The glossary
Sales coaching, defined.
111 terms from coaching, deals, pipeline and methodology. Each one is defined in a line, with an example from a real sales team's week and how a manager uses it.
A
- Account-based sellingAccount-based selling is a B2B sales approach in which reps work a short list of named accounts, reaching several people in each with messages specific to that company.
- AI manager coachAn AI manager coach is software that reads across a sales team's deals and coaching sessions and tells the manager which deals and reps need them this week, and why.
- AI roleplay in salesAI roleplay in sales is practice against a simulated buyer: an AI persona that talks back, raises objections and scores the rep against a rubric.
- AI sales coachAn AI sales coach is software that does a sales manager's coaching work with a rep on their live deals, preparing the next buyer conversation and debriefing the last one.
- Average deal sizeAverage deal size is the revenue from closed-won deals in a period divided by the number of deals won in that period.
B
- BANTBANT is a sales qualification framework that checks four things about a lead: budget, authority, need and timeline.
- Behaviorally anchored rating scaleA behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is a scoring scale where each level is defined by a specific, observable behavior, so reviewers match what they saw to a description.
- Buyer enablementBuyer enablement is the practice of giving buyers the information, tools and help they need to make a purchase decision inside their own organization.
- Buying committeeA buying committee is the group of people inside a buying organization who influence, shape or approve a B2B purchase.
C
- Calibration sessionA calibration session is a meeting where managers score the same sales calls independently, compare their scores, and agree how the scorecard should be applied.
- Call coachingCall coaching is a manager or coach going through one real sales call with the rep, finding what helped or hurt the deal, and agreeing what to change on the next call.
- Call scoringCall scoring is rating a recorded sales call against a defined scorecard, skill by skill, with evidence from the transcript behind each rating.
- Challenger SaleThe Challenger Sale is a selling methodology in which reps teach buyers a new insight about their business, tailor it to each stakeholder and take control of the sale.
- Champion in salesA champion is a person inside the buying organization with power and influence who sells for you internally because your success serves their own goals.
- Close planA close plan is the written path from where a deal is today to a signed contract, listing each step, its owner on both sides and its date.
- Coaching cadenceA coaching cadence is the fixed, recurring schedule of coaching meetings a sales manager keeps with each rep and with the team, each meeting with one subject and one output.
- Coaching culture in salesA coaching culture in sales is one where every rep is coached on their live deals every week, by managers who are skilled at it, and reps ask for coaching unprompted.
- Coaching scorecardA coaching scorecard lists the skills a sales call should show and describes each level, so managers score calls consistently and coach from them.
- Cold emailA cold email is a short, unsolicited first message to a buyer who has never heard from you, written to earn a single reply.
- Command of the MessageCommand of the Message is Force Management's value-based sales messaging framework, which trains reps to describe their solution in terms of the customer's problems and outcomes.
- Commercial insightA commercial insight is a short argument that breaks a belief the buyer holds about their business and leads to something only the seller's company does.
- Commit forecastA commit forecast is the total of the deals a rep or team expects to close in the current period at their stated value, the number they will be held to.
- Conversation intelligenceConversation intelligence is software that records, transcribes and analyzes sales calls and meetings so a team can search what was said and find patterns across many conversations.
- Current state and future state in salesIn sales, the current state is the buyer's situation today, with its problems and their costs, and the future state is the situation the buyer wants to reach.
- Customer health scoreA customer health score is a single rating, built from usage, support, survey and relationship data, that estimates how likely an existing customer is to renew or grow.
D
- Deal coachingDeal coaching is a manager working one live opportunity with the rep to find what the deal is missing and agree the next move with the buyer.
- Deal health scoreA deal health score is a number, usually 0 to 100, that a sales tool gives an open deal to show how likely it is to close compared with similar deals.
- Deal inspectionDeal inspection is checking a single opportunity's data and evidence to judge whether it is real, where it stands and what could stop it closing.
- Deal reviewA deal review is a call between a sales manager and a rep about one live opportunity, held to agree on what the deal is missing and plan the next buyer conversation.
- Deal risk scoreA deal risk score is a number or color a sales tool gives an open opportunity to show how likely it is to slip or be lost.
- Deal slippageDeal slippage is when a deal forecast to close in one period misses it and its close date moves into a later month or quarter.
- Decision criteria in salesDecision criteria are the standards a buyer uses to judge your solution against the alternatives, including doing nothing.
- Decision process in salesA decision process is the series of steps, and the people at each step, that a buyer goes through to choose a vendor.
- Difference between roleplay and simulation in sales trainingA sales roleplay is a practice call against someone playing the buyer; a sales simulation is a structured, scored scenario, usually software-run, that may contain a roleplay.
- Discovery callA discovery call is an early sales conversation in which the buyer describes, in their own words, their problem, what it costs and how they will decide.
E
- Economic buyerAn economic buyer is the person in the buying organization with final authority over the purchase, who can say yes when others say no.
- Executive sponsorAn executive sponsor is a senior leader who takes personal responsibility for a customer relationship or a purchase, and uses their seniority to keep it moving.
