What's inside
- Deal qualification frameworks: BANT, CHAMP, MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, SPIN
- Company & market sizing: ICP, TAM, SAM, SOM
- Revenue & deal metrics: ARR, MRR, ACV, TCV, LTV, CAC, NRR, GRR, ROI, OTE
- Pipeline & funnel stages: TOFU/MOFU/BOFU, MQL/SQL/PQL, GTM, ABM, PLG
- Roles & teams you'll work with: AE, AM, BDR, SDR, SE, CS, CSM, EB
- Deal process & paperwork: POC, POV, RFI, RFP, RFQ, SOW, MSA, NDA, PO, CPQ
- Meetings, tools & everyday ops: CRM, KPI, OKR, QBR, CSAT, NPS, SLA, WIIFM and more
The acronym wall hits everyone in week one. Bookmark this page — you'll reference it constantly for the first month, then never need it again.
Deal Qualification Frameworks
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| BANT | Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline | The oldest qualification checklist: does this prospect have money, decision power, a real problem, and a reason to act now? |
| CHAMP | Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization | Like BANT but leads with the prospect's challenge first, money last — reflects modern pain-led selling. |
| MEDDIC | Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion | An enterprise qualification framework — before you call a deal "qualified," you should be able to answer all six. |
| MEDDPICC | MEDDIC + Paper process, Competition | MEDDIC with two more checks: is there a legal/procurement process mapped, and do you know who else is being evaluated? |
| SPIN | Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff | A questioning sequence for discovery calls: understand the situation, uncover the problem, explore its consequences, then get them to state the value of solving it. |
Company & Market Sizing
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| ICP | Ideal Customer Profile | The specific type of company that gets the most value from your product and is most likely to buy and stay. |
| TAM | Total Addressable Market | The total revenue opportunity if every possible customer in the world bought your product. |
| SAM | Serviceable Addressable Market | The slice of TAM you could realistically reach with your current product and go-to-market. |
| SOM | Serviceable Obtainable Market | The slice of SAM you can realistically capture given your actual resources and competition. |
Revenue & Deal Metrics
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| ARR | Annual Recurring Revenue | Predictable subscription revenue, normalized to a 12-month figure. |
| MRR | Monthly Recurring Revenue | Same idea as ARR, but the monthly version — ARR ÷ 12. |
| ACV | Annual Contract Value | The value of one customer's contract, annualized — used to size individual deals. |
| TCV | Total Contract Value | The full value of a contract across its entire term (e.g., a 3-year deal's full worth, not just one year). |
| LTV | Lifetime Value | The total revenue you expect from a customer over the whole time they stay with you. |
| CAC | Customer Acquisition Cost | What it costs, in sales and marketing spend, to win one new customer. |
| NRR | Net Revenue Retention | Whether existing customers' revenue grew or shrank over a period, including upgrades and downgrades (excludes new logos). |
| GRR | Gross Revenue Retention | Same as NRR but ignores upsell/expansion — measures pure retention, the worst-case revenue floor. |
| ROI | Return on Investment | The financial payoff a customer gets back relative to what they spent — the number you're ultimately proving in every deal. |
| OTE | On-Target Earnings | Your total expected pay (base + commission/bonus) if you hit 100% of quota. |
Pipeline & Funnel Stages
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| TOFU | Top of Funnel | Early-stage prospects — just becoming aware of a problem or your category. |
| MOFU | Middle of Funnel | Prospects actively evaluating solutions, comparing options. |
| BOFU | Bottom of Funnel | Prospects close to a decision — negotiating, doing final diligence. |
| MQL | Marketing Qualified Lead | A lead marketing has flagged as engaged enough to be worth a sales look (downloaded content, attended a webinar, etc.). |
| SQL | Sales Qualified Lead | A lead a sales rep has vetted and accepted as worth actively pursuing. |
| PQL | Product Qualified Lead | A lead who's already used your product (free trial/freemium) and shown behavior that predicts they'll buy. |
| GTM | Go-To-Market | The overall strategy and motion for how you sell your product to the market. |
| ABM | Account-Based Marketing | A strategy that targets specific named accounts with tailored outreach, instead of casting a wide net. |
