Reference
Sales glossary — A–Z reference
Part of the sales-academy curriculum. Every term here is one a candidate should be able to define, use naturally, or at least not stumble on in an AE / account manager / BD / presales interview. Where a term is interview-critical, an Interview: note says how it tends to surface. UK English; UK life-science and healthtech terms included because that is the target market.
A
ABPI Code — The Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry's Code of Practice, which governs how pharma companies may promote medicines and interact with healthcare professionals in the UK; it is enforced by the PMCPA. Anyone selling into or alongside pharma commercial teams is expected to know it exists and constrains what marketing and sales can say and offer.
Accelerator — A higher commission rate that kicks in once a rep passes 100% of quota (e.g. 10% below target, 15% above), designed to keep top performers selling hard after they've hit their number. Interview: comes up when discussing comp plans — knowing the word signals you've thought seriously about variable pay.
Account Executive (AE) — The salesperson who owns deals: runs discovery, demos, negotiation and close, and usually carries a personal revenue quota. In most SaaS orgs the AE takes over qualified opportunities from SDRs. Interview: the default title for the "closing" role — if a job ad says AE, expect quota, pipeline and forecast questions.
Account Manager (AM) / Key Account Manager (KAM) — Owns existing customer relationships after the initial sale: renewals, growth, escalations and day-to-day commercial contact. A KAM does the same for a small number of large, strategic accounts. Interview: AM interviews probe retention and growth stories rather than new-logo hunting.
Account plan — A written strategy for a specific (usually large) account: stakeholder map, current footprint, whitespace, risks, and the plays to grow or defend revenue. Interview: enterprise roles often ask you to walk through how you'd build one.
ACV (Annual Contract Value) — The value of a contract normalised to one year; a £300k three-year deal has an ACV of £100k. Used to size deals and set quotas. Interview: "What was your average ACV?" is a standard screening question — have a number ready; career-changers without one should say so plainly rather than inflate adjacent experience — interviewers respect the honest version.
AOV (Average Order Value) — The average value of a single order or transaction; more common in e-commerce and transactional sales than in enterprise SaaS, where ASP or ACV is used instead.
ARR (Annual Recurring Revenue) — The annualised value of all active recurring (subscription) revenue a company holds; the headline metric for SaaS businesses. Distinct from ACV, which describes one contract — ARR describes the whole book. Interview: company job ads and interviewers use ARR to describe company scale ("we're at £20m ARR").
ASP (Average Selling Price) — The average deal size across closed-won deals, used interchangeably with "average deal size"; tells you whether a role is transactional (low ASP, high volume) or enterprise (high ASP, few deals).
Attainment — The percentage of quota a rep actually achieved in a period (e.g. "112% attainment in FY25"). Interview: the single most-asked sales metric — interviewers expect specific attainment numbers by year, and vagueness here reads as a red flag. Career-changers without a quota history should say so plainly rather than inflate adjacent experience — interviewers respect the honest version.
B
BANT — A classic qualification checklist: Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. Simple and dated but still widely referenced as the baseline before MEDDIC-style frameworks. Interview: often used as a warm-up question ("how do you qualify?") — know it, but be ready to say why modern teams go beyond it.
Base / variable — The two halves of sales pay: base salary (fixed, guaranteed) and variable (commission and bonus, earned against targets). A "50/50 split" means half of OTE is base, half variable — the standard structure for closing roles.
BDR (Business Development Representative) — A prospecting rep who generates pipeline through outbound outreach; in many companies the title is interchangeable with SDR, though some use BDR for outbound and SDR for inbound (or vice versa — always check).
Bookings vs billings vs revenue — Three different numbers that get conflated: bookings is the value of contracts signed in a period, billings is what has actually been invoiced, and revenue is what accounting rules allow the company to recognise as earned (spread over the delivery period for subscriptions). Interview: distinguishing these cleanly marks you out as commercially literate.
