GTM Glossary

In short 48 sales terms, A to Z.

• Account executive: An account executive (AE) is the salesperson who owns a deal from the first qualified meeting to the signed...
• Appointment setting: Appointment setting is the job of contacting prospects and booking qualified sales meetings for a closer, usually an...
• ARR (annual recurring revenue): ARR (annual recurring revenue) is the yearly value of the subscription revenue a company expects to keep receiving...
• B2B sales: B2B sales is selling products or services from one business to another instead of to consumers. Deals usually...
• BANT: BANT is a lead qualification framework that checks four things before a seller invests time in a deal: Budget...
• Battlecard: A battlecard is a short internal sales document that shows reps how to position against a specific competitor, with...
• BDR (business development representative): A BDR (business development representative) is a salesperson who creates new pipeline through outbound prospecting...
• Buying committee (buying group): A buying committee is the group of people at a company who influence or approve a purchase, such as the end user...
• Channel sales: Channel sales is a model where a company sells its product through third parties, such as resellers, distributors...
• Churn rate: Churn rate is the percentage of customers, or of recurring revenue, that a company loses over a set period, usually...
• Cold calling: Cold calling is phoning a prospect who has had no previous contact with you or your company to start a sales...
• Cold email: A cold email is an unsolicited email sent to someone who has no prior relationship with the sender, usually to start...
• Consultative selling: Consultative selling is a sales approach where the seller acts as an advisor: they diagnose the buyer's problem...
• CRM: CRM (customer relationship management) is software that stores every company, contact, conversation and deal a...
• Cross-selling: Cross-selling is selling an existing customer a different product or service that complements what they already buy...
• Customer acquisition cost (CAC): Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is the average sales and marketing cost of winning one new customer, calculated by...
• Customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV): Customer lifetime value (CLV or LTV) is the total revenue or gross profit a business expects from one customer over...
• Customer success: Customer success is the business function that makes sure customers reach the outcomes they bought a product for, so...
• Discovery call: A discovery call is the first real sales conversation with a qualified prospect, where the seller asks questions to...
• Email sequence: An email sequence is a series of pre-written emails sent automatically to a contact on a set schedule, such as day...
• GTM engineer: A GTM engineer is a technical go-to-market role that builds automated systems for finding, enriching and contacting...
• Ideal customer profile (ICP): An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the type of company that gets the most value from your product and brings...
• Inside sales: Inside sales is selling remotely, by phone, email, video calls and LinkedIn, instead of meeting buyers in person...
• Lead qualification: Lead qualification is deciding whether a prospect is worth sales time by checking fit with your ideal customer...
• LinkedIn SSI (Social Selling Index): LinkedIn's Social Selling Index (SSI) is a score from 0 to 100 that rates how well a member uses LinkedIn for...
• MEDDIC: MEDDIC is a sales qualification methodology for complex B2B deals. The letters stand for Metrics, Economic buyer...
• MEDDPICC: MEDDPICC is a B2B sales qualification framework. The letters stand for Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria...
• MRR (monthly recurring revenue): MRR (monthly recurring revenue) is the predictable subscription revenue a company earns in a month, normalized so...
• Net revenue retention (NRR): Net revenue retention (NRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue a company keeps from an existing group of...
• Objection handling: Objection handling is how a seller responds when a prospect raises a concern or a reason not to move forward, such...
• OTE (on-target earnings): OTE (on-target earnings) is the total annual pay a salesperson earns when they hit 100% of their quota: base salary...
• Outside sales: Outside sales is selling in person, with reps who travel to meet buyers at their offices, sites, trade shows or...
• Pipeline generation: Pipeline generation is the work of creating new qualified sales opportunities, through outbound prospecting, inbound...
• Prospecting: Prospecting is the part of selling where a rep finds potential buyers, checks whether they fit and starts the first...
• RevOps (revenue operations): Revenue operations (RevOps) is the function that runs the systems, data and processes behind marketing, sales and...
• RFP (request for proposal): A request for proposal (RFP) is a formal document a buyer issues to invite vendors to propose how they would deliver...
• Sales automation: Sales automation is the use of software to handle repetitive sales tasks without manual work, such as logging...
• Sales cycle: A sales cycle is the sequence of steps from first contact with a prospect to a closed deal, and sales cycle length...
• Sales enablement: Sales enablement is the ongoing work of giving sellers the content, training, tools and coaching they need to have...
• Sales engagement platform: A sales engagement platform is software that runs and tracks a seller's outreach across channels, mainly email...
• Sales funnel: A sales funnel is the series of stages a prospect passes through from first contact to closed deal, such as lead...
• Sales operations: Sales operations is the team that runs the processes, data, tools and planning behind a sales organization...
• Sales pipeline: A sales pipeline is the set of open deals a sales team is working, organized by stage from first qualified...
• SDR (sales development representative): An SDR (sales development representative) is a salesperson who generates and qualifies new pipeline: they research...
• Signal-based selling: Signal-based selling is an outbound approach that times and targets outreach on observable buying signals, such as...
• SPIN selling: SPIN selling is a questioning method for large B2B sales built on four question types: Situation, Problem...
• Stakeholder mapping: Stakeholder mapping in B2B sales is identifying everyone who influences a purchase at an account, their role in the...
• Upselling: Upselling is getting a customer to buy a higher tier, a bigger plan, more seats or extra capacity of the product...

In short 16 marketing terms, A to Z.

