for the salesperson to engage with the potential customer to convince them.

Buyer persona

A buyer persona refers to a profile of an 'ideal customer'. This profile is usually semi-fictional, and is created through research and data analysis. This involves a very detailed description in terms of demographics, interests, behaviour, challenges, goals and needs.

C

Call to action

A call to action, or in short and CTA, marketers or sellers use to encourage potential customers to take a certain action. These actions can be various things, for instance buying something, contacting them, signing up, and so on.

Churn rate

Churn rate includes the percentage of customers a company loses in a given period. It is calculated by dividing the number of customers leaving in a given period by the total customers at the start of that period. A synonym for churn rate is customer turnover.

Closing ratio

The closing ratio is used as a measure of how efficiently a salesperson or sales team works. It is the percentage of potential customers who were addressed and ultimately led to a deal.

Commission or commission

If a seller successfully completes a sale, he gets a percentage of the sale. This is the commission or the committee. This fee often depends on the amount he or she has sold and is paid on top of his salary.

Commission plan

A commission plan describes how the seller's commission is calculated and paid out. The plan acts as motivation for sellers to try even harder to sell as much as possible.

Conversion and conversion rate

The conversion ratio or conversion rate is the percentage of prospects or customers who proceed to an action on a web page. These actions can involve different things, such as subscribing to the newsletter, filling in a form or making a purchase.

CRM or Customer Relationship Management

The term CRM or Customer Relationship Management refers to systems or software that help you track and analyse customer information. You can use this to optimise your sales strategy.

Cross-selling

At cross-selling the seller offers existing customers products or services that complement their previous purchases. Often, an additional product that the customer can use with the chosen product is suggested at the time of purchase.

Customer Acquisition Cost

Acquisition, or finding and approaching potential customers, is an essential element in the sales cycle, but it can also involve some costs. The costs a company incurs in acquiring a customer are called the customer acquisition cost of CAC.

Customer journey

The customer journey, describes the journey and experience that the customer follows between becoming aware of a particular problem until after the final purchase. There are different versions of the steps of the customer journey.

Customer lifetime value

The customer lifetime value, or CLV for short, is the total value of a customer from the beginning to the end of a customer relationship. It includes the expected amount the customer will spend during the relationship with the company.

Customer success manager

A customer success manager or CSM Ensures healthy customer relations and provides assistance to customers. He or she is a direct point of contact for the customer to make the sale as smooth and pleasant as possible and also help resolve any problems after the purchase.

D

Decision-making unit

If you are selling something to a customer or prospect, you should consider the decision making unit or DMU. The DMU refers to everyone who plays a role during the decision to purchase a product or service.

Demand generation

Demand generation refers to everything a company does to make its target audience warm to the company and its products and/or services. With demand generation, as the name itself suggests, the company mainly wants to create more demand for their product or service.

Discovery call

The first (telephone) conversation you have with a potential customer is called a discovery call. This conversation allows the salesperson to get to know the customer and discover whether the product or service suits this customer.

E

Elevator pitch

A elevator pitch is a short and powerful presentation of a product or service to convince the potential customer of its benefits. It often lasts only one minute, so it should be convincing enough.

F

Field coaching

At field coaching a sales coach goes along to the working environment, read a sales meeting, of a salesperson. This involves observing this employee's behaviour during the sales call, after which the sales coach will provide targeted feedback. The goal of field coaching is to increase the quality of the sales conversation, and further achieve better sales figures.

Firmographics

Firmographics or firmographic data refers to general characteristics and information about a particular company. B2B sellers can use this data to find better prospects.

Follow-up

With a follow-up conversation, you follow up with potential customers after a previous contact or a sales pitch. With this contact, the salesperson wants to sound out the customer's interest and possibly close a sale.

G

Go to market

Go to market or GTM is a plan describing how the seller can reach and convince potential customers to buy their product or service. With this strategy, the company aims to gain an advantage over the competition.

H

Hit rate

The hit rate shows the percentage of sales against the number of attempts the seller made. This is an important KPI for sellers to measure their success and you can easily calculate it.

