Plain-English definitions for 52+ tech sales terms.
Sales Development Representative. An outbound rep who books qualified meetings for Account Executives. SDRs prospect via cold call, email, and LinkedIn. The standard first seat in tech sales; promotion to AE usually takes 12-18 months.
Business Development Representative. Functionally identical to an SDR at most companies. Some orgs use BDR for outbound-only and SDR for inbound, but the titles are interchangeable in practice.
Account Executive. The closing rep. AEs own deals from qualified opportunity through signed contract. Tiered into SMB, Mid-Market, and Enterprise by deal size and complexity.
Account Manager. Owns the relationship after the sale: renewals, expansion, and customer health. Carries a number for retention and upsell rather than new logos.
Customer Success Manager. Drives adoption and outcomes for existing customers. Quota usually tied to renewal rates and product engagement metrics rather than new revenue.
Sales Engineer. Technical pre-sales partner to the AE. Runs demos, builds proofs of concept, and answers architecture questions. Engineering background typical.
Revenue Operations. The team that owns sales tooling, forecasting, territory design, and commissions. Reports usually into the CRO.
On-Target Earnings. Total compensation when a rep hits 100% of quota. Usually split 50/50 base/variable for AEs, 60/40 or 70/30 for SDRs. OTE is what's promised; W-2 is what was earned.
Base salary. Fixed annual salary paid regardless of quota attainment. The portion of OTE that is guaranteed.
Variable compensation. The commission portion of OTE, earned through quota attainment. Paid monthly or quarterly depending on the comp plan.
Variable pay earned per deal. Percentage of bookings paid to the rep. Often accelerates above 100% attainment (e.g. 2x rate from 100-150%, 3x above 150%).
Higher commission rate above quota. Multipliers on commission rate once a rep clears 100% attainment. Designed to make over-performance dramatically more lucrative than meeting quota.
The annual revenue number assigned to a rep. Usually expressed as annual contract value (ACV) for AEs or sourced pipeline / meetings for SDRs. AE quotas are typically 4-6x OTE.
Percentage of quota achieved. Reps at 100%+ are 'making quota.' Industry average is around 50-60% of reps hitting quota in any given year.
Annual Contract Value. The yearly revenue from a single customer contract. The standard metric for tracking deal size in SaaS.
Annual Recurring Revenue. Total recurring revenue across all customers, annualized. The headline growth metric for SaaS companies.
Monthly Recurring Revenue. ARR divided by 12. Used by early-stage SaaS companies that track growth month over month.
Total Contract Value. The full value of a multi-year deal. A 3-year,
Total dollar value of open opportunities. Sales orgs target 3-4x pipeline coverage of quota:
Pipeline credited to a specific rep's prospecting. The metric SDRs are usually measured on. Distinct from marketing-sourced or inbound pipeline.
Ideal Customer Profile. The narrow definition of the company most likely to buy: industry, size, tech stack, growth stage, geography. The starting point for any prospecting list.
The buyer role inside a target account. Different from ICP. ICP is the company; persona is the human (VP Sales, CRO, Director of RevOps).
Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion. A qualification framework for enterprise deals. Forces reps to validate each of the six elements before committing pipeline. Variants: MEDDPICC adds Paper Process and Competition.
Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. The original qualification framework. Considered dated for modern SaaS; MEDDIC and Challenger are more common.
Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff. Neil Rackham's consultative selling question framework. Designed to move buyers from awareness of a problem to wanting a solution.
The Challenger Sale methodology. Based on CEB research showing that 'Challenger' reps (who teach, tailor, and take control) outperform relationship-builders in complex B2B sales.
Sandler Selling System. Pain-funnel-driven methodology built on disqualifying bad-fit prospects early. Heavy on upfront contracts and reverse psychology.
Selling to a defined customer pain. The traditional consultative approach. Diagnose the pain, then position the product as the solution. Less effective when buyers can self-educate.
The first meeting where the rep diagnoses fit. A good discovery call qualifies pain, budget, decision process, and timeline before pitching anything. Typically 30-45 minutes.
Live walkthrough of the product. Best demos are tailored to the buyer's specific use case from discovery, not generic product tours. Usually run with the SE.
Proof of Concept. A scoped pilot where the buyer tests the product against their own data and workflows. Common in enterprise sales; rare in SMB.
An internal advocate who sells for you. The person inside the buying org who wants the deal to happen and will fight for it. Without a champion, enterprise deals stall.
The person with final budget authority. Often two levels above the day-to-day user. Discovering and meeting the economic buyer is the M and EB in MEDDIC.
Engaging multiple stakeholders inside one account. Single-threaded deals collapse when your one contact leaves or gets reorged. Multi-threaded deals close 3x more often.
Unannounced outbound phone call to a prospect. Still the highest-conversion outbound channel at most B2B SaaS companies. Top SDRs run 60-100 dials/day.
Unannounced outbound email. Best practice: under 75 words, one specific observation, one ask. Personalization beats template volume.
Sequence of outreach touches over time. A typical SDR cadence is 8-12 touches over 14-21 days across email, phone, and LinkedIn. Tools: Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo.
Same as cadence. Outreach.io uses 'sequence'; Salesloft uses 'cadence'. Functionally identical.
A prospect has accepted a calendar invite. The primary SDR output metric. Held meetings (prospect actually shows up) is the more honest version.
A meeting that actually occurred. Typical no-show rate is 20-30%. Held meetings filter out vanity bookings.
Sales Qualified Lead. A meeting that passed AE qualification and entered the pipeline. The handoff metric from SDR to AE.
Marketing Qualified Lead. A lead that marketing has scored as ready for sales follow-up. Often arrives via content download or demo request.
Closed-won deals divided by total opportunities. Healthy SaaS AE win rates are 20-30%. Below 15% usually signals an ICP or qualification problem.
Average days from first meeting to closed deal. Highly segment-dependent: SMB cycles run 14-30 days, mid-market 30-90, enterprise 6-18 months.
Time before a new rep is expected to hit full quota. Typical ramp is 3-6 months at SMB, 6-9 at mid-market, 9-12 at enterprise. During ramp, quotas are pro-rated.
Short-term commission bonus. Sales leadership uses spiffs to push specific behavior: new logo, certain product line, end-of-quarter close. Paid on top of standard commission.
Commission reversed when a deal cancels or refunds. Most plans claw back commission if the customer churns within the first 90-180 days. Read the comp plan before signing.
Reduction in quota due to special circumstances. Granted for things like a customer-failed implementation, a stalled product launch, or territory changes mid-year. Rare to get without asking.
A rep's assigned territory or account list. Patch quality is the single biggest predictor of attainment. Always ask about the patch before accepting an AE offer.
Any role with an individual revenue number. SDR, AE, AM, and CSM with renewal quota are all quota-carrying. SE, Marketing, and CSM-pooled roles typically aren't.
Sales Hunter's metric-first resume structure. Every bullet leads with a verb and ends with a quantified outcome (TCV, pipeline, attainment). Header metrics: Total Pipeline Generated and Total TCV Closed. Built to clear ATS filters and pass a 6-second hiring-manager scan.
A curated 30-50 company target list. Sales Hunter's targeting method: filter by stage (Rising Star, Cash Cow, Hypergrowth), ICP overlap, and OTE band. Beats mass-applying every time.