The process of managing and developing highly profitable customer accounts. This can be a stand-alone role within a business or a way to describe a process multiple sales professionals will seek to drive. It can be both strategic, looking at ideal customer profiles, geographies, and markets, as well as targeted, focusing on specific customer accounts.
Job title that typically refers to a salesperson responsible for maintaining and growing already existing client relationships. As opposed to a salesperson solely focused on winning new business.
Context – Call AI – the real-time analysis of live or pre-recorded calls through the Mindtickle platform.
Geographical region. Generally includes East Asia, Russian Far East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Australasia and Pacific Islands.
A traditional qualification framework used to determine whether a prospect will progress to an opportunity.
Where both the customer and service provided are businesses.
Context: the business universe in which Flume exists; helping organisations sell and buy from one another.
Another way of describing sales generally or sales ‘BD’ roles more specifically. Often interchanged with ‘BDM’ (Business development manager) and ‘BDR’ (Business development rep).
Typically, the most senior leader in a business.
Usually the most senior marketing leader in a business.
The process of helping paying customers make their purchase work. Often used as a broad term to describe the people or department who deliver this service. Regularly now used interchangeably with “customer success”.
A role with responsibility for ensuring clients get the most from their purchase. Could be asked to train new users, help integrate their service with the customer’s systems, and solve problems.
How a business interacts with its customers at every stage of their buying journey —typically through a combination of marketing, sales, customer service and more.
The steps taken, and process followed, by any given client to determine business choices. Often used in reference to client purchasing decisions. Typically involving multiple stakeholders and / or departments.
The people involved in the decision-making process.
Geographical region that encompasses the entirety of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. Global businesses will often have a division or department responsible for winning and growing business across this region exclusively.
A widely used coaching model. Each stage of ‘GROW’ represents a conversation theme that can be explored by two or more people as part of a coaching session. It can also be used as a planning tool ahead of sales calls or meetings.
Often used in the context of a “go-to-market strategy”. This is an action plan that details how a business will reach its target audience and achieve the required business results.
The perfect customer for your business, product, or service; a fictitious company that has all the qualities that would make them the best possible fit for your offering.
The profile of a sales professional that is most likely to succeed at a given organisation. It will define the beliefs, behaviours and skills that a sales rep must have to meet and exceed target.
A quantifiable measure of performance over time for a specific goal. Often used to help teams understand the performance outputs required by them – the number of calls, meetings and opportunities – in order to hit target.
A framework used to qualify prospects and potential buyers. Sales professionals will seek to discover information that relates to each part, helping to identify if a given prospect should be qualified in or out.
A sales qualification framework very similar to MEDDIC. Differences include ‘Paper process’ which refers to the process of signing the contract and agreeing a statement of work, and ‘competition’ which are the alternative options available to the prospect.
Usually in the context of a ‘sales opportunity’, this is a qualified sales lead and therefore has met certain criteria to be considered a potential deal.
A direct and quantifiable measure of the amount of return on a particular investment, relative to the investment’s cost.
A structured approach for developing sales talent at a given business. Usually working towards and agreed standard for what sales excellence looks like in that business, relative to each sales role. Typically consists of, but is not limited to, multi-touch training and coaching programmes, access to sales readiness platforms, sales enablement resources, and collateral.
A measure of sales performance that drills this down to a single number designed to show the effort and time required to move a typical deal from opportunity to close. The sales velocity equation used to calculate this, is as follows: Sales Velocity = Number of Opportunities x Deal Value x Win Rate / Length of Sales Cycle. The aim is to increase the first three metrics and reduce the length of sales cycle.
A role focused on sales outreach, prospecting, and qualifying leads.
This is an event where organisations communicate their business strategy and motivate their front-line salespeople. These events are typically held at the beginning of the financial year.
A method of evaluating two or more measured events to compare the results of one year to those of another. A popular way to measure the financial performance of a business.
There are many many more of course and some you will already know from the 28 sales acronyms above but next time you read an article or are in a meeting you can keep this easy blog to hand.
Want to get more information on what is happening in sales and some great tips. Read the rest of our blogs.
Do you follow us on LinkedIn? We post regular sales tips and news on our LinkedIn page so keep up to date with all things Flume and sales.