I

Inbound marketing

Inbound marketing is a prospecting method in which the company focuses on creating valuable content and experiences to attract potential customers to the company. Examples of inbound marketing include content marketing, email marketing or SEO.

K

KPI

A KPI is a critical performance indicator or key performance indicator in English. As the name suggests, it is an indicator to measure a company's performance. There are a lot of different KPIs in sales to make objectives measurable.

L

Lead generation or lead generation

Lead generation, or lead generation in Dutch, refers to the process of attracting and identifying potential customers for a business. Its purpose is to find people who are interested in your offering and/or your company, and to convert them into 'qualified leads' that the sales team can approach.

Lead nurturing

During the process of lead nurturing the salesman builds a relationship with a potential customer. To do this, he uses various marketing techniques to arrive at important information.

Lead scoring

With lead scoring gives all leads a score to rank them according to priority. The salesperson scores each lead on how likely they are to proceed to purchase and how quickly they will do so.

M

MoFu

The middle of the funnel or MoFu refers to the middle part of the sales funnel. At this stage of the funnel, the customer is considering your product; the salesperson will try to convert leads into prospects here.

N

Net promoter score

The net promoter score, in short NPS, is an indicatior that maps customer satisfaction. It is often calculated using a simple survey of customers, who can give a rating from 0 to 10, for example.

O

Outbound sales

Outbound sales is a term that refers to the activities a sales professional undertakes to contact customers through all kinds of channels. Not the prospect or customer, but the salesperson takes the initiative, making outbound sales different from inbound marketing. Examples include cold calling, networking or advertising.

P

Pipeline

A pipeline in sales refers to the process of tracking potential customers from initial contact to the final sale. It is a visual representation of the different stages in the sales process, which enables sales people to track and manage the progress of their deals.

Product-led growth

Product-led growth is a strategy that can help companies grow faster and more efficiently based on their products or services. In particular, it offers help with a go-to-market strategy.

Prospecting and prospects

Prospect refers to finding and qualifying customers. It is a commercial and ongoing process where a company looks for prospects, or potential customers.

Q

Qualification

If a vendor has a qualification does, he or she will check whether a potential customer has a high probability of making a purchase. The salesperson can do this by examining the customer's budget, needs and willingness to buy.

Quota

Sales quota include the targets for the seller. These targets are about sales volume in a given period. Usually, salespeople have to achieve them in a month, a quarter or in a year.

R

Referral

If a customer or other business relation recommends your product or service to another potential customer, we call this a referral. Sellers can ask their customers to do this during the sales process or at the end of a successful sale.

Retargeting

Retargeting in sales is a marketing strategy that involves targeting people who have previously interacted with your brand or website, but have not made a purchase or completed a desired action. It starts from the idea that potential customers do not always make a purchase when they first visit a website.

RevOps

With RevOps or revenue operations, different departments come together to work on common goals. This makes it easier for different teams to make decisions to help grow the business as well.

ROI

ROI or return on investment shows whether an investment is profitable or not. It shows the ratio between the cost of an investment and how much it is or will yield. Based on this, a company can decide which investments they will make.

S

Sales coach and sales coaching

At sales coaching, synonym for sales coaching, a salesperson is coached individually, with the aim of taking sales calls to the next level. These sales coaching sessions can be artificial, in the form of fictitious situations and role plays, but it can also happen at real sales meetings in the form of field coaching sessions. These one-to-one sessions are delivered by the sales coach.

Sales cycle

A sales cycle shows the steps between lead generation and closing a sale. With this, the salesperson always knows what the next step is with each (potential) customer. You can use this cycle to reflect your success to your next customers. Synonyms of sales cycle are sales process or sales cycle.

Sales enablement

Sales enablement includes content and tools that help salespeople improve their skills and results. This allows salespeople to act more effectively in a sale.

Sales forecast

The sales forecast forecasts sales volume, revenue and profit. To do this, it looks at past sales data and future market trends.

Sales funnel

The sales funnel or sales funnel describes a potential customer's journey to a purchase in a visual way. It includes several stages: first, the customer becomes aware of your company and your offer, he or she becomes interested, the product or service is then considered, after this, the customer makes a final decision.

