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RESOURCES

SalesSpeak:

 

Below are basic sales terms that are good to know. Don’t worry about understanding all of these as you get started. But it never hurts to know the lingo.

 

Accelerator - Institutions or programs aimed at educating start-up founders. 

Account Executive (AE) -  A member of the sales team. Usually the primary sales person on an account.

Account Management - A function, usually part of the sales team, that manages daily interactions with the customer.

Account Manager - The person who manages daily interactions with the customer.

Average Customer Value (ACV) - The amount of revenue, on average, that a customer generates for a business throughout the life of the relationship.  

Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) - The amount of income a company generates on an annual basis.

Burn rate - The difference between the expenses of a company and the revenue it generates.

Business Development Representative (BDR) - A member of the sales team who handles initial inquiries and qualification for inbound prospects. BDRs on the outbound team will prospect or try to reach out to engage potential prospects. The term is used interchangeably with Sales Development Representative (SDR).

Churn - The rate at which customers abandon your service. Minimizing churn is critical to a successful SaaS business.

Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) - The average cost of acquiring a customer.

Customer Journey - The path a customer takes to familiar themselves with and to purchase your product.

Customer Success - A new function mainly in Software as a Service (SaaS) with the goal of helping customers to get the most of a company’s product or service.

Demand Generation - A method to get leads usually by marketing online. Some ways to do this include Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Inbound - A process where a lead is generated by a prospect expressing interest in your service usually by an email, phone call or web form. 

Lead - Someone who could be a prospect for your product or service. They have to be qualified usually by an sales development representative (SDR) or a business develop representative (BDR).

Lead Scoring - A method to assess the potential of a prospect.

Life Time Value (LTV) - The average amount of revenue that a customer will generate over the lifetime of its relationship with a company.

Minimum Viable Product - A product or service under development with a level of 

Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) - The amount of revenue that is generated monthly on an ongoing basis.

Net Promoter Score (NPS) - A measurement used in Software as a Service to quantify how satisfied a customer is and how likely they are to recommend a service or product to another prospect. A high NPS likely means lower churn and higher Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR).

Outbound - A sales process where the sales team pursues and initiates contact with a lead.

Prospect - A prospective customer. Someone who could buy your product or service.

Qualify - The process of determining if a lead is a prospect for your service.

Revenue - The amount of income or sales that a company generates. 

Sales - The amount of revenue or income that a company generates.

Sales Development Representative (SDR) - A member of the sales team who handles initial contact with a prospect. The term often is used interchangeably with Business Development Representative.

Sales Funnel - The process a company uses to sell a product or service to a customer. A very simplified funnel is lead -> prospect -> customer.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - A process of setting up your website or a webpage so that it is more easily found by prospects using a search engine.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - The process of promoting your products or services online so that they can be more easily found by a prospect. Google AdWords is the primary channel for SEM.

Software as a Service (SaaS) - Services for business and consumers that are available online via the internet.