Sales and Marketing Glossary

20 Business and marketing terms

This glossary aims for helping you understanding several importants terms in sales and marketing. So i created this glossary to help you discover and learn various terms and vocabulary used daily in the business world.

AIDA

noun

An acronym used in Sales that stands for Attention/Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. They are the four steps of the now somewhat-outdated Purchase Funnel (although most agree the funnel is much more complex than what is represented in this traditional model), wherein customers travel from awareness to purchase. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

B2C

noun

Business 2 Consumer. B2C is a term describes the transactional relationship between provider and client where the provider is a business and the client is an individual consumer. e.g. "Our B2C marketing strategy targets new moms." See also: B2B. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

BANT

noun

An acronym used in sales for lead qualification that stands for Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. It's a famous tool for sales reps and sales leaders to help them determine whether their prospects have the budget, authority, need, and right timeline to buy what they sell.https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Consumer

noun

A person who uses a product or service. They may not be the actual buyer of that product; for example, if I buy my brother a pair of basketball shoes, then my brother is the consumer of those shoes, not me. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

noun

Software that let companies keep track of everything they do with their existing and potential customers. At the simplest level, CRM software lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers. But CRM systems can do lots of other things, too, like track email, phone calls, faxes, and deals; send personalized emails; schedule appointments; and log every instance of customer service and support. Some systems also incorporate feeds from social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. The goal is to create a system in which sales reps have a lot of information at their fingertips and can quickly pull up everything about a prospect or existing customer.https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Decision-Maker

noun

The person who, or role that, makes the final decision of a sale. They are often "guarded" by a gatekeeper.https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Gatekeeper

noun

A person who, or role that, enables or prevents information from getting to another person(s) in a company. For example, a receptionist or personal assistant.https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

GPCTBA/C&I

noun

Goals, Plans, Challenges, Timeline, Budget, Authority, Negative Consequences, Positive Implications. The lead qualification criteria sales reps should use to qualify prospects -- it's a better tool than BANT to help sales reps and sales leaders to determine whether their prospects have the goals, plans, challenges, and right timeline to buy what they sell. G = Goals: Determines the quantifiable goals your prospect wants or needs to hit. An opportunity for sales reps to establish themselves as an advisor by beginning to help prospects reset or quantify their goals. P = Plans: Determines the prospect's current plans that they'll implement in order to achieve those goals. C = Challenges: Determines whether the sales rep can help a prospect overcome their and their company's challenges; ones they're dealing with and ones they (or the sales rep) anticipate. T = Timeline: Determines the time frame for implementation of their goals and plans, and when they need to eliminate their challenges. B = Budget: Determines how much money a prospect has to spend. A = Authority: Determines who in the organization will help champion and/or decide to make a purchase. C = Negative Consequences: Discusses the negative things that'll happen if a prospect doesn't meet their goal. I = Positive Implications: Discusses the positive outcomes that'll happen if a prospect meets their goal. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Lead

noun

A person or company who's shown interest in a product or service in some way, shape, or form. Perhaps they filled out a form, subscribed to a blog, or shared their contact information in exchange for a coupon. Generating leads is a critical part of a prospect's journey to becoming a customer, and it falls in between the second and third stages of the larger inbound marketing methodology, which you can see below. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Loss Leader

noun

Used in retail to refer to a product sold at a low price (either at break-even or at a loss) for the purpose of attracting customers into the store. The goal is for customers who go into the store to buy other items that are priced to make a profit. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Margin

noun

The difference between a product or service's selling price and the cost of production. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Pain Point

noun

A prospect's pain point, or need, is the most important thing for a sales rep to identify in the selling process. Without knowing a prospect's pain points, they can't possibly offer benefits to help resolve those pain points. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Pipeline

noun

The step-by-step process sales reps go through to convert a prospect into a customer. The sales pipeline is often divided into stages for each step in the sales process, and the sales rep is responsible for moving opportunities through the stages. It can also refer to a visual representation of the sales process, where every open opportunity is arranged based on the sales stage they're in. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Profit Margin

noun

A ratio of profitability that measures how much money a company actually keeps in earnings. It's calculated either as a) net income divided by revenues, or b) net profits divided by sales. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Quota

noun

A sales goal; a set amount of selling a sales rep is expect to meet over a given time frame, usually a month and/or quarter. It's very, very common for sales reps to have quotas, also the form they take can vary from company to company and from role to role. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Smarketing

noun

Used to refer to the practice of aligning Sales and Marketing efforts. In a perfect world, marketing would pass off tons of fully qualified leads to the sales team, who would then subsequently work every one of those leads enough times to close them 100% of the time. But since this isn't always how the cookie crumbles, it’s important for Marketing and Sales to align efforts to impact the bottom line the best they can through coordinated communication. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Sound Bite

noun

A series of words or phrases sales reps use to respond to and overcome a customer objection. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Stage

noun

Parts of the sales pipeline representing each step in the sales process. It's the sales rep's responsibility for moving opportunities from stage to stage. Different companies define their sales stages differently, but each one has behind it a set of requirements that need to be completed in order for an opportunity to move from one stage to the next. Names for sales stages are usually things like "Prospect," "Qualified Lead," "Demo," "Proposal," "Closed." https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

noun

The very first stage of the buying process. Leads at this stage are identifying a problem they have and are looking for more information. At this point, marketers create helpful content that aids leads in identifying this problem and providing next steps toward a solution. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary

Value Proposition

noun

"Value prop" for short. A benefit of a product or company intended to make it more attractive to potential buyers and differentiates it from competitors. https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/sales-terms-glossary