Sales training

A sales education programme educates and trains sales professionals to develop their sales skills and improve their performance. Its purpose is to provide sales professionals with knowledge and skills they need to be successful in their role and achieve their sales goals. Synonyms are sales training, sales training and sales training.

Sales plan

A sales plan or sales plan is a strategic plan that describes how to sell your product or service, which target markets to approach, how to drive and manage sales and how to measure performance. A good sales plan is essential to achieve your sales goals.

Sales training or sales trainer

In a sales training sales professionals are educated and trained to develop their sales skills and improve their performance. Its purpose is to provide sales professionals with knowledge and skills they need to be successful salespeople and achieve their sales goals. Such training is delivered by a sales trainer. Synonyms are sales training, sales training and sales education.

Sales velocity

A potential customer moves through the sales funnel to reach a purchase. We measure the speed of that path using the sales velocity or sales speed.

SWOT analysis

In a SWOT analysis maps the internal strengths and weaknesses, and external threats and opportunities of the company or a specific project. This gives you an overview of internal and external factors for which you can prepare the project or for which you can seek a solution if possible.

T

Target market

If you are selling a product or service, you will want to reach a certain target audience. We call this target group the target market. This group often has a certain characteristic in common and is seen as the most likely customers due to this characteristic.

Territory

Sometimes a vendor will be given responsibility over a particular area, in other words a sales territory. The salesperson will seek new customers in that area and service existing customers from that area.

ToFu

The top of the funnel or ToFu refers to the beginning of the sales funnel. In this phase, you are addressing a large audience and want people to become aware of your company, brand or product.

U

Upselling

Suppose someone wants to buy a bike in the same bike shop, but is offered a better model or a better bike saddle which makes the bike more expensive, but perhaps better value. Then the seller does here upselling, proposing an upgrade, which is more expensive than the product the customer originally wanted to buy. Here, make sure the difference between the prices are not too big, otherwise the customer may drop out?

USP

The USP or unique selling proposition is the advantage of your product or service that is unique about your company compared to the competition. This advantage ensures that you stand out in the market among many other companies.

V

Sales coach and sales coaching

At sales coaching, synonymous with sales coaching, a salesperson is coached individually, with the aim of taking sales calls to the next level. These sales coaching sessions can be artificial, in the form of fictitious situations and role plays, but it can also happen at real sales meetings in the form of field coaching sessions. These one-to-one sessions are delivered by the sales coach.

Sales training

A sales training programme educates and trains sales professionals to develop their sales skills and improve their performance. Its purpose is to provide sales professionals with knowledge and skills they need to be successful in their role and achieve their sales goals. Synonyms are sales training, sales training and sales training.

Sales plan

A sales plan or sales plan is a strategic plan that describes how to sell your product or service, which target markets to approach, how to drive and manage sales and how to measure performance. A good sales plan is essential to achieve your sales goals.

Sales process

The sales process refers to a salesperson's approach to selling a product or service to a prospect or customer. The process usually has a number of structured steps that must be taken to win a sale. Synonyms of sales plan are sales cycle and sales cycle.

Sales strategy

A good sales strategy is essential to the success of any business. It is a concrete roadmap designed to sell products or services with the aim of generating and increasing revenue. The strategy describes the resources that can help you create, promote and improve sales of your product or service.

Sales techniques

Sales techniques are used in a sales conversation with customers or prospects, with the aim of persuading them to purchase your product or service. They spark interest in your offer and they help understand your customer's needs to eventually lead to a sale. Several techniques exist.

Sales training

In a sales training sales professionals are educated and trained to develop their sales skills and improve their performance. Its purpose is to provide sales professionals with knowledge and skills they need to be successful in their roles and achieve their sales goals. Synonyms are sales education, sales training and sales training.

W

Resistance

At the end of a sales call, resistance the headlines. This involves a situation where a customer or prospect indicates that they do not want to accept the proposal you have made as a salesperson. Arguments such as 'too expensive' or 'I'm not interested anyway' are often used and are a form of resistance />Click edit button to change this html