- Expansion revenueExpansion revenue is the additional recurring revenue a company earns from customers it already has, through upsells, cross-sells, add-ons and extra seats.
F
- Forecast categoryA forecast category is the label a rep puts on an open deal to say how likely it is to close in the current period, usually pipeline, best case or commit.
- Forgetting curve in sales trainingThe forgetting curve describes how memory of newly learned material drops quickly after learning and then levels off, unless the material is used or reviewed.
G
- Gap SellingGap Selling is a problem-centric sales methodology in which the rep diagnoses the gap between the buyer's current state and desired future state, in the buyer's own numbers.
- Gatekeeper in salesA gatekeeper in sales is the person who screens calls and messages for a decision-maker, such as an executive assistant, receptionist or office manager.
- Gross revenue retentionGross revenue retention (GRR) is the percentage of recurring revenue a company keeps from its existing customers over a period, after churn and downgrades and before any expansion.
- GROW model in sales coachingThe GROW model is a four-step coaching conversation (Goal, Reality, Options, and Will or Way Forward) that moves a person from what they want to a committed next action.
I
- Ideal customer profileAn ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the type of company most likely to buy your product, get value from it and stay a customer.
- Identify pain mean in MEDDPICCIdentify Pain is the I in MEDDPICC: the buyer's business problem, named in their own words, with a cost attached and a reason to fix it now.
- Implication questionAn implication question is a SPIN Selling question that explores the effects of a problem the buyer has described, so the buyer sees what the problem costs and why it is urgent.
- Inter-rater agreement in call scoringInter-rater agreement is how closely two or more scorers, human or AI, give the same scores to the same sales calls on the same scorecard.
L
- Land and expandLand and expand is a sales strategy in which a company wins a small first deal inside a customer, proves value there, then grows the account through more seats, teams or products.
- LLM-as-a-judgeLLM-as-a-judge is the practice of using a large language model to grade an output, or pick the better of two, against written criteria in place of a human reviewer.
M
- MEDDICMEDDIC is a six-part B2B sales qualification framework that tests whether a deal is real and winnable on the buyer's own evidence.
- MEDDPICCMEDDPICC is a B2B sales qualification framework that checks eight things a complex deal needs before it can be forecast with confidence.
- Metrics in MEDDPICCMetrics are the M in MEDDPICC: the measurable business outcome the buyer expects from solving their problem, stated in the buyer's own numbers.
- Microlearning in sales trainingMicrolearning in sales training is teaching in short lessons of a few minutes, each covering one topic, spaced out over days or weeks and usually ending with a check.
- Multi-threading in salesMulti-threading in sales means building working relationships with several people in a buyer's organization, so a deal does not depend on one contact.
- Mutual action planA mutual action plan is a shared, dated list of the steps the buyer and the seller will each take from today until the buyer is using what they bought.
P
- Pain funnelThe pain funnel is a Sandler questioning sequence that moves a buyer from the problem they first mention to its business cost and personal impact.
- Paper processThe paper process is the series of steps that take a deal from the buyer's decision to a signed contract: legal review, procurement, security review and vendor onboarding.
- Performance drift in salesPerformance drift is the gap between what a sales rep learned in training and what they do on a live buyer call three weeks later.
- Pipeline coachingPipeline coaching is a manager working through a rep's open deals to find the gap that repeats across them, then coaching that skill on the rep's live deals.
- Pipeline coveragePipeline coverage is the value of open pipeline expected to close in a period divided by the sales target for that period, written as a ratio such as 3x.
- Pipeline reviewA pipeline review is a meeting where a sales manager checks a rep's or team's open deals for coverage, realism and risk, and picks the deals that need work.
- Position bias in AI judgingPosition bias is an AI judge's tendency to favor an answer because of where it appears in the prompt, such as first or second, regardless of its quality.
- Prospecting cadenceA prospecting cadence is the planned sequence of emails, calls, voicemails and social messages a rep sends to one contact over a set period, ending with a defined last touch.
Q
- QBRA QBR (quarterly business review) is a quarterly meeting where a vendor's account team and a customer's sponsor review results and agree the customer's next priorities.
- Quota attainmentQuota attainment is the percentage of a sales quota that a rep, team or company closes in a set period, usually a month, quarter or year.
R
- Ramp time in salesRamp time is the period from a sales rep's start date to the point where they run the team's sales method on their own live deals to standard.
- Ramp-adjusted quotaA ramp-adjusted quota is a reduced sales target for a new rep that steps up, month by month, to full quota by the end of the expected ramp period.
- Rank agreementRank agreement is a measure of how closely a scorer puts a set of calls in the same order, best to worst, as a trusted reference such as expert reviewers.
- Reply rate in cold emailReply rate is the percentage of contacts who answer a cold email or sequence, calculated as replies divided by contacts whose emails were delivered.
- Revenue cadenceA revenue cadence is the weekly, monthly and quarterly rhythm of meetings, including deal reviews and forecast calls, that a sales organization runs to hit its number.
