50+ Common Terms that Every Inside Sales Guy Should Know

Pankaj kukreti
7 min readDec 12, 2022

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There is always certain common terminology in every area, whether it is sales or design. I have compiled a list of some common terms that I have learnt throughout the years. These Sales terminology is used on a daily basis by those who work in business and marketing to express ideas and engage in their profession. You can prepare for a job in sales by learning to comprehend the terms. Understanding these terms will help you communicate successfully in your sales department.

Image From : A Woman Working as a Customer Support · Free Stock Photo (pexels.com)

Acct. Account

An account keeps track of all customer interactions, including contact information, preferred services, and transactions with your company. When a customer makes their first purchase from your company, an account is created.

ASP — Average Sale/Selling Price (ASP)

The average selling price of goods or commodities is the price at which a specific product or commodity is sold across all channels or markets.

B2B / B2C’ Business to Business / Businness to Customer

Business-to-business (B2B) refers to transactions between businesses, whereas business-to-consumer (B2C) refers to the sale of goods or services to individuals.

BDR — Business Development Representative

A business development representative (BDR) is a sales professional dedicated to finding new business and tapping into new markets

BI — Buying Intent

Buying intent, also known as buyer and purchasing intent, is the probability, the degree of willingness and inclination of consumers to buy a product or service within a certain period of time

C Level or C- suite

C-level, also called the C-suite, is an adjective used to describe high-ranking executive titles within an organisation.

CAGR — Compound Annual Growth Rate

Compound annual growth rate, or CAGR, is the mean annual growth rate of an investment over a specified period of time longer than one year

CB — Call Back

A sales call-back is a prospect’s call you expect to get after leaving a voicemail message.

CL. — Client

a person or organization using the services of a lawyer or other professional person or company:

C-Cmail / C-Call Cold Call / Cold EMail

A cold call email or Call is an email or call done to a prospective customer or client to sell a product or service. The email is unsolicited, meaning the recipient has not asked to receive it. You don’t have any prior connection to the person

Commission or Bonus

Commissions and bonuses are both a form of variable pay — money that is determined by sales activities in addition to the fixed (base) pay.

CPQ — Configure, price and quote

Configure, price, quote software is a term used in business to describe software systems that help sellers quote complex and configurable products.

CRM — Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management (CRM) is a process in which a business or other organization administers its interactions with customers, typically using data analysis to study large amounts of information.

Cross & Upselling

Upselling and Cross-selling are the two very effective techniques of marketing wherein the sales representative encourages the customer to buy more products or buy a better product.

Dailer

A dialer (American English) or dialler (British English) is an electronic device that is connected to a telephone line to monitor the dialed numbers and alter them to seamlessly provide services that otherwise require lengthy National or International access codes to be dialed

Decision Maker

a person who makes important decisions:

Discover & Specific Call

Discovery calls set the trajectory of your deal and will determine how you’ll do everything else in the sales process.

The specific call is the first real opportunity for the sales team to gain a clearer insight into the challenges a company is facing and what they want from a solution. They do this by running through a series of specific questions, the answers to which will help determine whether your product or service is suitable or not.

Engagements

sales engagement is the interactions that occur between buyers and sellers.

EOD — End of the Day

It’s used to set a deadline for a task that should be complete by the end of the day

Fortune & INC Companies

The term Fortune & INC 500 refers to a list of 500 of the largest companies in the United States compiled by Fortune magazine every year.

Gate- Keeper

a gatekeeper is the person who intercepts marketing and sales professionals before they speak to a business owner or company leader.

ICP Ideal Customer Profile

An ideal customer profile is defined as the type of company that would benefit the most from your product or service. Companies that fit your ICP are most likely to buy and continue to use your product, making them extremely important for business growth.

Inbound & Outbound Sales

Inbound sales involve using tactics to drive leads and business to your sales reps. Where as In outbound sales, your sales team seeks out business and leads through activities such as cold calling

KPI — Key Performance indicator

a quantifiable measure used to evaluate the success of an organization, employee, etc. in meeting objectives for performance:

Lead Gen.

the action or process of identifying and cultivating potential customers for a business’s products or services:

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a process of ranking sales leads to identify which prospective customers are most likely to make a purchase. A lead score can help a company allocate its time and resources and ultimately increase its overall sales.

