Introduction

Sales teams are among the busiest in any organization. Finding leads, nurturing them, and then trying to close deals—it’s certainly not a walk in the park, and in the busiest seasons, every second counts!

That’s why it’s extremely important for salespeople to have many of their most important functions expressed as acronyms—words formed from the initial letters or parts of other words, used as a shorthand way to refer to something. Acronyms facilitate fast communication and allow complex ideas and phrases to be conveyed quickly and easily. 

In sales teams, many of the commonly-used acronyms in sales teams are KPIs. Other acronyms in the sales context refer to stages of the sales pipeline, or on-the-fly methods for attracting and maintaining lead interest.

With that said, here are 24 of the most common acronyms found in sales departments.

1. ABC (Always Be Closing)

Popularized by the 1992 hit Glengarry Glen Ross, ABC refers to a sales mindset that is continually focused on closing deals. While this tactic from decades ago is now considered needlessly aggressive—and other sales strategies based on trust, curiosity, and advice are now mainstream—ABC can still serve as a fun motivator even for contemporary sales teams to “always be closing” on the deals that matter.

2. ACV (Annual Contract Value)

The average annualized revenue per customer contract. Often used in B2B SaaS, ACV is found by taking the total contract value and dividing it by the total number of years in the contract.  ACV is a useful analytical tool for forecasting revenue, budgeting, and analyzing customer value. It’s also a good indicator of the overall effectiveness of your sales performance.

3. B2B (Business-to-Business)

Indicating sales transactions between two businesses, B2B is a common designator for SaaS products—in other words, software products sold between companies that help streamline business performance. Plecto is an example of a B2B firm, as it sells dashboard reporting systems to other companies and isn’t intended for personal use.

4. B2C (Business-to-Consumer)

Sales transactions between a business and consumers. Point-of-sale (POS) is an example of a B2C product type, one that facilitates transactions between a company and its customers.

5. BANT (Budget, Authority, Needs, Timeline)

A qualification framework used to identify and pursue the most qualified prospects, based on the prospect’s budget (Can they afford the product?), their authority (Can they approve purchase of the product?), their needs (Do they have the pain points that your product addresses?), and their timeline (How long do they have to buy your product?). Following the BANT framework prompts sales teams to follow only those leads that have a high likelihood of closing.

6. CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

CAC is one of the core sales-related KPIs. It’s the mean cost of acquiring a new customer, found by adding up all marketing and sales expenditures and dividing by the number of new customers obtained. These expenditures include ad spend, salaries, marketing tool subscriptions, promotional materials, and upgrade costs. In short, CAC is a measure of ROI for obtaining new customers.

7. CLV (Customer Lifetime Value)

Also known as Lifetime Value (LTV), CLV measures the total revenue a business can reasonably expect from a single customer account throughout the business relationship. The “basic” formula for CLV consists of multiplying average purchase value, purchase frequency, and customer lifespan together, although there are several more advanced variations of this formula. Knowledge of CLV can help businesses fine-tune their marketing strategy, inform their product development, and streamline their processes for acquiring and retaining customers.

8. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)

Software for managing a company's interactions with current and potential customers. Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive are all well-known and frequently used CRM platforms with Plecto integrations.

9. CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score)

CSAT indicates the percentage of your customers from the total during a specific timeframe who are satisfied with your product or service. Unlike its close cousin NPS, CSAT provides indication of how satisfied your customers are at a given moment. Therefore, CSAT-oriented questions cover a specific instant of the customer experience—for example, “How satisfied were you with the delivery process?” CSAT answers are ranked on a scale of 1-10 (or 1-5), with “satisfied” customers considered those answering an 8-10 or (4-5).

10. FAB (Features, Advantages, Benefits)

FAB is a sales technique that focuses on highlighting the features, advantages, and benefits of a product or service. Features are a product’s characteristics or attributes, advantages are how these features perform, and benefits answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

11. KPI (Key Performance Indicator)

A measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives, KPIs are frequently visualized via widgets on dashboards for the benefit of teams and management. KPIs are nearly always quantitative (numbers-based) metrics.

12. MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead)

A lead that has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads. MQLs are determined as such because they display a higher level of engagement with your company than other leads. For example, MQLs might have downloaded some of your e-books, actively viewed high-value webpages several times, or opened many of your marketing emails. Once sufficiently nurtured, MQLs are handed off to the sales team to become a Sales Qualified Lead, or SQL.

13. MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue)

The predictable revenue that a company can expect to receive every month. MRR has several variants, among them New MRR, which measures the amount of revenue generated by new subscriptions added to your monthly revenue.

14. NPS (Net Promoter Score) 

Closely linked to CSAT, NPS is a common KPI that measures your customers’ loyalty to your company. Measured on a 0-10 scale, customers who identify as 9-10 are called promoters, those with 7-8 as passives, and those with 0-6 as detractors. You then subtract the percentage of detractors from promoters, leaving a score between -100 and +100. While +1 is actually considered a “good” NPS score, it’s clear you should try to aim higher than +1!

15. OBJ (Objection)

A customer's concern or reason for not wanting to purchase a product or service.

16. PIP (Pipeline) 

PIP, short for pipeline, refers to stages and processes that a company uses to manage and track potential sales opportunities. You can use KPIs such as Weighted Pipeline Value to track and predict the value of your ongoing sales in the pipeline and how likely you are to close them.

17. QL (Qualified Lead) 

A potential customer that has been vetted and is ready to be pursued by the sales team.

18. ROI (Return on Investment)

A measure of the profitability of an investment. Found by dividing the net profit by cost of investment, ROI is one of the most common and important metrics for ascertaining an asset’s value. ROIs appear in numerous contexts across industries as varied as education, real estate, and tech. 

19. RFP (Request for Proposal) 

A document that an organization posts to request a formal proposal from potential vendors. RFPs are often used in business and government procurement to ensure a fair selection of high-quality vendors.

20. SDR (Sales Development Representative)

A sales role focused on outreach, prospecting, and qualifying leads.

21. SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) 

A prospective customer that has been researched and vetted by both the marketing and sales teams.

22. TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) 

The total expenses that go into using a product or service over its lifecycle, the TCO helps potential buyers determine the real cost of a product or service. TCO incorporates not only initial purchase price, but also all costs associated with ownership of the product. These include installation, operational, maintenance, and upgrade expenditures.

23. USP (Unique Selling Proposition) 

The unique benefit or advantage that a company offers to its customers. USPs can be encapsulated in a single phrase that exemplifies the company’s ethos (for example, Plecto’s “Outperform, today”). USPs are most successful and effective when they clearly communicate your product’s uniqueness, relevance, and competitive advantage.

24. WIN (Sales Win Rate) 

The Sales Win Rate is the percentage of sales opportunities that result in a closed-won deal. Among the most important KPIs in a sales team’s toolkit, it provides essential insight as to how your sales process is faring. All ambitious sales teams will naturally want to increase their Win Rate, and some of the best ways to do so include being more selective with your qualification process and incorporating real-time, dashboard-based visualizations into your workflow.

The bottom line

Sales acronyms like these help shorten and optimize communication at all levels. With so many of these acronyms being KPIs, what better way to further enhance and streamline communication than using dashboards across your office?

Plecto offers the perfect solution for the ambitious office attempting to optimize its sales processes—try it free for 14 days, and see the difference it makes for your sales team.