Break-up email — The final message in a sequence to an unresponsive prospect, politely closing the file ("I'll assume this isn't a priority…"); often gets the highest reply rate of the whole sequence.
Business Development (BD) — Broad label for creating new commercial opportunity — new markets, partnerships, or early-stage relationship-led selling. In life-science services (CRO/CDMO) "BD" is the standard title for the consultative seller of scientific services. Interview: clarify scope early — BD can mean anything from cold outbound to strategic partnerships.
C
CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost) — The total sales and marketing cost of winning one customer. Judged against LTV: an LTV:CAC ratio of 3:1 or better is the usual benchmark for a healthy model.
Cadence / sequence — A pre-planned series of touches (emails, calls, LinkedIn) run against a prospect over days or weeks, usually automated in a sales engagement platform. "Putting someone in a sequence" means enrolling them in that flow.
Caldicott Guardian — The senior person in every NHS and social-care organisation responsible for safeguarding the confidentiality of patient information, guided by the eight Caldicott Principles. Vendors touching patient data will encounter them during information-governance review.
CDMO (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organisation) — A company that develops and manufactures drugs on behalf of pharma/biotech clients (e.g. Lonza). CDMO BD roles are long-cycle, technical, relationship-driven service sales.
Challenger — A sales methodology (from The Challenger Sale) arguing top reps teach the customer something new about their business, tailor the message, and take control of the sale — rather than just building relationships. Interview: "what's your sales philosophy?" answers often reference Challenger; know the teach–tailor–take-control shorthand.
CHAMP — A qualification framework: CHallenges, Authority, Money, Prioritisation. A pain-first reworking of BANT — you lead with the customer's problem rather than their budget.
Champion — The person inside the buying organisation who wants you to win and will sell on your behalf when you're not in the room; they have influence, personal stake, and access to power. Distinct from a mere contact or coach. Interview: "tell me about a deal you won — who was your champion?" is near-universal in AE interviews; a story without a champion sounds like luck.
Channel / partner sales — Selling through third parties (resellers, distributors, integrators, consultancies) rather than directly. A "channel manager" recruits and enables partners instead of closing end-customer deals themselves.
Churn — Lost recurring revenue or lost customers in a period, expressed as a rate ("we ran 8% logo churn"). The enemy of every subscription business; the counterpart of retention.
Clawback — A clause letting the company reclaim commission already paid if the deal falls through or the customer cancels within a defined window. Common on annual-payment SaaS deals.
Close plan — The seller-side checklist of every step, owner and date needed to get a specific deal signed by a target date — legal review, security review, signatures, PO. Related to but narrower than a mutual action plan.
Closed-won / closed-lost — The two terminal stages of an opportunity in CRM: the deal was signed, or it definitively wasn't. Loss reasons logged at closed-lost feed win-rate analysis.
Cold call — An unsolicited phone call to a prospect with no prior relationship. Still a live skill test: Interview: SDR and some AE processes include a live or role-played cold call — expect to be asked to do one.
Compelling event — A real, dated reason the customer must act by a certain time (contract expiry, regulatory deadline, funding round, audit). Deals without one slip; spotting or creating one is core deal craft. Interview: strong candidates name the compelling event unprompted when telling deal stories.
Conversation intelligence — Software (Gong, Chorus and similar) that records, transcribes and analyses sales calls so teams can coach reps and inspect deals from what was actually said. Interview: worth mentioning comfort with being recorded and coached — most modern teams run it.
Conversion rate — The percentage of things that move from one funnel stage to the next (lead→meeting, meeting→opportunity, opportunity→win). Knowing your conversion rates is how reps reverse-engineer activity targets from quota.
Coverage ratio — Open pipeline value divided by the remaining quota for the period; "3x coverage" means £3 of qualified pipeline for every £1 of target still to close — 3–4× is the common rule of thumb. Interview: "what coverage did you run?" is a favourite for testing whether a candidate actually managed a number.