• A/B testing: A/B testing is a controlled experiment that shows two versions of something, such as an email subject line or a...
• Account-based marketing (ABM): Account-based marketing (ABM) is a B2B strategy where marketing and sales pick a defined list of target accounts and...
• Buyer persona: A buyer persona is a research-based profile of a type of person who buys or influences the purchase of your product...
• Competitive intelligence: Competitive intelligence is the practice of legally and ethically gathering and analyzing information about...
• Demand generation: Demand generation is the marketing work that makes buyers aware of a problem and interested in your solution...
• Drip campaign: A drip campaign is a series of automated emails sent on a schedule or after specific triggers, such as a sign-up, a...
• Email open rate: Email open rate is the percentage of delivered emails that recipients opened, measured by a tracking pixel that...
• Go-to-market strategy (GTM strategy): A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the plan for how a company brings a product to a specific market: who the target...
• Inbound marketing: Inbound marketing is a strategy that attracts buyers through content, search, social media and events they find on...
• Lead generation: Lead generation is the process of finding people and companies that might buy from you and capturing their contact...
• Lead scoring: Lead scoring assigns each lead a number based on how well they fit your ideal customer profile and how much interest...
• Marketing funnel: A marketing funnel is a model of the stages a buyer moves through from first hearing about a product to becoming a...
• Product-led growth (PLG): Product-led growth (PLG) is a go-to-market strategy where the product itself is the main way to acquire, convert and...
• TAM SAM SOM: TAM, SAM and SOM are three nested market-size estimates. Total addressable market (TAM) is all possible demand...
• Unique selling proposition (USP): A unique selling proposition (USP) is the one benefit that sets your product apart from every competitor and that...
• Value proposition: A value proposition is a short statement of the specific outcome a customer gets from your product, for whom, and...

In short 9 data terms, A to Z.

• API (application programming interface): An API (application programming interface) is a defined set of rules that lets one software program request data or...
• Data enrichment: Data enrichment is the process of adding missing or updated details to records you already have, such as contacts or...
• Firmographics: Firmographics are descriptive attributes of a company, such as industry, employee count, annual revenue, location...
• Intent data: Intent data is information about which companies or people are researching a topic or product right now, collected...
• Sales intelligence: Sales intelligence is the data and tools sales teams use to find and understand prospects: company and contact...
• Technographics: Technographics is data about which technologies a company uses, such as its CRM, email provider, cloud platform or...
• Waterfall enrichment: Waterfall enrichment queries several data providers in sequence for the same field, such as a work email or phone...
• Webhook: A webhook is an automated HTTP request that one application sends to a URL you choose when a specific event happens...
• Workflow automation: Workflow automation is the use of software to run a multi-step business process by rules, where a trigger such as a...

In short 15 deliverability terms, A to Z.

• BIMI: BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is a standard that lets a domain show its logo next to its emails...
• Catch-all email: A catch-all email setup accepts mail sent to any address at a domain, even addresses that don't exist. Because the...
• CNAME record: A CNAME (canonical name) record is a DNS record that makes one hostname an alias of another. Lookups for the alias...
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication standard that adds a cryptographic signature to each...
• DMARC: DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) is a DNS policy that tells receiving servers...
• Email bounce rate: Email bounce rate is the share of sent emails that receiving servers returned as undeliverable. Hard bounces are...
• Email verification: Email verification checks whether an email address exists and can receive mail before you send to it. It tests...
• Email warmup: Email warmup is the process of building a new mailbox or domain's sending reputation by starting at low volume and...
• Google Postmaster Tools: Google Postmaster Tools is a free Google service that shows senders how Gmail treats their mail, with data on spam...
• IP reputation: IP reputation is how much mailbox providers and blocklists trust the IP address your email comes from, based on its...
• MX record: An MX (mail exchanger) record is a DNS record that names the mail servers accepting email for a domain, each with a...
• PTR record: A PTR (pointer) record maps an IP address back to a hostname, the reverse of an A record. Mail servers use this...
• Sender reputation: Sender reputation is how much mailbox providers trust mail from your domain and IP addresses, based on recipient...
• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email authentication standard. A domain publishes a DNS TXT record listing the...
• Spintax: Spintax (spin syntax) is a text format that writes alternatives inside braces separated by pipes, such as...

In short 11 AI and agent terms, A to Z.

• Agentic AI: Agentic AI is artificial intelligence that pursues a goal with limited supervision: it plans the steps, calls tools...
• AI agent: An AI agent is a software program that uses an AI model to work toward a goal on its own: it decides which steps to...
• AI agent builder: An AI agent builder is a tool for creating AI agents without writing a full application: you set the instructions...
• AI notetaker: An AI notetaker is software that joins or records your meetings, transcribes the conversation, and uses AI to...
• AI SDR: An AI SDR is software that does the work of a sales development representative with AI: it finds and researches...
• BYOK (bring your own key): BYOK (bring your own key) means a customer supplies their own key to a software service: an encryption key they...
• Conversation intelligence: Conversation intelligence is software that records sales and customer calls, transcribes them and uses AI to analyze...
• LLM (large language model): A large language model (LLM) is an AI model trained on very large amounts of text to predict the next token, which...
• Model Context Protocol (MCP): Model Context Protocol (MCP) is an open standard, introduced by Anthropic in November 2024, that defines how AI...
• Prompt engineering: Prompt engineering is the practice of writing and refining the instructions, context and examples given to an AI...
• RAG (retrieval-augmented generation): Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) is a method where an AI system first searches a trusted source, such as company...

In short 1 compliance term, A to Z.

• SOC 2: SOC 2 is an AICPA framework in which an independent CPA firm examines a service organization's controls for...