LEAD GENERATION GLOSSARY OF TERMS

SAL is short for Sales Accepted Lead. Some organizations add a step in the process to define the transition of a Marketing Qualified Lead into a Sales Qualified Lead which signifies that Sales has “accepted” the lead handoff from Marketing but hasn’t yet confirmed that the lead is “Qualified” from the Sales teams perspective. Different organizations define these various phases differently.  Some use MQL > SQL > SAL while others swap the SAL and SQL so it looks like this MQL > SAL > SQL.  Either way the concept is the same.

Sales channels are different ways a business uses to sell their product or service. Some companies use a single sales channel, while others use multiple channels. Some examples of different sales channels include: direct to consumer, online marketplace, auction, resellers, white label, and subscription among others.

There are a lot of wildly different defections for a sales funnel. Some describe it as the sales process your prospects go through to become a customer.  Other definitions include a marketing process to create prospects. It can also be used interchangeably with Sales Pipeline to describe the prospects you are currently engaged with (i.e. the size of your funnel).  The Funnel metaphor is used based on the premise that you need more prospects in the top of your funnel (the start of your sales process), a number that will be whittled down as they move through the process to ultimately becoming a customer.  The metaphor is misleading, in that prospects never move through a sales process as easily as liquid through a funnel.  Regardless, most salespeople lack from sufficient new prospects entering their sales funnel.  Proper Sales Funnel management tracks quantity, quality and velocity of activity into and through the funnel. 

A sales methodology is a framework that outlines how your sellers approach each sales engagement and phase of the sales process. While a sales process maps out a set of techniques or sequence of stages required for success, a sales methodology also introduces discipline through a system of principles and best practices that translate into seller actions.  There are a lot of famous sales methodologies including: SPIN Selling, Strategic Selling, the Challenger Sale, Consultative Selling, Customer-Centric Selling, the Sandler Selling System, Solution Selling, just to name a few. 

Sales metrics or sales performance metrics key data points that represent individual, team or organizational sales or lead generation performance. Sales metrics are used to measure progress toward goals, adjust targets, drive incentives, identify weaknesses, and change fundamental sales methods and strategies to adapt to growth needs or market dynamics.

A sales pipeline is a set of stages that a prospect moves through as they progress from a “prospect” to a customer.  Once each pipeline stage is completed, the prospect is advanced to the next stage.  

A term of non-affection used to commonly describe your company’s legal department or sales administration. Whether it’s multiple rounds of back-and-forth on contracts or immovability on service level agreements, liability protections, or other legal issues, they often stand in the way of deals getting done which can ruin a sales rep’s day. 

A sales process is a series of steps a salesperson goes through to guide a prospective buyer towards a purchase.  The problem with most sales processes is that they are designed from the customer’s perspective and not the buyers. More than likely, your prospect doesn’t care about your sales process. To be meaningful and effective a properly designed sales process should be designed with the customer’s buying process in mind. Align how you sell with how your customer wants to buy and you are more likely to find success. See Customer Buying Process.

A sales quota is the performance or production expectation that sellers must achieve during a set time period to earn their target variable incentive compensation (VIC). Quotas are also called goals, plans, targets, nuts, etc. and can increase or decrease the seller’s motivation depending on how realistic the salesperson perceives the target to be. All too often, companies over-assign quota to ensure they achieve topline revenue targets but in doing so, demotivate sales teams which often leads to chasing off top performers.  A lot of work goes into proper quote planning. 

SAM is the acronym for Serviceable Addressable Market. Due to limitations of your business and industry – geographical, budget, legal, etc. – it’s not reasonable to expect to sell to everyone in your Total Addressable Market (TAM). Your SAM is the segment of your TAM that is within reach.

Top sales performers are commonly accused of sandbagging – delaying closing active deals when they are close to hitting their quota for the month, so they can more easily hit their number in the subsequent month.  This practice is especially common when compensation plans are capped. 

Sandler is a sales training methodology developed by David Sandler in the 1960s.  In 1966, David was in outside sales and had gone on 87 calls and gotten 87 consecutive noes. He was fed up with the traditional enthusiastic presentations and high-pressure closing tactics. They didn’t feel right, and they certainly didn’t work. David Sandler wanted to take control of the sales call, his results, and ultimately, his life. The resulting Sandler Selling System has become one a popular sales methodology and is delivered by one of the largest training networks world-wide. The Sandler Selling System focuses on three key areas: Building and sustaining the relationship, Qualifying the opportunity, and Closing the sale.