CQC (Care Quality Commission) — The independent regulator of health and adult social care in England; it inspects and rates providers. Relevant to vendors because CQC-regulated activities and ratings shape what care providers buy and prioritise.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) — The system of record for accounts, contacts, activities and opportunities — Salesforce and HubSpot being the dominant examples. "CRM hygiene" (keeping it accurate and current) is a recurring management complaint. Interview: expect "which CRMs have you used?" as a basic competence check.
CRO (Chief Revenue Officer) — The executive who owns all revenue-generating functions — sales, and often marketing and customer success. Note the collision with the life-science meaning below; in a healthtech company either could be meant, so read the context.
CRO (Contract Research Organisation) — A company that runs research and clinical trials on behalf of pharma/biotech sponsors (IQVIA, Parexel, Charles River). Interview: in life-science commercial interviews CRO almost always means this, not Chief Revenue Officer — muddling the two is a credibility slip.
Cross-sell — Selling an existing customer a different product or module to the one they already own (versus upsell, which is more of the same). A core expansion motion for account managers.
CSM (Customer Success Manager) — Post-sale owner of adoption, value realisation and customer health; usually not commission-led, though CSMs increasingly carry renewal or expansion targets. Works alongside (or instead of) an AM depending on the org.
CSV (Computer System Validation) — Documented evidence that a computerised system used in regulated (GxP) work reliably does what it's intended to do, typically following GAMP 5. In LIMS/ELN and eClinical sales, "how do you support validation?" is a standard customer question. Not to be confused with comma-separated-values files.
D
DCB0129 / DCB0160 — The NHS clinical risk management standards for health IT: DCB0129 applies to manufacturers of health software, DCB0160 to the healthcare organisations deploying it. Both require a named Clinical Safety Officer and a hazard log. Interview: naming these in an NHS-facing digital health interview instantly signals domain credibility.
Decelerator — The mirror of an accelerator: a reduced commission rate applied below a threshold of quota (e.g. under 50% attainment), penalising significant underperformance.
Decision criteria — The formal and informal yardsticks the customer will use to choose a vendor — features, integrations, price, references, compliance. Good sellers surface them early and try to shape them. One of the two "D"s in MEDDIC.
Decision process — The sequence of steps, meetings and sign-offs the customer will go through to make the decision — who evaluates, who approves, in what order, by when. The other MEDDIC "D"; not knowing it is why deals slip.
Direct award — Buying from a supplier on a framework agreement without running a further competition, where the framework's rules allow it (G-Cloud is the best-known route). Attractive to NHS buyers because it is faster than a full tender. Separately, below certain value thresholds buyers may purchase without competition at all — a different mechanism sometimes given the same name.
Discovery — The structured questioning phase where a seller uncovers the prospect's situation, pain, impact and buying process before proposing anything. The most examined skill in sales interviews. Interview: expect a live mock discovery call — the test is whether you ask and listen rather than pitch.
DPO (Data Protection Officer) — The person an organisation designates under UK GDPR to oversee data protection compliance; in health deals the DPO (with information governance colleagues) reviews vendors handling personal data.
Draw — A guaranteed advance on commission, usually during ramp, so new reps earn something like OTE before their pipeline matures. A recoverable draw is paid back from future commission; a non-recoverable one is kept regardless.
DSPT (Data Security and Protection Toolkit) — The NHS's annual self-assessment that any organisation accessing NHS patient data or national systems must complete, evidencing good data-security practice. A near-universal prerequisite for healthtech vendors selling into the NHS.
DTAC (Digital Technology Assessment Criteria) — NHS England's baseline assessment for digital health technologies, covering clinical safety (DCB0129), data protection, technical security, interoperability, and usability/accessibility. Interview: the standard answer to "what does an NHS buyer need from a digital health vendor?" — expect it in any clinical AI or digital health commercial interview.
E
eClinical — The family of software used to run clinical trials: EDC (electronic data capture), CTMS (trial management), eTMF (trial master file), ePRO/eCOA (patient-reported outcomes). A distinct life-science software market with its own vendors (Medidata, Veeva, Clario).
