Clear definitions of the terms that matter in B2B sales, written for founders and revenue leaders, not textbooks.
GTM Strategy
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)
A precise, evidence-based description of the company type most likely to buy, realise value quickly, and renew, defined by firmographic, technographic, and situational criteria.
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Go-to-Market Strategy
The plan that defines who a company sells to, how it communicates value, what channels it uses to reach buyers, and how the sales motion converts pipeline to revenue.
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B2B Sales
B2B sales is the process of selling products or services from one business to another, typically involving longer cycles, multiple stakeholders and higher deal values than consumer sales.
GTM Strategy
Product-Market Fit
The point at which a product reliably solves a problem that a defined set of customers will pay for. A prerequisite for scalable sales hiring in most circumstances.
GTM Strategy
Account-Based Selling
A go-to-market approach where sales and marketing align on a defined list of target accounts and coordinate outreach, content, and engagement around those specific companies.
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GTM Strategy
Account-Based Marketing (ABM)
A B2B go-to-market strategy that concentrates marketing and sales resources on a defined set of high-value target accounts, with content and outreach personalised to each account's specific context rather than distributed across a broad market.
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GTM Strategy
Product-Led Growth (PLG)
A go-to-market strategy in which the product itself is the primary driver of user acquisition, conversion, and expansion — users experience value before committing to purchase, and commercial conversion is triggered by product engagement signals rather than outbound sales activity.
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GTM Strategy
Demand Generation
The marketing-led set of activities that creates awareness of a problem, builds interest in a solution, and develops a pipeline of potential buyers — distinct from lead generation, which captures demand that already exists.
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Qualification
MEDDPICC
A structured sales qualification framework used to assess deal control and buyer readiness across eight dimensions: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, and more.
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Economic Buyer
The individual within a prospect organisation who holds ultimate budget authority and the power to approve a purchase, distinct from the project sponsor or day-to-day champion.
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Sales Qualified Lead
A prospect confirmed as a genuine opportunity through defined qualification criteria, the point at which marketing hands off to sales.
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Sales Qualification
The process of determining whether a prospect has the problem, authority, budget and urgency to buy, and whether the opportunity is worth the time and resource required to win it.
Qualification
BANT
A qualification framework that evaluates Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline to determine whether a prospect is worth pursuing further.
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Qualification
Buying Committee
The group of individuals inside a prospect organisation who collectively influence, evaluate, or approve a purchasing decision.
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Qualification
Competition
Every alternative competing for the buyer's budget and attention, including rival vendors, building in-house, and doing nothing.
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Qualification
Decision Criteria
The formal and informal standards a buyer uses to compare options and choose a solution; the test you are being marked against.
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Qualification
Decision Process
The sequence of steps, approvals and people a buyer moves through to reach a decision; best mapped backwards from who signs.
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Qualification
Metrics
In MEDDPICC, the quantified business outcome a buyer expects from a solution (cost saved, revenue gained, time recovered or risk reduced), expressed in the buyer's own numbers.
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Qualification
Paper Process
The legal, security, procurement and budget-release steps a deal must clear after commercial agreement; a leading driver of late-stage slippage.
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Qualification
Identify Pain
The business problem driving a deal, and the work of making its cost real enough to act on; the I in MEDDPICC, sometimes written Implicate Pain.
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Sales Process
Sales Cycle
The time from first qualified engagement to closed-won, a measure of process efficiency, buyer control, and deal qualification quality in B2B sales.
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Discovery Call
A structured sales conversation designed to uncover the buyer's business problem, quantify its impact, and establish whether the conditions for a deal exist.
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Sales Playbook
A documented, stage-gated framework that defines what sellers should do, ask, and evidence at each point in the pipeline, raising the floor of deal execution.
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Pipeline Hygiene
The discipline of maintaining accurate, current, and evidence-based CRM data, ensuring stages, close dates, and deal health reflect buyer reality rather than seller confidence.
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CRM Stages
The defined pipeline milestones a deal moves through from qualification to close, most powerful when based on buyer evidence rather than seller activity.
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Sales Method
A structured approach to managing sales conversations and advancing opportunities, defining how reps qualify prospects, handle objections, and guide buyers through a decision.
