B2B Sales Glossary
30+ essential B2B sales and lead generation terms, clearly defined with examples and links to related features.
Account-Based Marketing
A strategic B2B approach that targets specific high-value accounts with personalized campaigns instead of casting a wide net. ABM aligns sales and marketing teams to focus resources on a defined set of target accounts.
Example: A SaaS company identifies 50 enterprise accounts and creates custom content and outreach sequences for each one.
Account Executive
A sales professional responsible for managing relationships with prospects and closing deals. AEs typically receive qualified leads from SDRs/BDRs and handle the full sales cycle from demo to contract.
Example: After an SDR books a meeting, the AE runs the demo and negotiates the deal through to close.
Annual Recurring Revenue
The total revenue a subscription business expects to generate from its customers over a 12-month period. ARR is the primary growth metric for SaaS and subscription companies, used to evaluate business health and trajectory.
Example: A company with 100 customers each paying $1,000/month has an ARR of $1.2M.
Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline
A lead qualification framework that evaluates prospects across four dimensions: Budget (can they afford it?), Authority (can they decide?), Need (do they have the problem?), and Timeline (are they ready to buy now?).
Example: A sales rep qualifies a lead as BANT-ready because they have budget approval, the VP is the decision-maker, they need a CRM, and they want to implement this quarter.
Business Development Representative
A sales professional who focuses on generating new business opportunities through outbound prospecting. BDRs research target companies, initiate contact, and qualify leads before passing them to account executives.
Example: A BDR uses AI search to find 50 logistics companies in their target market, then sends personalized outreach to each.
Buying Signal
An action or indicator that suggests a prospect is actively considering a purchase. Buying signals include website visits, content downloads, pricing page views, competitive research, job postings for relevant roles, and direct inquiries.
Example: A company posts a job for a "CRM Administrator" — a signal they may be evaluating CRM solutions.
Customer Acquisition Cost
The total cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing spend, sales salaries, tools, and overhead divided by the number of new customers acquired. A healthy business maintains a CAC well below its customer lifetime value.
Example: If you spend $50,000 on sales and marketing in a month and acquire 25 customers, your CAC is $2,000.
Outreach Cadence
A structured sequence of touchpoints (emails, calls, LinkedIn messages) used to engage prospects over a defined period. Cadences ensure consistent follow-up and prevent leads from falling through the cracks.
Example: A 14-day cadence includes 3 emails, 2 LinkedIn messages, and 1 phone call spaced across two weeks.
Champion
An internal advocate at the prospect company who believes in your solution and actively promotes it to other stakeholders. Champions provide insider knowledge, help navigate organizational politics, and push deals forward.
Example: The Director of Operations loves your product and advocates for it in the budget meeting with the VP and CFO.
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers who cancel or do not renew their subscription within a given period. Churn rate is the inverse of retention and one of the most critical metrics for subscription businesses.
Example: If you start the month with 200 customers and 10 cancel, your monthly churn rate is 5%.
Deal Score
An AI-generated composite score that predicts how likely a prospect is to convert based on multiple signals. Modern deal scoring evaluates companies across dimensions like ICP fit, revenue potential, technology stack, need signals, engagement, and buying readiness.
Example: A company scores 87/100 because it matches your ICP perfectly, shows need signals on their website, and recently received funding.
Decision Maker
The person at a company who has the authority to approve a purchase. In B2B sales, there are often multiple decision-makers involved, including economic buyers (budget holders) and technical buyers (evaluators).
Example: For a $50K software deal, the VP of Sales is the economic decision-maker and the Sales Operations Manager is the technical evaluator.
Data Enrichment
The process of enhancing raw lead data with additional information from external sources. Enrichment adds context like employee count, industry, revenue, technology stack, and contact details to basic company records.
Example: You have a company name and website. Enrichment adds: 150 employees, $20M revenue, uses Salesforce, headquartered in Amsterdam.
Sales Funnel
A visual model representing the stages prospects pass through from initial awareness to becoming a customer. The funnel narrows at each stage as unqualified prospects drop out, illustrating the natural attrition in the sales process.
Example: 1,000 visitors become 100 leads, 25 qualified opportunities, and 5 customers — a 0.5% top-to-bottom conversion rate.
Ideal Customer Profile
A detailed description of the type of company that would get the most value from your product or service and that you can serve profitably. The ICP defines industry, company size, geography, pain points, and buying characteristics of your best-fit customers.
Example: ICP: B2B SaaS companies with 50-500 employees in North America that currently use spreadsheets for lead management.