Economic buyer — The person with the authority to spend the money — they can approve, veto or find budget regardless of the evaluation team's preference. Not the same as the champion. Interview: "who was the economic buyer and did you meet them?" is a standard probe of deal stories; "I never met them" is an honest but instructive answer.
ELN (Electronic Lab Notebook) — Software that replaces the paper lab notebook for recording experiments; sold to R&D scientists, often alongside or within a LIMS platform (Benchling, Dotmatics, IDBS).
Enterprise / mid-market / SMB — Standard segmentation of customers by size, which drives deal size, cycle length and sales motion: enterprise (large accounts, long multi-stakeholder cycles), mid-market, and SMB (small business, high velocity). Interview: be precise about which segment your experience is in — the craft differs.
F
Forecast categories — The buckets a rep sorts open deals into for the forecast, typically commit (will close this period — your word is on it), best case (could close if things go well), and pipeline (real but early). Interview: "walk me through your forecast process" and "what did commit mean on your team?" are standard for closing roles; forecast accuracy is treated as a proxy for judgement.
Formulary — The approved list of medicines (and sometimes devices) that a hospital trust or ICB will routinely prescribe or stock. Getting onto formulary is a key market-access hurdle for pharma and some medtech.
Framework agreement — A pre-negotiated public-procurement arrangement listing approved suppliers and terms; buyers then "call off" from it by direct award or mini-competition rather than running a full tender. NHS and government buying runs heavily on frameworks (G-Cloud, NHS Shared Business Services frameworks, etc.). Interview: knowing that NHS deals usually route through a framework is basic UK healthtech literacy.
Full-cycle sales — A role where one person does everything from prospecting to close (and sometimes account management afterwards), rather than splitting the funnel across SDR/AE/CSM. Common at startups. Interview: startup roles often advertise as full-cycle — expect questions on self-sourcing pipeline.
Funnel — The narrowing model of the buyer journey from broad awareness through leads, opportunities, and closed deals; each stage has a conversion rate. "Top of funnel" means early-stage demand and prospecting activity.
G
G-Cloud — A Crown Commercial Service framework through which UK public-sector bodies (including the NHS) buy cloud software and services from listed suppliers, via direct award (G-Cloud has no further-competition stage). Getting listed is a common early step for SaaS vendors targeting the public sector.
Ghosting — When a previously engaged prospect goes silent — no replies, meetings declined or missed. Handled with structured follow-up, a changed angle, and eventually a break-up email.
GRR (Gross Revenue Retention) — The percentage of existing recurring revenue retained over a period counting downgrades and churn but excluding any expansion; capped at 100%. Shows how sticky the product is before growth flatters the number.
GxP — Umbrella term for the "good practice" quality regulations in life sciences — GMP (manufacturing), GCP (clinical), GLP (laboratory), GDP (distribution). Software sold into GxP environments must support validation (see CSV) and audit trails.
H
Happy ears — Hearing what you want to hear in a deal — treating polite interest as buying intent and inflating the forecast. Interview: a self-aware happy-ears story ("here's how I learned to test commitment") lands well.
Health economics — The discipline of quantifying the value of a health intervention — costs, outcomes, cost-effectiveness — used to justify adoption and reimbursement. In the UK it centres on cost-per-QALY analyses of the kind NICE runs.
HubSpot — A CRM and marketing/sales platform popular with SMB and mid-market companies; the usual alternative to Salesforce that candidates are asked about.
Hunter / farmer — Shorthand for the two sales temperaments: hunters win new business (new logos), farmers grow and retain existing accounts. Interview: "are you a hunter or a farmer?" is a clichéd but common question — answer with evidence, not just preference.
I
ICB / ICS — An Integrated Care System (ICS) is the regional partnership of NHS bodies and local authorities planning health and care for a population; the Integrated Care Board (ICB) is the statutory NHS body inside it that holds the budget and commissions services — 36 across England since the April 2026 mergers (more consolidation expected in 2027), so check the current map. Interview: for NHS-facing roles, knowing that ICBs are the commissioning customer — and that trusts and ICBs buy differently — is expected table stakes.
ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) — A precise description of the accounts most likely to buy, succeed and expand — by sector, size, technology, regulatory posture, etc.; the filter for prospecting and territory planning. Interview: "describe your last company's ICP" tests whether you sold deliberately or just took what came.
Inbound / outbound — The two sources of pipeline: inbound (the prospect comes to you — via marketing, content, referrals) and outbound (you go to them — cold calls, emails, social outreach). Roles differ hugely depending on the mix, so probe it when interviewing.
Information governance (IG) — The NHS umbrella term for how organisations handle personal and confidential data lawfully and securely — spanning UK GDPR, the DSPT, Caldicott principles and local policy. "Getting through IG" is a recognised stage of any NHS software deal.
K
- KOL (Key Opinion Leader) — A clinician or scientist whose views carry weight with peers — a professor, a specialty society figure. Life-science and medtech commercial strategies court KOLs for evidence, advocacy and advisory input.
L
Land and expand — The strategy of winning a small initial deployment ("land") and growing it across teams, sites or use cases ("expand"). The commercial logic behind pilots and departmental first deals. Interview: a strong expansion story (small land, big expand) is one of the best deal narratives you can tell.
LIMS (Laboratory Information Management System) — Software that manages samples, tests, workflows and results in a laboratory; a core life-science software category (LabWare, LabVantage, Thermo Fisher SampleManager) with long, validation-heavy sales cycles.
LinkedIn Sales Navigator — LinkedIn's paid prospecting tool: advanced search, lead lists and alerts on target accounts and personas. The default social-selling tool; expect it in any SDR/AE tool stack question.
Logo — A customer account, as in "we added 14 new logos last year". "Logo churn" counts customers lost regardless of their value.
LTV (Lifetime Value) — The total profit or revenue a customer is expected to generate over their whole relationship with the company. Paired with CAC to judge whether the go-to-market model is economically sound.
M
Market access — In life sciences, the work of getting a product adopted, funded and reimbursed by health systems — evidence generation, health-economic argument, formulary and commissioning navigation. In UK terms: satisfying NICE, ICBs and trusts that the product is worth paying for. Interview: a candidate targeting life-science commercial roles should be able to define this crisply.
MEDDIC — An enterprise qualification framework: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion. Used to test how well a deal is understood and controlled.
MEDDICC — A variant of MEDDIC that adds Competition (but not Paper process). This course standardises on MEDDPICC; treat MEDDICC as the same family.
MEDDPICC — MEDDIC extended with two more letters: Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Paper process, Identify pain, Champion, Competition. The dominant qualification framework in enterprise SaaS hiring. Interview: the single most likely framework you'll be asked to explain letter-by-letter or apply to one of your own deal stories — learn it cold.
MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency) — The UK regulator of medicines and medical devices, including software and AI as a medical device; devices sold in the UK must be registered with it. The counterpart of EU national competent authorities (and, loosely, the US FDA); it designates UK approved bodies (the UKCA equivalent of notified bodies).
MQL (Marketing Qualified Lead) — A lead that marketing judges worth sales attention, based on fit and engagement (downloads, webinar attendance). Upstream of SQL; the MQL→SQL handover is a classic sales-marketing friction point.
MRR (Monthly Recurring Revenue) — The monthly equivalent of ARR (ARR ≈ MRR × 12); the preferred measure in SMB and product-led businesses where contracts are monthly.
Multi-threading — Deliberately building relationships with several stakeholders in a deal — champion, economic buyer, users, IT, procurement — so the deal survives any one contact leaving or going cold. Interview: deal stories that show multi-threading read as senior; see single-threaded for the failure mode.