Sales Process
Journey Sell
A sales approach used when the product is not yet complete or the category is not yet defined. Sells the future state and a mutual commitment to build towards it, rather than a finished specification.
Sales Process
Business Case
The document or argument that quantifies the commercial value of solving a problem, used by champions to justify investment internally and build urgency.
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Sales Process
Guided Selling
A structured approach where the seller takes the buyer through a defined sequence of questions, insights, and steps rather than reacting to whatever the buyer raises.
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Sales Process
Sales Process
The repeatable sequence of stages, activities, and exit criteria that define how a seller moves an opportunity from first contact to close.
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Sales Process
Proof of Concept
A time-boxed technical or commercial trial that lets a buyer validate a solution in their own environment before committing to a full purchase.
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Sales Process
Value Proposition
A clear statement of the specific outcomes a product or service delivers for a defined customer segment, why they should choose it over alternatives.
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Sales Process
Buying Process
The sequence of steps a buying organisation takes to evaluate, approve, and execute a purchase decision — including stakeholder alignment, evaluation criteria, approval stages, legal review, and procurement. Distinct from the seller's sales process, which should be designed to map onto it.
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Sales Process
Proof of Value (POV)
A structured, time-limited engagement in which the vendor demonstrates measurable value delivery within the buyer's own environment — more rigorous than a POC because success is defined by agreed commercial outcomes, not technical functionality.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Revenue Gap
The measurable difference between a company's revenue target, its forecast, and what actually closes, caused by upstream system failures rather than individual effort.
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Win Rate
The percentage of qualified opportunities that close as won, the single clearest signal of sales system health in a B2B company.
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Pipeline Coverage
The ratio of total pipeline value to revenue target for a given period, a leading indicator of whether a team has enough qualified opportunity to hit its number.
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Forecast Accuracy
The closeness of a revenue forecast to actual closed revenue for a period, the most visible output of pipeline quality, qualification discipline, and management rigour.
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Deal Velocity
The speed at which deals move through the pipeline from stage to stage, a function of ICP fit, buyer engagement quality, and the strength of the commercial case.
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NRR
A metric that measures the percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers over a period, including expansion, contraction, and churn.
Pipeline & Forecast
Commit
A forecast category in which a rep or manager declares high confidence that a deal will close within the current period, typically used alongside Best Case and Pipeline categories.
Pipeline & Forecast
Pipeline
The set of active sales opportunities tracked through the revenue cycle, showing what is in progress, at what stage, and what's expected to close.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Deal Inspection
A structured review of an individual opportunity to assess its health, buyer engagement, forecast confidence, and next steps.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Deal Stall
A point in the sales process where an opportunity stops progressing, no engagement, no next step, no momentum forward.
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Pipeline & Forecast
No Decision
An outcome where a buying organisation evaluates a solution but chooses not to purchase, not a loss to a competitor, but a failure to act.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
The total annualised value of all active subscription contracts — the primary revenue metric for B2B SaaS businesses and the baseline against which growth, churn, and expansion are measured.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR)
The total value of all active subscription contracts normalised to a monthly figure — the most granular recurring revenue metric, used to track momentum, churn, and expansion in real time.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)
The percentage of existing customer revenue retained over a period, counting only churn and contraction — not expansion. GRR measures the floor of the business's retention before any upsell is added.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Sales Velocity
A composite metric measuring how fast revenue moves through the pipeline, calculated from the number of qualified opportunities, average deal value, win rate, and average sales cycle length.
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Pipeline & Forecast
LTV:CAC Ratio
The ratio of a customer's lifetime value to the cost of acquiring them — the primary unit economics metric for assessing whether a B2B go-to-market model is sustainable and worth scaling.
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Pipeline & Forecast
Forecast Categories
A classification system for active pipeline that groups deals by assessed probability of closing within the forecast period — typically Commit (high confidence), Best Case (possible with favourable conditions), and Pipeline (early stage, directional).
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Revenue Operations
Revenue Operations
The operational function that aligns sales, marketing, and customer success through shared systems, definitions, and data, making revenue generation inspectable and repeatable.
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CRM Hygiene
The discipline of keeping CRM data accurate, complete, and up to date so that pipeline reporting, forecasting, and sales activity reflect reality.
