32 Sales Slang and Terms that Every Person Should Know

Have you ever been in a work situation where your colleagues are using a sales term that you are not familiar with? Understanding these words and phrases could be useful as it allows you to engage with your colleagues and potential clients that may be relevant in the future. Here is a list of glossaries of sales terms that every person should know whether you are working in the sales or any other relevant field. 

1. Warm Call: The solicitation of a potential customer with whom a sales representative or business has previously contacted. Warm calling can be referred to as a sales call, visit or email that is preceded by a form of contact with the potential prospect or customer, for instead a direct mail campaign, an introduction at a business event or referral.

2. Value Proposition: A summary statement of the benefit a product or service offers to make it more enticing to potential buyers and differentiates it from other competitors.

3. Value-added reseller(VAR): A company that provides additional features or services to an existing product, then resells it for end-users as an integrated product or complete solution.

4. Up-sell: A sales technique whereby a seller induces the customer to purchase more items, upgrades or additional add-ons in an attempt to make a more profitable sale.

5. Territory: The market area for which a salesperson or a sales team holds the responsibility. Territories can be determined by specific market segments, sales potential, history, geography or a combination of various factors.

6. Sales Process: The measurable, consistent, and systematic series of steps that map out and monitor interaction with prospects from their first engagement through the closing of an opportunity. A sales process is end to end.

7. Sales Methodology: The learned tactics, behaviours and strategies utilized by the sales team to initiate and fulfil the sales process professionally and conversationally. Some of the prominent sales methodologies include SPIN selling, QBS Selling, The Challenger Sale and Consultative.

8. System integrator(SI): An individual or business that setups a computing system for clients by combining software and hardware products from various vendors. Examples include IOTSATA, FOCUSTECH, ELLIANCE Sdn Bhd, UST Global, AttreLogix Networks, LogixLab, IoT Integrator, Silver Ridge Holdings Bhd, ELMLAB, etc.

9. Synergistic Selling/Cross-Selling: A sales representative that has more than a single type of product to offer consumers that can be beneficial, and he/she succeeded in selling to a consumer more than a single item either at the time of purchase or later on.

10. SPIN Selling: A sales methodology derived from Neil Rackham. The methodology explains the science behind consultative selling, or rather, introducing an offer to a potential client, based systematically on the clients pain-points, utilizing a powerful questioning process. SPIN stands for situation, problem, implication and need-payoff.

11. SMB: An abbreviation that stands for small and medium-sized business. A business with 100 or fewer employees is considered small, while a company with 100-999 employees is considered medium-sized.

12. SLED: An abbreviation for State, Local Government and Education customers.

13. SaaS: An abbreviation for Software as a Service which is a software distribution model in which applications are hosted by a vendor or a service provider and made accessible to customers over a network, mainly for the Internet.

14. Social Selling: When a sales representative uses social media to engage directly with their prospects. They add value by answering prospects enquiries and offering thoughtful content until the prospect is ready to purchase.

15. SDR: An abbreviation for Sales development representative which is a type of inside sales rep that mainly focuses on outbound prospecting. Most companies that experienced massive revenue growth by dividing sales organizations into specialised roles. Unlike quota-carrying salespeople, sales development reps do not focus on closing business, instead they specialise in moving leads through the pipeline.

16. Solution Selling: A sales methodology that focuses on the consumer’s problems which address the issue with proper offerings in the form of products or services instead of just promoting an existing product. The problem resolution is what constitutes a “solution”.

17. Sandbagging: Holding onto a deal so you gain credit for it in the reporting period you want it to. This can be achieved to hit quota in a specific period and maximize the commissions earned. They are commonly done with capped commission plans that the representative has already maxed out for the current period.

18. Pipeline: The step-by-step sales process that every representative has to go through to convert a prospect into a customer. The pipeline is mainly composed into stages for each step in the sales process, and the sales rep is responsible for shifting 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 involved in.

19. Platform as a service(PaaS): A category of cloud computing services that provides a platform giving customers to develop, run and manage web applications without the dealing with the complexity of building and maintaining the infrastructure which is associated with developing and launching an app.

20. Paint Point: A prospects’ paint point is the most essential thing for any sales representative to identify in the selling process. Without understanding a prospect’s pain points, they cannot possibly offer benefits to help resolve those problems.

21. On-target earnings(OTE): It implies that if the person hits all their targets, set for them by the company, they could potentially earn a certain amount, that includes their basic pay, commissions, bonuses or any other variable components to their total cash income.

22. OEM: A company whose products are used as components in another company’s product. The OEM will generally work closely with the company that sells the finished product which is also known as “VAR(value-added reseller)” and customize the designs derived from the VAR’s needs. Companies that engage in OEM include Sony, Dell, ASUS, etc.

23. Non-compete: A clause is an employment contract that limits the employees’ ability to work for a competitor or solicit business from existing customer accounts.

24. Managed Service Provider(MSP): A company that remotely manages a customer’s IT infrastructure and/or end-user system, mainly on a pro-active basis and under a subscription model.

25. Ideal Customer Profile(ICP): A set of environmental, demographic and market segment traits shared by customers that most considered to be profitable for a specific business offering. These are the high-value targets that should be utilized to focus on prospecting and marketing efforts.

26. Infrastructure as a Service(IaaS): A form of cloud computing that provides virtualized computing resources on the Internet. The model is essentially a third-party provider that hosts hardware, software, servers, storage and various infrastructure components on behalf of its users.

27. Cross-Selling: A sales representative that offers more than one type of product or service to consumers that could be beneficial, and he/she manages to sell to a consumer more than a single item either at the time of purchase or later.

28. Customer Relationship Management(CRM): A software that allows companies to keep track of everything they manage with their existing and potential customers. The CRM software also lets you keep track of all the contact information for these customers.

29. BANT: A sales formula developed by IBM to determine how qualified a lead is to work with your company and determine which leads should be prioritized. The framework consists of Budget, Authority, Needs and Timeline. For more info about the BANT model, check out this link.

30. Business to business(B2): A company whose primary effort is selling to and conducting business with other businesses. Examples include Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, Value Added Resellers, Document Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management, IT Systems, Managed Service Providers, Software, etc.

31. Business-to-consumer(B2C): A company whose primary effort is selling and conducting business with consumers, or with individual users. Examples include Solar energy, Cars, Repairs, Insurance, etc.

32. Door-to-door sales(D2D): The process of obtaining, recording, and maintaining information you can gain and utilize later. In Sales, this means inputting potential buyers’ details into a CRM tool to monitor activity, correspondence, and progress on potential opportunities. 

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