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Selling in a tough climate – the challenges
31st January 2023
Sales 2023 : Three big questions
30th January 2023
Flume’s trends and predictions for the events industry
30th January 2023
5 Steps to Power your 2023 Pipeline
14th December 2022
5 Key recession-busting sales behaviours
13th December 2022
Sales Innovation Expo 2022 Trends
30th November 2022
How to align your customer success team with your sales process
2nd November 2022
Sales velocity: How to increase average order value in sales
17th October 2022
Sales velocity: Increasing the number of sales opportunities
17th October 2022
28 Sales Acronyms used daily
8th September 2022
Sales velocity: Speeding up the decision-making process
24th August 2022
Sales velocity: How to improve conversion rates
13th July 2022
Sales kick-off meetings: How to use the momentum to power long-term change
17th May 2022
Drive retention and performance through a sales academy
9th March 2022
Call AI: The sales coaching technology you need in 2022
22nd February 2022
Drive real results from sales training in 2022: Why the traditional model doesn’t work
2nd February 2022
Sales Engagement Summit – Hosted by Raoul
16th December 2021
How business development reps can give buyers the confidence to say yes
3rd December 2021
The biggest mistake sales development reps make (and three things you should do instead)
9th November 2021
Five myths you need to know about customer success teams
11th October 2021
The four levers you can pull to increase sales velocity and how to make an impact
1st September 2021
Outcome Based Selling
3rd August 2021
Why most sales training doesn’t work and what to do about it
1st July 2021
3 reasons why writing a proper proposal is worth your time
18th March 2021
How to win a sales pitch…
26th February 2021
Sales Professionals: Why you shouldn’t assume you’ve got remote selling nailed
15th January 2021
Is your sales team ready for 2021?
4th January 2021
Selling Virtual Events
26th November 2020
Why salespeople must be ‘long-term greedy’: A five-step approach to winning more sales
13th November 2020
Closing skills: Why the pandemic has made it even harder to close that deal and what to do about it.
1st November 2020
Post Covid: How to fill your B2B pipeline with customers who do want to speak to you?
5th October 2020
3 steps for monetising virtual events
15th July 2020
Storytelling
18th May 2020
5 tips for closing in the crisis
4th May 2020
Using audience insights to engage with customers
20th April 2020
Biggest challenge of leading a remote sales team
15th April 2020
“Clients don’t want to engage with me”
6th April 2020
The world has changed – what should I sell?
31st March 2020
Leading remote sales teams
30th March 2020
Selling in a crisis
25th March 2020
Proposal writing research: Why your proposal doesn’t work
17th March 2020
How to accelerate your sponsorship revenue
17th February 2020
How selling to the individual increases your chance of them buying by 2x
7th February 2020
New Year, new rules. How to deliver sales training that actually works!
2nd January 2020
Half of B2B sales people will miss their 2020 targets. It’s time to shift perspective.
18th November 2019
Questions that drive more sales
15th November 2019
How to speed up prospect decision making… PART TWO
21st October 2019
How to speed up prospect decision making – PART ONE
14th October 2019
The biggest mistake salespeople make… and how to avoid it
26th July 2019
You have the right to demand more ROI from your sales training (and here’s how you get it)
16th May 2019
How to grow customer accounts this year
22nd March 2019
5 big sales mistakes from this year
23rd December 2018
How to turn the marketing trust crisis into sales opportunity
5th October 2018
Why is it so hard to find great business development talent?
21st September 2018
It might be hot outside but you still need a SCARF.
12th July 2018
The Peter Principle: Great Salesperson, Crap Manager
25th June 2018
The ‘great deal graveyard’ and how to avoid it
8th June 2018
The secret to selling in today’s market: Old-school to New-school
22nd March 2018
Why people DON’T buy from people they like
28th February 2018
What salespeople can learn from Nike
5th February 2018
Why “yes” doesn’t mean YES
26th January 2018
Take charge of your sales career in 2022
15th January 2018
How sales and marketing must work together to deliver results: tips from the front line of B2B selling
20th July 2016
6 facts and stats B2B sales people cannot ignore
26th May 2016
The amazing power of stories and 5 ways to make them sell
15th October 2015
The trouble with Blitz Days and how to increase their effectiveness
7th October 2015