Mutual action plan (MAP) — A timeline of steps, owners and dates agreed with the customer, working back from their go-live to signature — security review, legal, approvals. Turns "hope" into a shared project plan. Interview: describing how you ran MAPs is strong evidence of enterprise deal control.
N
NHS England — The national body that leads and funds the NHS in England and sets digital and commercial policy (DTAC, national frameworks). Announced in March 2025 to be absorbed into the Department of Health and Social Care, so expect the national landscape to keep shifting — worth acknowledging in interviews rather than being caught out.
NHS trust — The organisational unit that runs NHS hospitals and services (acute, mental health, community, ambulance); trusts are the deploying customer for most clinical software, each with its own IT, IG and procurement. Foundation trusts have more financial autonomy.
NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) — The body that appraises whether treatments and technologies are clinically and cost-effective enough for NHS use, classically using cost-per-QALY thresholds (~£20,000–£30,000). Its Evidence Standards Framework covers digital health technologies. Interview: for clinical AI roles, knowing NICE's gatekeeping role — and its digital evidence standards — is a differentiator.
No-decision — The most common way deals die: the customer chooses to do nothing, rather than choosing a competitor. Guarding against it is why sellers push on pain, cost of inaction and compelling events.
NRR (Net Revenue Retention) — Revenue retained from existing customers over a period including expansion, upsell and churn; above 100% means the existing base grows by itself. A headline SaaS health metric. Interview: confusing NRR with GRR (which excludes expansion and caps at 100%) is a classic novice slip.
O
Objection — Any stated reason not to proceed — price, timing, competitor, risk. Objection handling is the craft of exploring the concern rather than arguing with it (acknowledge, question, reframe, evidence). Interview: live objection-handling role-play is common; the test is curiosity, not comebacks.
OTE (On-Target Earnings) — Total expected annual pay at 100% quota attainment: base plus variable (e.g. "£60k base, £120k OTE" — a 50/50 plan). Not guaranteed pay. Interview: comp conversations are conducted in OTE; also ask what percentage of the team actually hits it.
P
Paper process — Everything between verbal "yes" and signed contract: legal review, security/IG review, procurement, purchase order, signature routing. The second "P" in MEDDPICC and where late-stage deals slip. Interview: naming the paper process unprompted in a deal story signals real enterprise experience.
Persona — An archetype of an individual buyer within the ICP — "head of quality at a mid-size biotech" — with their goals, pains and objections; messaging and sequences are written per persona.
Pipeline — The set of open, qualified opportunities a rep or team is working, usually expressed as a total value ("£800k of pipeline"). Generated by prospecting, measured against quota via coverage. Interview: "how did you build pipeline?" is asked in almost every sales interview — have a concrete, personal answer.
POC / pilot — A Proof of Concept or pilot is a limited evaluation deployment run before full purchase — bounded scope, agreed success criteria, defined exit. Presales typically owns the technical side. Interview: for presales roles, expect "how do you scope and run a POC, and how do you stop it drifting?"
Presales — The technical side of the sales team (solutions consultants, sales engineers) that runs demos, discovery of technical requirements, POCs and RFP responses, and handles technical objections — partnered with an AE who owns the commercial close. Interview: be ready to explain how you split work with the AE and how presales is measured (team quota, POC win rate).
Procurement — The buyer-side function that runs purchasing: competitive process, terms, pricing pressure. In the NHS this means framework call-offs, tenders and formal evaluation rules. Sellers engage procurement late but plan for it early.
Prospecting — The activity of finding and initiating contact with potential buyers — research, cold calls, emails, social touches, events. The engine of self-sourced pipeline; the first thing cut when reps get busy and the reason pipelines collapse a quarter later.
Q
QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life Year) — The standard unit of health benefit: one year of life in perfect health. NICE judges value as cost per QALY gained, so a vendor's health-economic case often reduces to this number.
QBR / EBR (Quarterly / Executive Business Review) — A structured periodic meeting with an existing customer to review value delivered, adoption, and the forward plan — the account manager's or CSM's main instrument for retention and expansion. (Internally, "QBR" can also mean the rep's own quarterly pipeline review with management — context tells you which.)