Revenue Operations
Land and Expand
A go-to-market motion where you win an initial contract with a subset of a buyer's organisation, then grow the relationship over time.
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Revenue Operations
QBR
Quarterly Business Review, a structured meeting to assess performance, review pipeline health, and align on the next quarter's plan.
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Revenue Operations
Sales Capacity Planning
The process of modelling how many sellers you need, at what ramp stage, to reliably hit a given revenue target.
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Revenue Operations
Sales Enablement
The function responsible for equipping sellers with the content, training, tools, and process knowledge to execute effectively.
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Revenue Operations
Win/Loss Analysis
A structured review of closed-won and closed-lost deals to identify patterns, improve the sales process, and sharpen the ICP.
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Revenue Operations
Customer Health Score
A composite metric that aggregates signals from product usage, engagement, support activity, commercial relationship, and stakeholder sentiment to produce a single score indicating how likely an existing customer is to renew, expand, or churn.
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Revenue Operations
Time to First Value (TTFV)
The elapsed time between a customer signing a contract and experiencing the first meaningful, measurable outcome from the product or service — the earliest point at which the customer can confirm that their buying decision was correct.
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Buyer Engagement
Mutual Action Plan
A shared, time-bound document agreed between buyer and seller that maps every step required for the deal to close, including internal milestones, sign-offs, and paper process.
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Champion
An internal buyer contact who has both the influence to drive a purchase decision and the motivation to do so, the most important relationship in a complex B2B sale.
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Multi-Threading
The practice of building multiple relationships across different stakeholders and functions within a prospect account, reducing deal risk and ensuring no single contact controls the outcome.
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Status Quo Bias
The buyer's tendency to favour doing nothing over making a change, even when the cost of inaction is visible. One of the most common reasons deals stall or are lost to no decision.
Buyer Engagement
Cost of Inaction
What a buyer continues to lose by not making a decision, the revenue, efficiency or risk that compounds the longer they delay. Making this concrete is often what moves a stalled deal.
Buyer Engagement
Buying Group
The collection of individuals within a buying organisation who influence, evaluate, or approve a purchase decision, each with different priorities and levels of authority.
Buyer Engagement
Cold Outreach
Prospecting activity directed at buyers who have had no prior relationship with the seller, typically via email, phone, or LinkedIn.
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Buyer Engagement
Executive Sponsor
A senior stakeholder on the buyer side who has the authority, budget, and motivation to drive a purchase decision forward.
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Buyer Engagement
Objection Handling
The skill of responding to buyer concerns in a way that maintains momentum without dismissing or steamrolling their hesitation.
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Buyer Engagement
Commercial Negotiation
The final stage of a deal where pricing, terms, and contract details are agreed between buyer and seller.
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Sales Leadership
Sales Operating Cadence
The recurring set of pipeline reviews, deal clinics, forecast calls, and coaching rituals that keep a sales team operating to a standard rather than reacting to circumstances.
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Founder-Led Selling
The phase of a business where the founder is the primary or sole salesperson, typically characterised by high conversion rates driven by passion, network access, and direct product knowledge.
Sales Leadership
Sales Rubric
A behaviour-based evaluation framework used to assess salespeople during hiring and ongoing performance management. Focuses on observable working behaviours rather than claimed competencies.
Sales Leadership
Ramp Period
The time between a salesperson's start date and the point at which they are expected to carry and close a full quota. Typically three to six months in a startup environment.
Sales Leadership
AE (Account Executive)
A salesperson responsible for the full sales cycle from prospecting or inbound qualification through to close. In a startup, often the first sales hire and frequently also responsible for pipeline generation.
Sales Leadership
SDR
Sales Development Representative, a role focused on outbound prospecting and generating qualified pipeline for account executives.
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Sales Leadership
Ramp Time
The period it takes a newly hired seller to become fully productive, measured in time to first deal or time to full quota.
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Sales Leadership
Quota Attainment
The percentage of a seller's assigned quota achieved in a given period, the primary measure of individual sales performance.
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Revenue Execution
Revenue Execution
Revenue Execution
The discipline of running a repeatable, managed revenue process, from pipeline generation through to close and expansion.
