Accounts: For our purposes, synonymous with “Companies”. Depending on the customer relationship management (CRM) tool, Accounts may refer to a specific type of record.

Buyer: Someone who is capable of purchasing a product or service.

Cadence: A series of pre-planned sales activities intended to get a prospective buyer to engage with a sales representative.

Closers: Sales representatives responsible for finalizing purchases, or “closing” sales.

Cold call: An outbound phone call made from a sales representative to a prospective buyer who does not know the sales rep. The call is not anticipated or requested by the buyer.

Cold email: An outbound email sent from a sales representative to a prospective buyer who does not know the sales rep. The email is not anticipated or requested by the buyer.

Contacts: For our purposes, synonymous with “Person”. Also a type of record in the customer relationship management (CRM) tool.

Customer relationship management (CRM): A database used to store information about a person or company including contact information, history of interactions, and any relevant purchase information.

Dials: For our purposes, a phone call made by a sales representative.

Drip campaign: A series of emails sent over a given period of time without the sender needing to initiate each individual message.

Full cycle sales: Sales activity comprised of everything from finding, to engaging, to closing sales with prospective buyers.

Funnel: For our purposes, a commonly depicted illustration of the way buyers move through the buying process.

Generalists: Sales representatives who handle all aspects of a sale from start to finish. See “Specialists”.

Inbound sales: Sales opportunities generated by buyers initiating the conversation with the company as opposed to sales representatives making initial contact. See “Outbound sales”.

Lead scraping: A technical term for finding and extracting information related to a prospective buyer. May be performed using automation though can be done manually.

Leads: Depending on the sales methodology followed, this term may refer to companies or contacts, produced either via inbound marketing or outbound selling.

Marketing: The act of promoting a product, or the department that performs such promotion. Marketing leverages messaging at scale (one to many) as opposed to sales (one to one).

Outbound sales: Sales activity that generates opportunities through outreach to prospective buyers who did not request contact.

Pipeline: The list of all sales opportunities (current and past). If a prospect enters the pipeline, they are generally both qualified and interested in making a purchase at some level.

Prospect: Short for “prospective buyer” – see “Buyer”.

Prospecting: Outbound sales activity intended to identify and engage the interest of prospective buyers.

Quota: A required number of activities or results as prescribed by sales management. Some quotas are tied to financial incentives including commissions and bonuses.

Sales: The process of helping a buyer through the steps required to make a purchase. Involves educating the buyer, driving interest, and answering any questions related to the product.

Social selling: A newly popularized term that describes a host of sales-related activities carried out on social media.

Specialists: These are sales representatives who handle only part of the buying process (like driving initial engagement or “closing” a sale).

Swimlane: Refers to the sum of all companies who may be able to benefit from a product. Limited in scope by criteria like size of company and location.