Qualification — Deciding, with evidence, whether an opportunity is real and winnable enough to spend time on — using frameworks like BANT, CHAMP or MEDDPICC. Good qualification includes disqualifying. Interview: "walk me through how you qualify" is a staple; answer with a framework plus a real example of walking away.
Quota — The revenue (or bookings) target a rep is contractually expected to deliver in a period, e.g. "£750k annual quota". The reference point for attainment, coverage and OTE. Interview: know your quota, your attainment against it, and how the quota was set — interviewers triangulate all three.
R
Ramp — The period a new rep is given to reach full productivity — typically 3–6 months, often with reduced targets or a draw. Interview: asking "what does ramp look like?" is a smart candidate question that shows you know how sales onboarding works.
Referral — An introduction to a new prospect made by an existing customer or contact; the highest-converting pipeline source. Systematically asking for referrals is a habit interviewers like to hear about.
Renewal — The re-signing of a subscription contract at term end; owned by AM or CSM depending on the org. The renewal motion (starting early, proving value, handling procurement) is the heart of retention.
RevOps (Revenue Operations) — The function that owns the systems, data, process and reporting behind the revenue engine — CRM administration, territories, comp plans, forecasting infrastructure. Not a selling role, but the people who make selling measurable.
RFI / RFP / RFQ — Buyer-issued documents at increasing levels of commitment: an RFI (Request for Information) gathers the vendor landscape, an RFP (Request for Proposal) asks for a full solution proposal against requirements, and an RFQ (Request for Quotation) asks for pricing on a defined specification. Presales typically leads the technical response. Interview: if your CV says RFP experience, expect "walk me through one you led".
S
SAL (Sales Accepted Lead) — An MQL that sales has reviewed and formally accepted as worth working; the intermediate stage some funnels insert between MQL and SQL to keep the sales-marketing handover honest.
Sales cycle — The elapsed time from opportunity creation to close, e.g. "90-day cycles" in mid-market vs 6–18 months in enterprise or NHS deals. Determines how the whole job feels. Interview: "what was your average sales cycle?" is a standard calibration question.
Sales engagement platform — Software (Outreach, Salesloft, Apollo) that runs multi-step cadences, tracks opens/replies and manages prospecting tasks at scale; sits on top of the CRM in most SDR/AE stacks.
Sales Engineer (SE) — The individual-contributor presales role: technical discovery, tailored demos, POC execution, RFP answers, architecture and security conversations. Titles vary — solutions consultant, solutions engineer, sales consultant — the job is the same.
Sales velocity — A composite speed metric: (number of opportunities × average deal size × win rate) ÷ sales-cycle length; shows which lever to pull to grow revenue. More common in coaching and RevOps than in daily conversation.
Salesforce — The dominant enterprise CRM; "opportunity", "stage" and much sales vocabulary comes from its data model. Interview: fluency with Salesforce basics (opportunities, stages, dashboards) is assumed in most AE roles.
SaMD (Software as a Medical Device) — Software intended for a medical purpose (diagnosis, prevention, monitoring, treatment decisions) on its own, without being part of a hardware device — most clinical AI qualifies. Regulated in the UK by the MHRA with risk-based classification. Interview: for clinical AI vendors, knowing whether the product is SaMD, and what class, shapes the whole sales motion.
Sandbagging — Deliberately under-forecasting or holding a done deal back to the next period to bank an easy win or smooth attainment. The opposite failure mode to happy ears; managers probe forecasts for both.
Sandler — A sales methodology built on mutual qualification and permission-based selling: up-front contracts (agreeing purpose and outcomes of every meeting), digging into pain, and discussing budget and decision early. Its "pain funnel" questioning sequence is widely borrowed.
SDR (Sales Development Representative) — The entry-level prospecting role: outbound (and often inbound) outreach to book qualified meetings for AEs, measured on meetings booked and pipeline generated rather than closed revenue. See BDR — the titles blur.
