the glossary

20 busness word terms

This glossary is perfect for learning new vocabulary and expend your knowledge of the business world.

"Bottom of the Funnel

"A stage of the buying process leads reach when they're just about to close into new customers. They've identified a problem, have shopped around for possible solutions, and are very close to buying."

"Churn Rate"

"A metric that measures how many customers you retain and at what value. To calculate churn rate, take the number of customers you lost during a certain time frame, and divide that by the total number of customers you had at the very beginning of that time frame. (Don't include any new sales from that time frame"

fr: taux de résiliation

"Closed Opportunities"

"An umbrella term that includes both closed-won and closed-lost opportunities, although some people use it to mean only closed-won opportunities.

fr: opportunité fermé

"Closed-Lost"

"When a sales rep closes a deal in which the buyer does not purchase the product or service."

fr: fermé et perdu

"Closed-Won"

"When a sales rep closes a deal in which the buyer purchases the product or service."

fr: ferméet gagné

"Closing Ratio"

"The percentage of prospects that a sales rep successfully close-wins. This ratio is usually used to assess individual sales reps on their short-term performance, but it can also be used to evaluate profits, forecast sales, and so on. Improving a closing ratio usually requires efforts to bring better-qualified leads into the funnel."

fr: ration de fermeture

"Conversion Path"

"The "events" on a company's website that help companies capture leads. In its most basic form, it'll consist of a call-to-action (typically a button that describes an offer) that leads to a landing page with a lead capture form, which redirects to a thank-you page where a content offer resides. In exchange for his or her contact information, a website visitor obtains a content offer to better help them through the buying process."

"Conversion Rate"

"The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.

"Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)"

"This is your total Sales and Marketing cost. To calculate, follow these steps for a given time period (month, quarter, or year):"

"Customer Relationship Management (CRM)"

"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."

"Data Entry/Processing"

"The process of obtaining, recording, and maintaining information you can retrieve and use later. In Sales, this usually mean inputting potential buyers' information into a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool to track activity, correspondence, and progress on open opportunities."

"Decision-Maker

"The person who, or role that, makes the final decision of a sale. They are often "guarded" by a gatekeeper."

"Discovery Call"

"The first call a sales rep makes to a prospect, with the goal of asking them questions and qualifying them for the next step."

"Feature"

"A function of a product that can solve for a potential buyer's need or pain point; usually a distinguishing characteristic that helps boost appeal.

"Flywheel"

"The flywheel is a new way of conceptualizing the sales process, replacing the funnel where customers are thought of as an output. The flywheel demonstrates that awareness, engagement, and delight can happen at any point during the customer journey and that the best way to achieve growth is to apply force and remove friction in each stage."

"Forecasting"

"Estimating future sales performance for a forecast period based on historical data. Forecasted performance can vary widely from actual sales results, but helps sales reps plan their upcoming days, weeks, and months, and helps high-level employees set standards for expenses, profit, and growth. Learn more about sales forecasting here."

"Gatekeeper

"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."

"LTV:CAC"

"The ratio of lifetime value to customer acquisition cost. Once you have the LTV and the CAC, compute the ratio of the two. If it costs you $100,000 to acquire a customer with an LTV of $437,500, then your LTV:CAC is 4.4 to 1."

"The percentage of people who completed a desired action on a single web page, such as filling out a form. Pages with high conversion rates are performing well, while pages with low conversion rates are performing poorly.

"When a sales rep has more than one type of product to offer consumers that could be beneficial, and s/he successfully sells a consumer more than one item either at the time of purchase or later on. An example is when Apple sells you an iPhone and then successfully sells you an Apple iPhone case or a pair of Apple headphones. In this case, a sales rep identifies a need the customer has, and fulfills that need by recommending an additional product.

bluebird sales

A "bluebird" is a sale that came seemingly from nowhere or with unexpected ease. A sales rep might say, "Fortunately, a bluebird flew right in at the end of the quarter, helping me reach my goal.