13.8 Key Terms

Account Managers: Responsible for ongoing business with a customer who uses a product. 13.1

Activity Goals: How many sales calls of each type a representative has to make in a certain period of time. 13.3

Approach: To follow up on the lead, the salesperson might phone or drop by to see the person identified in the lead. 13.3

Bonus: Paid at the end of a period of time based on the total amount sold. 13.3

Commission: Is a payment for each sale. 13.3

Close: A request for a decision or commitment from the buyer. 13.3

Closed-loop Lead Management Systems: Information systems that are able to track leads all the way from the point at which the marketer identifies them to when they are closed. 13.5

Collateral: printed or digital material salespeople use to support their message. 13.5

Consultative Selling: The seller uses special expertise to solve a complex problem in order to create a somewhat customized solution. 13.2

Conversion Ratios: Measure how good a salesperson is at moving customers from one stage in the selling cycle to the next. 13.3

Funnel: As Figure 13.5 “The Sales Cycle” shows, the sales cycle is depicted as a funnel because not all the people and firms a salesperson talks to will become buyers. In fact, most of them won’t. 13.3

Independent agents: Salespeople who are not employees of the company. 13.6

Lead: Contact information of someone who might be interested in the salesperson’s product. 13.3

Lead Management: The process of identifying and qualifying leads in order to grow new business. 13.5

Lead Scoring: A process by which marketing personnel rate the leads to indicate whether a lead is hot (ready to buy now), warm (going to buy soon), or cold (interested but with no immediate plans to buy). 13.5

manufacturer’s representative: An agent that sells a manufacturer’s product. 13.6

Missionary Salesperson: Calls on people who make decisions about products but don’t actually buy them, and while they call on individuals, the relationship is business-to-business. 13.1

Needs-Satisfaction Selling: The process of asking questions to identify a buyer’s problems and needs and then tailoring a sales pitch to satisfy those needs. 13.2

Objections: Concerns or reasons not to continue that are raised by the buyer, and can occur at any time. 13.2

Order Getters: Salespeople that actively seek to make sales by calling on customers. 13.1

Order Takers: Include retail sales clerks and salespeople for distributors of products, like plumbing supplies or electrical products, who sell to plumbers and electricians. 13.1

Pipeline: How many prospects and suspects a salesperson has in the pipeline are two other measures. The more potential buyers there are in the pipeline, the more revenue a salesperson is likely to generate. 13.3

Prospect: Someone with the budget, authority, need, and time (BANT) to make a purchase. 13.3

Prospector: A salesperson whose primary function is to find prospects, or potential customers. 13.1

Qualifying: a prospect is a process of asking questions to determine whether the buyer is likely to become a customer. 13.3

Role Conflict: Occurs when the expectations people set for you differ from one another.  13.1

Sales Cycle: How long it takes to close a sale—can be measured in steps, in days, or in months. 13.3

Sales Quotas: Minimum levels of sales performance for each salesperson. 13.3

Sales Support: Work with salespeople to help make a sale and to take care of the customer after the sale. 13.1

Script-Based Selling: Is also called canned selling. The term “canned” comes from the fact that the sales pitch is standardized, or “straight out of a can.” 13.2

Spiffs: (A term that began as an acronym for special promotion incentive funds) short-term bonus payments companies use to encourage salespeople to sell certain products. 13.6

Strategic-Partner Selling: Both parties invest resources and share their expertise with each other to create solutions that jointly grow one another’s businesses. 13.2

Suspect: A person or organization that has an interest in an offering, but it is too early to tell what or if they are going to buy. 13.3

Trade Salesperson: Someone who calls on retailers and helps them display, advertise, and sell products to consumers. 13.1

Win-Loss Analysis: An “after the battle” review of how well a salesperson performed given the opportunities she faced. 13.3