Single-threaded — A deal dependent on one contact in the account; if they leave, stall or lose influence, the deal dies. Interview: a classic "tell me about a deal you lost" answer — losing single-threaded and learning to multi-thread is a well-received arc.
Slipped deal — A deal forecast to close in one period that pushed into the next. Occasional slips are normal; chronic slipping signals weak qualification (no compelling event, unknown paper process).
SPICED — Winning by Design's framework: Situation, Pain, Impact, Critical event, Decision. A discovery-and-diagnosis structure popular in SaaS and customer-success-led orgs.
SPIFF — A short-term, one-off incentive bonus (Sales Performance Incentive Fund) paid for a specific behaviour — selling a new product this quarter, booking most meetings this month — on top of the normal commission plan.
SPIN — Neil Rackham's research-based questioning model for larger sales: Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff questions, in that escalating order. The grandfather of modern discovery technique.
SQL (Sales Qualified Lead) — A lead that sales has qualified as a genuine potential opportunity, typically after a discovery conversation; the stage after MQL (and SAL, where used). In a sales context SQL means this, not the database language — worth a self-aware smile from a technical candidate, but don't mix them up.
Stall — A soft, non-committal delay from a prospect ("call me next quarter", "send me some information") that isn't a true objection; the craft is surfacing the real concern underneath rather than obediently waiting.
T
TCV (Total Contract Value) — The full value of a contract across its whole term including one-off fees; a £100k/year three-year deal with £50k of services has a TCV of £350k but an ACV of £100k. Know which one a company quotes when it describes deal sizes.
Tender — A formal competitive bidding process, standard in UK public-sector and NHS procurement above threshold values (advertised via the Find a Tender service, governed by the Procurement Act 2023). Long documents, fixed timelines, scored evaluation — a different craft from open-market selling.
Territory — The defined patch a rep is responsible for — geographic, vertical, named accounts or segment. Territory planning (where the pipeline will come from) is a common interview exercise for field and enterprise roles.
Trial close — A low-stakes temperature check during the sale ("if we solved X, is this something you'd move forward with this quarter?") used to test commitment and surface objections early, before the formal ask.
U
UKCA / CE marking — Conformity markings showing a product meets regulatory requirements: CE for the EU/EEA market, UKCA the post-Brexit British equivalent. For medical devices the UK continues to accept CE-marked devices under transitional arrangements — to 30 June 2028 (MDD-route devices) or 30 June 2030 (EU-MDR-route devices and IVDs), and MHRA is consulting on recognising CE marks indefinitely — so most vendors still lead with CE.
Uplift — The price increase applied at renewal (e.g. "5% annual uplift" baked into the contract, or negotiated at term); defending uplift while keeping the customer happy is a core AM negotiation.
Upsell — Selling an existing customer more of what they already have — more seats, higher tier, bigger volume (versus cross-sell, which is a different product). Together with cross-sell, the engine behind NRR above 100%.
V
- Value proposition — The concise argument for why a specific customer should buy — the outcome delivered, for whom, versus the alternatives, with proof. Distinct from a feature list. Interview: "sell me your last product" is really a value-proposition test: lead with the customer's problem and the measurable outcome.
W
Warm intro — Reaching a prospect via a mutual connection who introduces you, rather than cold; dramatically higher conversion than cold outreach and the reason sellers maintain networks deliberately.
Weighted pipeline — Pipeline value adjusted by each deal's probability of closing (a £100k deal at 40% counts as £40k); used to make forecasts less flattering than raw pipeline totals.
Whitespace — The unsold opportunity inside an existing account: departments, sites, use cases or products the customer hasn't bought yet. Whitespace analysis drives account plans and expansion targets.
Win rate — The percentage of qualified opportunities that end closed-won (by count or by value). Interview: paired with ACV, cycle length and quota, it lets an interviewer reconstruct your whole year — keep your numbers mutually consistent.