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Revenue Execution
Revenue Execution System
A structured operating system that aligns people, process, and tools to deliver predictable revenue outcomes at scale.
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Revenue Execution
Design Enable Run
Closing Foundry’s three-phase model for installing a Revenue Execution System: design the process, enable the team, run it with discipline.
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Revenue Execution
Closing OS
Closing Foundry’s proprietary Revenue Execution System, a structured operating model for B2B sales teams to deliver consistent, coached deal execution.
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Revenue Execution
Closing OS Install
The structured engagement through which Closing Foundry deploys the Closing OS into a client’s revenue team.
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Revenue Execution
5 Days to Scale
Closing Foundry’s intensive programme for scaling sales teams, delivering process, playbooks, and pipeline discipline in five working days.
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Revenue Execution
Stage Evidence
The observable proof that a deal has genuinely progressed to a new stage, buyer actions, not seller assertions.
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Revenue Execution
Stage Exit Criteria
The specific conditions that must be met before a deal can advance from one stage to the next in a sales process.
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Revenue Execution
Stage Discipline
The practice of rigorously applying stage exit criteria to every deal, preventing artificial pipeline inflation and false forecasts.
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Revenue Execution
Deal Control
The degree to which a seller is driving the pace and direction of a deal, versus reacting to the buyer’s timeline.
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Revenue Execution
Hopecasting
Forecasting based on optimism rather than evidence, inflating pipeline confidence without buyer behaviour to support it.
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Revenue Execution
Pipeline Truth
An accurate, evidence-based view of pipeline, removing deals that are stalled, unqualified, or based on wishful thinking.
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Revenue Execution
CRM Truth
The state of a CRM where deal data reflects reality, accurate stages, next steps, and close dates grounded in buyer evidence.
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Revenue Execution
Buyer Evidence
Concrete signals from a buyer (actions taken, commitments made, engagement demonstrated) that validate genuine deal progression.
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Revenue Execution
Pipeline Slippage
The repeated slippage of forecast deals to future quarters, a signal of weak qualification, poor deal control, or false close dates.
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Revenue Execution
Forecast Call
A structured recurring review where sellers and managers assess pipeline status, forecast accuracy, and actions required to hit the number.
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Revenue Execution
Forecast Confidence
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A seller or manager’s assessed probability that a deal or group of deals will close within the committed timeframe.
Sales Methods
Sales Methods
MEDDIC
A qualification framework: Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion, used to assess deal viability.
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Sales Methods
Challenger Sale
A sales methodology that teaches sellers to challenge buyer thinking, reframe the problem, and lead with insight rather than open discovery.
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Sales Methods
Gap Selling
A methodology that identifies the gap between a buyer’s current state and desired future state, making the cost of inaction the key lever.
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Sales Methods
Solution Selling
A sales approach centred on diagnosing the buyer’s problem and proposing a tailored solution, rather than leading with product features.
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Sales Methods
SPIN Selling
A questioning framework using four types (Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff) designed to uncover and develop buyer pain.
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Sales Methods
Sandler Selling System
A buyer-centric methodology focused on mutual qualification, pain-first discovery, and avoiding the trap of unpaid consulting.
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Sales Methods
Value-Based Selling
A sales approach that anchors every conversation on the buyer’s business outcomes and return on investment, not product capabilities.
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Sales Methods
Strategic Selling
A methodology by Miller Heiman that maps the full buying organisation, identifying roles, influencers, and the path to a win.
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Sales Methods
Command of the Message
A sales framework for controlling the narrative, defining the problem, the value, and the proof in the buyer’s own language.
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Metrics
Metrics
Average Contract Value
The average value of a signed contract across your customer base, a key input for capacity planning, CAC, and revenue forecasting.
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Metrics
Customer Acquisition Cost
The total cost of acquiring a new customer (including sales, marketing, and onboarding spend) divided by the number of customers won.
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Metrics
Net Revenue Retention
The percentage of recurring revenue retained from existing customers after accounting for expansion, contraction, and churn.
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Metrics
Churn Rate
The percentage of customers or revenue lost in a given period, one of the most critical indicators of product-market fit and customer success.
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