Sales Methodology

A channel partner is a company that works with a manufacturer or producer to market and sell their products, software, or services to customers.

Outbound sales is when reps proactively contact potential customers through cold calls or emails to generate leads and build a sales pipeline.

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system is a tool that centralizes customer data to help manage interactions and nurture relationships.

Outbound lead generation means proactively reaching out to potential customers who haven't yet expressed interest to introduce them to your brand.

ABM orchestration aligns marketing and sales actions across channels to deliver seamless, personalized experiences to high-value accounts.

Event tracking is the method of collecting data on specific user actions, or 'events,' on a website or app, such as clicks or downloads.

An API (Application Programming Interface) is a software intermediary that allows two applications to talk to each other and exchange information.

A Call for Proposal (CFP) is a document that solicits proposals, often through a bidding process, for a specific project or service.

Demand generation is the process of creating awareness and interest in your products to build a pipeline of qualified leads for your sales team.

Technographics is data that outlines a company’s technology stack, helping B2B teams identify prospects based on the software and hardware they use.

Data enrichment is the process of enhancing raw data by adding missing information from other sources, making it more complete and actionable.

An Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is a detailed description of the perfect, hypothetical company that would get the most value from your product.

A Single Page Application (SPA) is a web app that interacts with the user by dynamically rewriting the current page rather than loading new pages.

Learn about bounce rate, including understanding bounce rate implications, key factors affecting bounce rate, & reducing your bounce rate effectively.

Closed Lost is a sales term for a deal that didn't go through. The prospect decided not to buy, or the sales team disqualified them.

Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others reflect correct behavior for a given situation.

Learn about big data, including understanding big data characteristics, benefits of leveraging big data, & challenges in managing big data.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the total cost a business spends to gain a new customer. It includes all sales and marketing expenses.

Sales prospecting software automates the process of finding, contacting, and tracking potential customers to help sales teams build their pipeline.

Learn about B2B marketing attribution, including challenges in B2B marketing attribution, & key metrics for effective attribution.

Account management is the post-sales practice of building and nurturing long-term relationships with a company's most valuable clients.

Closed Won is a CRM status for a sales deal that has been successfully concluded, resulting in a signed contract and a new customer.

An email cadence is a scheduled sequence of emails sent to prospects over a specific period to nurture leads and drive engagement.

A sales lead is a potential customer—an individual or organization that has shown interest in your company's products or services.

Sales development is the process of identifying and qualifying potential customers to create a pipeline of sales-ready leads for closers.

Intent data tracks a user's online behavior—like searches and site visits—to identify signals that they are ready to make a purchase.

A System of Record (SoR) is the authoritative data source for a specific type of data. It acts as the single source of truth for an organization.

Sales and marketing analytics involves measuring and analyzing performance data to maximize effectiveness and optimize return on investment (ROI).

The marketing mix is the set of marketing tools a company uses to sell products, defined by the 4Ps: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.

Content Rights Management involves controlling the use and distribution of copyrighted digital media to protect intellectual property.

A marketing automation platform is software that automates marketing actions. It helps manage tasks like email campaigns and lead nurturing.

Regression testing ensures that new code changes don’t negatively impact existing features. It's a key step to maintain software quality after updates.

Lead generation is the process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business's products or services.

Accounts Payable (AP) is the money a company owes its suppliers for goods or services bought on credit. It's listed as a current liability.

A Target Account List (TAL) is a focused list of high-value companies that a business specifically aims to convert into customers.

Pipeline coverage is a key sales metric. It's the ratio of your total open pipeline value to your sales quota for a specific period.

Lead enrichment tools are platforms that automatically add missing data to your leads, like contact info, firmographics, and buying signals.

Contact data is the set of details, like names, emails, and phone numbers, used to get in touch with a person or business for outreach.

White labeling is when a company puts its own branding on a product or service that was actually produced by a different company.

Consumer Relationship Management (CRM) is a strategy for managing all of a company's relationships and interactions with its customers.

Learn about B2B intent data providers, including evaluating intent data quality, leveraging intent data for growth, & B2B intent data: key providers comparison.

Revenue forecasting is the process of estimating a company's future revenue, using historical data and market trends to guide strategic planning.

Data security protects digital information from unauthorized access, corruption, or theft throughout its entire lifecycle.

Direct sales involves selling products directly to consumers in a non-retail setting, such as at home, online, or person-to-person.

NoSQL ("Not only SQL") databases offer a flexible alternative to relational models, excelling at managing large and unstructured data sets.

LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a premium tool helping sales teams find and engage with the right leads and accounts on the LinkedIn network.

Learn about B2B, including what is it, its key elements, the benefits of B2B partnerships, the differences between B2B and B2C, and strategies for effective marketing.

Email marketing is a digital strategy where businesses send targeted emails to prospects and customers to build relationships and drive sales.

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based model where affiliates earn a commission for promoting another company’s products or services.

Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is the portion of the market your business can realistically serve with its current products and sales channels.

CRM integration connects your CRM software with other tools, creating a unified system for all your customer data and business processes.

