A

4 terms

Account Executive (AE)

An account executive (AE) is a quota-carrying salesperson who owns deals from qualified opportunity to signed contract. In B2B SaaS, AEs run discovery, demos, proposals and negotiation, usually working meetings sourced by SDRs, BDRs or marketing.

Annual Contract Value (ACV)

Annual contract value (ACV) is the average yearly value of a customer contract, usually counting only recurring subscription fees and excluding one-time charges. A three-year, 90,000 dollar contract has an ACV of 30,000 dollars.

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is the yearly value of all active recurring subscription contracts at a point in time. It excludes one-time fees and is the standard headline metric for SaaS companies, often calculated as MRR times 12.

Attribution

Attribution is the practice of assigning credit for a conversion, such as a meeting, opportunity or sale, to the touchpoints and channels that led to it. Attribution models range from single-touch, like first or last touch, to multi-touch and data-driven.

B

2 terms

BANT

BANT is a sales qualification framework that checks four things about a prospect: Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline. Dating back to the 1950s, it helps sellers decide quickly whether an opportunity is worth pursuing.

Business Development Representative (BDR)

A business development representative (BDR) is an early-funnel sales role that generates new opportunities, most often through outbound prospecting into accounts that have not shown interest yet. BDRs qualify prospects and book meetings for account executives.

C

6 terms

CHAMP

CHAMP is a sales qualification framework built on four criteria: Challenges, Authority, Money and Prioritization. It reworks BANT to start with the buyer's problems rather than their budget, making qualification more consultative.

Conversion Rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of people or deals at one stage that reach a target outcome, such as replies that become meetings or opportunities that become customers. It is calculated as conversions divided by the starting count, times 100.

Cost per Lead (CPL)

Cost per lead (CPL) is the average amount a company spends to generate one new lead. It is calculated by dividing total lead generation spend in a period by the number of leads produced, and it is used to compare channels and campaigns.

Cost per Meeting

Cost per meeting is the average amount spent to secure one qualified sales meeting. It is calculated by dividing total prospecting costs, including people, data, tools and outsourced services, by the number of meetings booked or held in the same period.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the total sales and marketing spend required to win one new customer over a given period. It is calculated by dividing acquisition costs, including salaries, tools and ad spend, by the number of new customers gained.

Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

Customer lifetime value (LTV or CLV) is an estimate of the total gross profit or revenue a business will earn from one customer over the whole relationship. In SaaS it is often approximated as average revenue per account times gross margin, divided by churn rate.

D

2 terms

Deal Stage

A deal stage is a defined step in the sales process, such as discovery, proposal or negotiation, that an opportunity occupies in a CRM. Each stage has entry and exit criteria and usually a probability used for forecasting.

Discovery Call

A discovery call is the first substantive sales conversation with a prospect, used to understand their situation, problems, goals and buying process. Its purpose is to decide whether a real opportunity exists and what the next step should be.

L

1 term

LTV:CAC Ratio

The LTV:CAC ratio compares a customer's lifetime value with the cost of acquiring that customer. It shows how many dollars of value each dollar of sales and marketing spend returns, and a ratio of about 3:1 is a widely used SaaS benchmark.

M

3 terms

MEDDIC

MEDDIC is a B2B sales qualification methodology that checks six elements of a deal: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain and Champion. It was created at PTC in 1996 and is widely used for complex, high-value sales.

Meeting Booked

A meeting booked is a scheduled sales conversation, usually a discovery call, that a prospect has agreed to attend. It is the main output metric for outbound prospecting and SDR teams, often counted only when the meeting is actually held.

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)

Monthly recurring revenue (MRR) is the normalized amount of predictable subscription revenue a business expects to earn each month. It excludes one-time fees and is the main growth metric for early-stage SaaS companies.

P

1 term

Pipeline Velocity

Pipeline velocity, also called sales velocity, measures how much revenue moves through a sales pipeline per day. It is calculated as number of opportunities times win rate times average deal value, divided by sales cycle length in days.

S

8 terms

Sales Cycle

The sales cycle is the sequence of steps a company follows to turn a prospect into a customer, and its length is the average time that takes. B2B SaaS sales cycles range from days for low-priced tools to many months for enterprise deals.

Sales Development Representative (SDR)

A sales development representative (SDR) is a sales role focused on the top of the funnel: researching and contacting prospects, qualifying interest and booking meetings for account executives. SDRs usually do not close deals themselves.

Sales Forecast

A sales forecast is an estimate of how much revenue a company will close in a future period, based on its open pipeline, historical win rates, deal stages and expected close dates. Finance, hiring and planning decisions all rely on it.

Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a model of how a large pool of potential buyers narrows down, stage by stage, into a smaller group of paying customers. It is used to measure conversion between stages and find where prospects drop out.

Sales Pipeline

A sales pipeline is the set of open deals a sales team is working, organized by deal stage from first qualified conversation to closed won or lost. It shows how many opportunities exist, what they are worth and where each one stands.

Sales Quota

A sales quota is the target a salesperson or team is expected to reach in a set period, usually a month or quarter. Quotas are most often set in revenue or bookings, but can also be based on activities, meetings or pipeline created.

Speed to Lead

Speed to lead is the time between a prospect showing interest, such as submitting a form or replying to an email, and a salesperson's first response. Research consistently shows that faster responses greatly increase the chance of qualifying the lead.

SPIN Selling

SPIN Selling is a consultative sales method built around four types of questions: Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff. It was developed by Neil Rackham and Huthwaite from research into 35,000 sales calls and published as a book in 1988.

T

1 term

Touchpoint

A touchpoint is any interaction between a prospect or customer and a company, such as an email, call, ad, website visit, demo or support conversation. In sales, touchpoints usually refer to the individual contacts in an outreach sequence.

W

1 term

Win Rate

Win rate is the percentage of sales opportunities that end in a closed-won deal. It is usually calculated as won deals divided by all closed deals, won plus lost, in a given period, and it measures how effectively a team converts pipeline into customers.