Leads

A sales lead refers to a person or business entity that is currently not a client but may eventually become one.

MQL & MAL Marketing Accepted Lead (MAL) and Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL)

Marketing accepted leads are potential customers that your company is interested in.

& MQL is a prospect that your marketing team deems more likely to eventually turn into a sale than other leads,

NA — No Answer:

When Client didn’t answer the call you made Then reps. Put in NA Category to know to approach that client again

NAV — Net Asset Value

Fund Assets — Fund Liabilities Importance of NAV. Whether using it for a business or a fund, the NAV is an important metric that reflects the total shareholder (or unitholder) equity position

NDA — Non-disclosure agreement

A Non-Disclosure Agreement, also generally called as ‘Confidentiality Agreement’, is an agreement wherein the parties agree to share the confidential information/data which is specified in the ‘Confidentiality Clause’ of the Non-Disclosure Agreement.

NLWC — No Longer with Company

When cold caller got to knew that person left the organization then we put it in NLWC Category

NpNa — No Pitch No Sales:

That stage, when prospect have no intention of buying any services or product and says no intereswted after listening the pitch

NPS — Net promoter score

The Net Promoter Score is an index ranging from -100 to 100 that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others

RP- The Right Party

The term “right-party contact” is a term that refers to your ability to reach the right person every time.

Lead Nuturing -

Lead nurturing can help you to develop personalized B2B relationships with customers and prospects at every stage of the sales funnel

Onboarding

the action or process of integrating a new employee into an organization or familiarizing a new customer or client with one’s products or services:

Sales Oppurtunity :

Sales opportunity is a deal that you have the possibility to close.

Pain Point

Pain points are specific problems faced by current or prospective customers in the marketplace. Pain points include any problems the customer may experience along their journey

Performance Plan

Employers can use performance plans to assist employees who are suffering in their positions. Instead of explicitly reprimanding or dismissing them, they recommend a constructive approach and provide supporting documents for future assistance. Performance plans, on the other hand, have specified standards for more successful outcomes.

PoC — Point of Contact

a person or department that can be approached for information or assistance on a specific topic:

Selling Pricing

The selling price is used to sell the item at a certain cost and can be calculated using the selling price formula. The amount that the buyer pays to buy the product is called the selling price. The actual selling price is the price the buyer pays to buy a product or service.

Prospect

A prospect is the possibility or likelihood of some future event occurring.

PO — Purchase Order

A purchase order (PO) is a formal document that buyers issue vendors listing the required items, quantity, preferred purchase price, and expected delivery date. It also establishes payment terms and the desired credit period.

RoP — Request of Proposal

A request for proposal (RFP) is a business document that announces a project, describes it, and solicits bids from qualified contractors to complete it

Sales Pipeline

A sales pipeline is a visual snapshot of where prospects lie within a sales funnel. It outlines the stages a prospect goes through as they go from lead to customer, and the actions that sales representatives should take at each level

SLA — Service Level Agreement

A Sales and Marketing Service Level Agreement is a contract that both teams agree upon to guarantee that certain processes, timelines, actions, objectives and tasks will be met in a certain way that’ll help reach common goals.

SoW — Statement of Work

As noted, the statement of work is a detailed overview of the project scope. It’s also a way to share the project requirements, acceptance criteria and payment terms with those who are working on the project, whether they are collaborating or are contracted to work on the project.

VM/AM — Virtual Machine or Answering Machine

A virtual reality (VR) “answering machine” can record changes in a person’s immediate environment while they are immersed in virtual worlds and play them back later.

Note : Some popular terms descriptions I gathered from online searches, so bear with me. My intention here is to provide knowledge as a guide only.

all set These concepts are quite important to help a salesperson become more knowledgeable and effective toward their intentions and methods, therefore congratulations if you understand them well as you have already learned half of the sales process. If you learnt anything new, please share it in the comments. I’ll be more happier if you have any questions.

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