Sales, Marketing, and Tech Terminology

Posted on Mar 23, 2025 in Business Management and Marketing

Key Sales and Marketing Roles

  • MDR (Market Development Representative): Follows up on inbound leads and sets up meetings with Account Executives (AEs).
  • SDR (Sales Development Representative): Initiates conversations with potential clients through outbound actions.
  • AE (Account Executive): Develops Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs) through a series of meetings.
  • ONB (Onboarding): Onboards a client and achieves initial use of the product or service.
  • CSM (Customer Success Manager): Ensures recurring use of the service, identifies high-potential customers, provides technical support (especially for complex products), and relays feedback to the Product Team.
  • AM (Account Manager): Increases profit by developing up-sell opportunities.
  • ADR (Account Development Representative): Develops leads and is primarily responsible for securing new sales leads for Account Executives.

Key Sales and Marketing Concepts

Quick Ratio

Quick Ratio = (New + Resurrected Customers) / Churned Customers

B2B vs. B2C

Key differences between Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) models:

  • Client Volume/Value: B2B typically involves fewer clients but larger transactions, while B2C involves more transactions of lower value.
  • Product Value Perception: B2B focuses on the use and perceived value of the product, while B2C often emphasizes immediate gratification.
  • Sales Cycle: B2B sales cycles are generally longer than B2C sales cycles.
  • Distribution: B2B often requires specialized distribution channels, while B2C relies on wider availability and proximity.

Customer Self-Service Portal Capabilities

Eleven fundamental capabilities for a customer self-service portal:

  1. External and Site Search
  2. Usability, Design, and Navigation
  3. Personalization
  4. Globalization
  5. Content and Education
  6. Virtual Client Assistants
  7. Case Management
  8. Assisted Support
  9. Community Engagement
  10. Tools
  11. Reporting and Analysis

Corporate Culture

Corporate culture encompasses the values and behaviors that contribute to an organization’s unique environment. It includes:

  • Vision
  • Values
  • Practices
  • People
  • Narrative (e.g., a company museum)
  • Workplace

NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens)

NFTs are cryptographic tokens that are unique, distinguishable, and limited in supply. They cannot be interchanged like-for-like. NFTs can represent real-world items on the blockchain and are used for digital collectibles. They have gained popularity as a new form of digital art and are also used in video games, digital identity, licensing, certificates, and fine art.

  • Fungible: Assets where individual units are interchangeable (e.g., fiat currencies, cryptocurrencies).
  • Non-Fungible: Assets with unique properties and limited supply (e.g., NFTs). They can be bought, sold, and traded on NFT marketplaces.

CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

CRM systems centralize data and processes, providing a 360-degree view of customers (including previous transactions, purchases, contact information, and subscriptions). They help monitor tasks, automate customer-related processes, facilitate cross-departmental collaboration, and track email campaigns and sales results.

CRM Benefits

  1. Better Customer Insights
  2. Consistent Messaging
  3. Automated Workflows
  4. Increased Efficiency
  5. Better Decision-Making

Gartner’s 8 Building Blocks of CRM

CRM Vision, CRM Strategy (objectives), Valued Customer Experience, Organizational Collaboration, CRM Processes, CRM Information, CRM Technology, CRM Metrics.

Social Selling

Social selling is the process of generating leads and shaping demand using social media tools. Sales representatives engage prospects, build relationships, and move them through the sales funnel.

Sales Forecast and Budget

A sales forecast is a projection of achievable revenue based on historical sales data, market analysis, and sales team estimates.

Sales Forecasting Methods

  1. Lead-Driven Model: Analyzes lead sources and forecasts based on the value of each source.
  2. Opportunity Creation Driven Model: Predicts which opportunities are most likely to close based on demographic and behavioral data.
  3. Opportunity Stages Driven Model: Predicts the probability of an opportunity closing based on its current stage in the sales process (Expected Revenue = Deal Amount * Probability of Deal Closing).
  4. Length of Sales Cycle Forecasting: Uses the age of opportunities to predict closing dates.

Sales Compensation Models

The compensation model significantly impacts the quality of sales talent attracted. Two primary types:

  • Flat Tiered: Pays the same rate for all items sold (or a flat amount per deal). Suitable for companies without specific sales quotas.
  • Tiered Commission: Pays a flat rate until a representative reaches a certain sales threshold, after which the rate increases.

AI in Sales

  1. Conversational Commerce:
    • Technology: Natural Language Processing (NLP) processes large volumes of unstructured data.
    • Business Impact: Automates repetitive inquiries, guides agents on complex cases, and provides real-time analysis.
  2. Smart Product Recommendation:
    • Technology: Data filtering tools use algorithms to recommend relevant items.
    • Business Impact: AI-powered suggestions enable early upselling and personalized content recommendations for cross-selling.
  3. Speech Recognition:
    • Technology: Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) allows for faster processing of information compared to typing.
    • Business Impact: Commonly used in food take-out and during activities like cooking, watching TV, and driving.
  4. Data Analytics:
    • Business Impact: Uncovers new insights, predicts outcomes, and unifies analytics and customer data.

The Challenger Sale Formula

  1. Reframe: Teach the client a new way of thinking about a problem.
  2. New Behavior: Convince the client to adopt a new approach (where your product/service fits).
  3. Differentiate: Show why your company is the right partner.

Influencer Marketing

An influencer is someone who:

  • Has the power to affect purchasing decisions due to their authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with their audience.
  • Has an active following in a distinct niche.

Influencers are social relationship assets for brands to collaborate with. Types of influencers can be categorized by follower count, content type, level of influence, and niche.

The Metaverse

The Metaverse is a spatial computing platform offering digital experiences as alternatives or replicas of the real world. It incorporates aspects like social interaction, currency, trade, economy, and property ownership, built on blockchain technology. “Meta” means beyond, across, or after.

Accessing the Metaverse

The Metaverse is accessed through augmented, virtual, and/or mixed reality headsets and similar gear.

Activities in the Metaverse

Users can engage in gaming, socializing, attending events, shopping, building, and creating avatars.