Inbound Lead Generation
A marketing approach where potential customers find your company through content, SEO, social media, or referrals rather than being contacted directly. Inbound leads typically have higher intent because they initiated the interaction.
Example: A prospect reads your blog post about CRM selection, downloads your guide, and fills out a contact form.
Intent Data
Behavioral data that indicates a company or person is actively researching solutions to a specific problem. Intent signals include topic-specific web searches, content consumption patterns, review site visits, and competitive research.
Example: A company is reading multiple articles about "B2B lead generation tools" and visiting pricing pages of your competitors.
Lead Scoring
The process of assigning a numerical value to leads based on their likelihood to convert. Traditional scoring uses rules (job title = 10 points, company size = 5 points). AI scoring evaluates multiple dimensions simultaneously for more accurate predictions.
Example: A lead receives a score of 82/100 based on ICP fit (90%), engagement level (75%), and buying readiness (80%).
Lifetime Value
The total revenue a business can expect from a single customer over the entire duration of their relationship. LTV helps determine how much you can afford to spend acquiring a customer (CAC) while remaining profitable.
Example: If the average customer pays $500/month and stays for 24 months, the LTV is $12,000.
Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion
An enterprise sales qualification framework that evaluates deals across six dimensions. MEDDIC is more rigorous than BANT and is used for complex, high-value B2B sales where multiple stakeholders and long cycles are involved.
Example: Before forecasting a deal, the AE confirms they have identified the economic buyer, understand the decision criteria, and have an internal champion.
Marketing Qualified Lead
A lead that has been deemed more likely to become a customer based on marketing engagement signals such as content downloads, email clicks, webinar attendance, or website behavior. MQLs are passed from marketing to sales for further qualification.
Example: A prospect who downloaded two whitepapers, attended a webinar, and visited the pricing page three times is flagged as an MQL.
Monthly Recurring Revenue
The total predictable revenue a subscription business earns each month. MRR is calculated by multiplying the number of active subscribers by the average revenue per subscriber per month.
Example: With 500 customers at an average of $200/month, MRR is $100,000.
Lead Nurturing
The process of building relationships with prospects who are not yet ready to buy through relevant content, communication, and value delivery over time. Nurturing keeps your brand top-of-mind so that when the prospect is ready, you are their first choice.
Example: A prospect who is not ready to buy this quarter receives monthly industry insights and case studies until their buying timeline aligns.
Outbound Prospecting
A sales approach where reps actively reach out to potential customers through cold email, phone calls, LinkedIn messages, or other direct channels. Outbound gives sales teams control over pipeline volume but requires more effort per lead than inbound.
Example: An SDR identifies 30 target companies using AI search and sends personalized emails to the VP of Sales at each one.
Sales Pipeline
A visual representation of where all your active deals stand in the sales process. A pipeline typically has stages (New, Contacted, Qualified, Converted) and tracks the value, probability, and expected close date of each deal.
Example: Your pipeline shows $300K in total value: $100K in New, $120K in Contacted, $60K in Qualified, and $20K recently Converted.
Sales Prospecting
The process of identifying and reaching out to potential customers who match your ideal customer profile. Prospecting is the top-of-funnel activity that feeds your pipeline with new leads.
Example: Using AI search, a rep finds 40 marketing agencies in London with 20-100 employees — all matching their ICP.
Lead Qualification
The process of evaluating whether a lead is worth pursuing based on criteria like budget, authority, need, timeline, and ICP fit. Qualification prevents wasted effort on leads that will never convert.
Example: After a discovery call, the rep confirms the prospect has budget, the CEO is involved, they need a solution this quarter, and their company matches the ICP perfectly.
Sales Development Representative
A sales professional who specializes in inbound lead qualification or outbound prospecting. SDRs are responsible for the top of the sales funnel — qualifying leads and booking meetings for account executives.
Example: An SDR qualifies 15 inbound leads per day and books 3-4 meetings for the AE team.
Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-Payoff
A consultative selling methodology that guides sales conversations through four types of questions. SPIN helps reps uncover the prospect's real needs rather than jumping straight to a product pitch.
Example: The rep asks about the prospect's current situation, identifies problems with their approach, explores the implications of not solving them, and connects the need to their solution.
Sales Qualified Lead
A prospective customer that has been vetted by the sales team and deemed ready for direct sales engagement. SQLs have passed both marketing qualification (MQL) and initial sales qualification, confirming budget, need, and timeline.
Example: The SDR confirms the prospect has $50K budget, needs a solution within 60 days, and the VP of Operations is the decision-maker. The lead is marked SQL and assigned to an AE.