- Revenue enablementRevenue enablement is the function that prepares every customer-facing team, from sales to account management and customer success, to win, keep and grow revenue.
- Revenue intelligenceRevenue intelligence is software that combines CRM, email, calendar and call data to show pipeline health, forecast revenue and flag deals at risk.
S
- Sales certificationSales certification is a formal check that a rep meets a written standard on a skill, message or conversation, scored against a rubric before the rep runs it with buyers.
- Sales coachingSales coaching is a manager working with one rep on that rep's live deals, so the rep's next buyer conversation gets the deal what it needs.
- Sales competency modelA sales competency model is a written set of the skills a sales role needs, each described in levels a manager can observe and mark on a live call.
- Sales cycle lengthSales cycle length is the average number of days a team's deals take from the day an opportunity is created to the day it closes.
- Sales enablement platformSales enablement is the work of giving a sales team the content, training and tools it sells with.
- Sales kickoffA sales kickoff (SKO) is an annual one to three day meeting where a sales organization sets targets, launches messaging and trains reps for the year ahead.
- Sales methodologyA sales methodology is a team's shared way of diagnosing a buyer's problem, qualifying a deal and moving the buyer to a decision.
- Sales playbookA sales playbook is the written standard for each moment of your sale: the evidence to get from the buyer, the plays that get it, and what good sounds like.
- Sales readinessSales readiness is a rep's proven ability to run a named buyer conversation, such as discovery or pricing, to the team's written standard on a live deal.
- Sales ride-alongA sales ride-along is a manager joining a rep on real buyer meetings, in person or on video, to watch how the rep sells and debrief each meeting afterwards.
- Sales shadowingSales shadowing is a new rep listening in on a tenured rep's live buyer calls, usually in the first weeks of onboarding, to learn how the job sounds.
- Sales training reinforcementSales training reinforcement is the planned follow-up after training that gets reps using what they learned on their live deals, through spaced follow-up and coaching on those deals.
- Sales velocitySales velocity is the revenue a sales team brings in per day, calculated from its number of opportunities, average deal size, win rate and sales cycle length.
- Sandler Selling SystemThe Sandler Selling System® is a seven-step, low-pressure consultative sales method from Sandler in which the seller qualifies pain, budget and the decision process before presenting anything.
- SDR to AE handoffThe SDR to AE handoff is when a meeting an SDR booked passes to the account executive who will run the deal, along with what the buyer said.
- Seller-doerA seller-doer is a professional, such as an engineer, consultant, lawyer or accountant, who wins client work and then delivers it.
- Single-threaded dealA single-threaded deal is an opportunity where the seller's only working relationship inside the buying organization is one person.
- Skill coaching in salesSkill coaching is coaching that develops one selling capability, such as discovery or handling objections, across many of a rep's calls until it shows up without prompting.
- Solution sellingSolution selling is a sales approach in which the rep diagnoses the buyer's business problem first and then proposes the product as the fix for that problem.
- Spaced repetition in sales trainingSpaced repetition is practicing material or a skill in several short sessions separated by gaps that widen over time, so the skill lasts longer than it would after one long session.
- Span of control for sales managersSpan of control is the number of reps who report directly to one sales manager, and so the number of people that manager has to coach every week.
- SPICEDSPICED is a discovery and qualification framework from Winning by Design that captures a buyer's Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical Event and Decision.
- SPIN SellingSPIN Selling is a questioning methodology that builds a buyer's sense of need through Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff questions.
- Stage exit criteriaStage exit criteria are the conditions a deal must meet before a rep can move it to the next stage of the pipeline, ideally written as things the buyer has said or done.
T
- Talk-to-listen ratioTalk-to-listen ratio is the share of a sales call the rep spends talking, set against the share spent listening to the buyer, written as rep talk to listen.
- Time to first dealTime to first deal is the number of days between a sales rep's start date and the first deal they close that they sourced or ran from discovery.
- Transfer of trainingTransfer of training is the degree to which people apply what they learned in training to their real work, and keep applying it over time.
- Trial closeA trial close is a question that asks the buyer's opinion of the deal so far, to test how ready they are before the rep asks for a decision.
V
- Value analysis committeeA value analysis committee is a hospital group that decides which products and devices to buy by weighing clinical evidence, safety and outcomes against total cost.
- ValueSelling Framework®The ValueSelling Framework® is a B2B sales methodology from ValueSelling Associates for qualifying and selling on business value quantified by the buyer.
W
- Weighted pipelineA weighted pipeline is the sum of every open deal's value multiplied by its probability of closing, used as an estimate of the revenue the pipeline will produce.
- Whitespace analysisWhitespace analysis is the mapping of an existing customer's buying centers against your products to find the combinations the customer does not buy from you yet.
- Win rate in salesWin rate is the share of closed opportunities a sales team wins, calculated as deals won divided by all deals closed as won or lost in the same period.
- Win-loss analysisWin-loss analysis is a regular review of closed deals, won and lost, that uses buyer interviews and deal records to learn why buyers decided as they did.