A Sales Script or Cold Calling Script is a written transcript of what you want your salespeople to say.  The problem is good salespeople don’t work from scripts because they know that they don’t work.  If your sales team is using a script, they are not customizing their messaging to what your prospect cares about.  If a salesperson is depending on a script, they are treating all prospects exactly alike.   See instead Talk Tracks and Call Flows.  Scrips do work for Voicemails and Emails. 

A Sales Development Representative (or BDR, Business Development Representative) is typically responsible for outbound prospecting.  They proactively engage new potential clients who might be interested in the products/services a company sells and qualifies leads and work to develop opportunities into qualified leads. (See Also: BDR, BQL and SQL)

In many selling opportunities today your biggest competitor is not another company bidding on the same project. It’s the status quo. That’s why selling ROI is so important. A Sales Benchmark Index study found that 58% of sales opportunities end with no decision or a decision to do nothing. Why? Because the buyer does not see the value in making a change. 

Selling ROI is the answer. But it is also hard. You must know your products and pricing inside out and you really have to know your customer. That requires a lot of work, a lot more than showing a customer a price sheet or a slide deck. 

Selling ROI is the answer. But it is also hard. You must know your products and pricing inside out and you really have to know your customer. That requires a lot of work, a lot more than showing a customer a price sheet or a slide deck. 

Your customers will pay more (and act sooner) if you can demonstrate a powerful ROI story for you solution because they can quantify the value. If you can show them how much money they can save or how much revenue they can generate, they’ll understand the ROI and they will be more likely to buy. 

SEO stands for  Search Engine Optimization, which is the practice of modifying your website and its relevance to the web to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website through organic search engine results.

Selling a complementary product or service to a prospect who is using a competitor for your main product. 

This describes when a SDR or BDR presses a prospect into accepting a meeting without the prospect being truly qualified. This situation happens frequently when sales development organizations are improperly managed and/or incented.  This is also a common practice by organizations focused on “Appointment Setting.” 

Cold calling with a cheerful, positive tone of voice—and yes, a smile. Smiling communicates warmth and trustworthiness over the phone, which makes the prospect less likely to hang up on you. Even if people can’t see your smile, they can hear it. This is a sales’ best practice!

Social selling is the act of leveraging your social network to find and engage prospects.  Like other forms of selling, it is about building a trusted relationship, providing information, and ultimately engaging prospects to begin a discussion. This sales approach can be a successful means of lead generation and sales prospecting that reduces the need for cold calling. But like other forms of selling there are best practices that are effective and abusive methods that are unlikely to be successful. 

SOM stands for Serviceable Obtainable Market. This is the portion of your SAM that you can realistically capture and will be your primary targets. (See Also: Targeted Account List or TAL).

Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of promoting a product or service for any prohibited purpose (especially the fraudulent purpose of phishing), or simply sending the same message over and over to the same user.  While the mostly widely recognized form of spam is email, the term can apply to other forms of communication abuses including instant messaging, voice messaging, webforms, etc. 

The term spiff can stand for a few different things, but they’re often all related to sales incentives. The original term is an abbreviation of “Sales Performance Incentive Funding Formula,” but today it is more commonly abbreviated as SPIF, or “Sales Performance Incentive Fund.”  Regardless of the translation it refers to some form of sales incentive opportunity. 

SPIN Selling is one of the most well-known — not to mention oldest — selling systems. SPIN gives sales reps a research-backed framework for working and closing complex deals with extended sales processes.  Based on 12 years of research and 35,000 sales calls, SPIN selling is a sales strategy that comes from Neil Rackham’s 1988 classic book, SPIN Selling.  In his book, Rackham argues that to win large consultative deals, salespeople must abandon traditional sales techniques in order to build value as a trusted advisor.

A SQL, or Sales Qualified Lead, is typically the next step a lead achieves from a MQL (or Marketing Qualified Lead).  This designation usually denotes that a salesperson has engaged with the prospect and confirmed there is a business opportunity.  Given most MQLs are generated based on digital interaction, less that 25% of MQLs typically make it to the SQL classification.  Some organizations distinguish leads generated by SDRs or BDRs differently than leads that have been confirmed or accepted by sales.  In these cases, the progressions follow one of these paths:  MQL > BQL > SQL or BQL > SQL.  Some organizations consider leads qualified by Sales or Business Development teams as Sales Qualified, the SDR/BDR leads are SQLs.  Some organizations insert a designation that signifies sales acceptance of a SQL.  (See Also: SAL) 

A term to describe a company or person that is believed to be a potential prospect.  The term Suspect is used when very little is known about the potential target and before the target is qualified.