A value statement is a clear, concise declaration of the unique benefits a company provides to its customers, outlining its core purpose.

Persona-based marketing uses fictional customer profiles, or personas, to create targeted messaging for specific audience segments.

An account is a company or organization that you're targeting for sales. It can be a prospective, current, or even a past customer.

A performance plan is a formal document outlining an employee's goals, expectations, and metrics for success over a specific period.

Microservices is an architecture where apps are built as a collection of small, independent services that communicate with each other over APIs.

An AI sales script generator is a tool that uses artificial intelligence to create personalized sales scripts for any outreach scenario.

Cold calling is a sales tactic where reps contact potential customers by phone who haven't previously expressed interest in their product or service.

A sales funnel is a model illustrating the customer's journey from initial awareness to the final purchase, narrowing down leads at each stage.

A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a prospect who has shown interest based on marketing efforts but isn't yet ready for a sales conversation.

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any form of content, like images, videos, or text, created and shared by users on online platforms.

Firmographic data is information used to classify firms. It includes attributes like industry, employee count, location, and annual revenue.

Sales metrics are quantifiable data points that track and measure a sales team's performance against specific goals and objectives.

Total Addressable Market (TAM) represents the maximum revenue a company can earn by selling its product or service in a specific market.

A sales intelligence platform is software that provides sales teams with data and insights about prospects to help them sell more effectively.

Logo retention is a key B2B metric that measures a company's ability to retain its customers, or 'logos,' over a specific period.

A Marketing Qualified Opportunity (MQO) is a lead vetted by marketing as a genuine sales opportunity, ready for direct sales follow-up.

Email personalization uses subscriber data—like their name, interests, or past behavior—to create highly relevant and targeted email campaigns.

Personalization in sales means tailoring outreach to a prospect's specific needs, interests, and context to make communication more relevant.

Sales automation uses software to streamline and automate repetitive, manual sales tasks, freeing up reps to focus on selling.

A marketing attribution model is a framework for assigning credit to the marketing touchpoints that lead a customer to convert.

Customer centricity is a business approach that puts the customer at the heart of every decision, aiming to build loyalty and long-term value.

Learn about buyer, including identifying your ideal buyer, understanding buyer's journey, & evaluating buyer decision processes.

Customer relationship marketing is a strategy for building lasting connections with customers to foster long-term loyalty and engagement.

Lead generation software helps businesses automate finding and capturing potential customers' contact information to build sales pipelines.

A cold email is an initial outreach sent to a potential customer with whom you've had no prior contact, aiming to introduce your business.

Chatbots are AI-powered programs that simulate human conversation. They interact with users via text or voice, typically for customer support.

An Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is a software application that manages your entire hiring and recruitment process from a single dashboard.

Demand is the economic principle describing a consumer's desire and willingness to purchase a specific good or service at a particular price.

A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is an action plan that outlines how a company will reach target customers and achieve a competitive advantage.

Learn about behavioral analytics, including implementing behavioral analytics successfully, & key metrics in behavioral analytics.

A persona map visually outlines a target customer, detailing their goals, behaviors, and pain points to help your team build genuine empathy.

Marketo is a marketing automation platform used by B2B marketers to manage lead generation, nurturing, email marketing, and analytics.

A landing page is a standalone web page created for a marketing campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” after clicking an ad or email link.

Buying criteria are the specific requirements and standards a customer uses to evaluate products or services before making a decision.

A buying committee is a group of stakeholders within an organization who are jointly responsible for making major purchasing decisions.

Account-Based Marketing (ABM) is a focused B2B strategy where marketing and sales collaborate to target and convert high-value accounts.

Scrum is an agile framework that helps teams structure and manage their work through a set of values, principles, and practices.

A headless CMS is a back-end content repository that delivers content via API to any front-end, decoupling the content from its presentation layer.

Marketing Operations (MOps) is the engine of a marketing team, managing the technology, processes, and people to run campaigns effectively.

Sales operations analytics is the practice of analyzing sales data to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire sales process.

A RESTful API is a web service interface that uses HTTP requests to access and use data, adhering to the constraints of REST architecture.

Lookalike audiences are groups of potential customers who share similar characteristics and behaviors with your existing, high-value customers.

A marketing play is a repeatable tactic used to achieve a specific marketing goal, like generating leads or driving engagement.

A use case is a detailed description of how a user interacts with a system to achieve a specific goal, outlining the steps from start to finish.

“No Spam” is a commitment to sending only relevant, solicited messages. It means avoiding bulk, unwanted emails to respect the recipient's inbox.

AI data enrichment uses artificial intelligence to automatically enhance and update raw data, making it more complete, accurate, and valuable.

Revenue Operations (RevOps) is a business function that aligns a company's sales, marketing, and customer service teams to drive predictable revenue.

A sales demo is a presentation where a sales rep shows a prospect how a product or service works and solves their specific problems.

The Dark Funnel describes customer buying activities that are untrackable by companies, such as private chats and word-of-mouth referrals.