| PLG | Product-Led Growth | A go-to-market motion where the product itself (via free trial/freemium) drives adoption and sales, rather than a sales team pushing it. |
Roles & Teams You'll Work With
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| AE | Account Executive | The rep who owns closing new deals — usually who you become after an SDR/BDR role. |
| AM | Account Manager | Owns the relationship and growth of existing accounts post-sale. |
| BDR | Business Development Representative | Outbound-focused rep who generates and qualifies new pipeline (often used interchangeably with SDR). |
| SDR | Sales Development Representative | Same as BDR at most companies — qualifies leads and books meetings for AEs. |
| SE | Sales Engineer | The technical expert who joins calls to handle deep product/technical questions and demos. |
| CS | Customer Success | The team responsible for a customer's ongoing health, adoption, and renewal after they buy. |
| CSM | Customer Success Manager | The individual who owns a book of customer accounts post-sale for adoption and retention. |
| EB | Economic Buyer | The person who actually controls the budget and has final sign-off authority on a purchase. |
Deal Process & Paperwork
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| POC | Proof of Concept | A limited, hands-on test of your product in the prospect's environment before they commit fully. |
| POV | Point of View / Proof of Value | Either your strategic recommendation to a prospect, or (in some companies) a structured trial proving business value. |
| RFI | Request for Information | An early-stage document a buyer sends asking vendors to describe their capabilities generally. |
| RFP | Request for Proposal | A formal document where a buyer asks vendors to submit a detailed proposal, often used in competitive/procurement-led deals. |
| RFQ | Request for Quote | A buyer asking specifically for pricing on a defined scope — narrower than an RFP. |
| SOW | Statement of Work | A document defining exactly what will be delivered, by when, and by whom — common in services-attached deals. |
| MSA | Master Service Agreement | The overarching legal contract governing the relationship, under which individual SOWs or orders sit. |
| NDA | Non-Disclosure Agreement | A legal agreement protecting confidential information shared between you and the prospect. |
| PO | Purchase Order | A buyer's formal, internal document authorizing the purchase — often the final procurement step before you get paid. |
| CPQ | Configure, Price, Quote | Software (or process) that lets you build an accurate, approved price quote for complex or configurable deals. |
Meetings, Tools & Everyday Ops
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management | The system of record for every account, contact, and deal (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) — your single source of truth. |
| KPI | Key Performance Indicator | A specific metric used to track whether you (or the business) are performing — e.g., calls booked, win rate. |
| OKR | Objectives and Key Results | A goal-setting framework: a qualitative Objective paired with measurable Key Results that prove you hit it. |
| QBR | Quarterly Business Review | A recurring meeting (internal or with a customer) reviewing performance, health, and plans for the quarter ahead. |
| CSAT | Customer Satisfaction Score | A survey-based metric measuring how satisfied a customer is with an interaction or the product overall. |
| NPS | Net Promoter Score | A single-question survey ("how likely are you to recommend us, 0–10") used as a proxy for customer loyalty. |
| SLA | Service Level Agreement | A committed standard of service (e.g., response time) that you promise a customer, often in the contract. |
| EOD | End of Day | Deadline shorthand — "get me that by EOD" means before the workday ends. |
| EOQ | End of Quarter | The final stretch of a fiscal quarter — often when deal urgency (and pressure) spikes. |
| FY | Fiscal Year | A company's 12-month accounting year, which may not match the calendar year. |
| WIIFM | What's In It For Me | Shorthand reminder to always frame your pitch from the buyer's self-interest, not your product's feature list. |
| B2B | Business-to-Business | Selling to other companies, not individual consumers. |
| B2C | Business-to-Consumer | Selling directly to individual consumers. |
| SaaS | Software as a Service | Software delivered via subscription over the internet, rather than installed and owned outright. |
How to use it
Keep this page open in a browser tab during your first month; whenever you hit an acronym in a meeting, deck, or Slack message you don't recognize, search this page before (or right after) asking a teammate.