Reference
B2B CRM Glossary
Definitions for core CRM and revenue terms used across sales, RevOps, and customer success.
Lead
A person or company showing initial interest but not yet fully qualified for an active deal.
MQL
Marketing Qualified Lead. A lead that meets marketing criteria and is ready for sales qualification.
SQL
Sales Qualified Lead. A lead validated by sales as a realistic opportunity to pursue.
ICP
Ideal Customer Profile. The type of company most likely to benefit from and buy your solution.
Pipeline
The set of active opportunities moving through clearly defined deal stages.
ARR
Annual Recurring Revenue. Recurring subscription revenue normalized to a yearly value.
MRR
Monthly Recurring Revenue. Predictable subscription revenue expected each month.
Churn
Lost customers or lost recurring revenue over a given time period.
NRR
Net Revenue Retention. Revenue retained from existing customers after expansion and churn.
Lead Scoring
A prioritization model that ranks leads using fit signals and behavior signals.
Multi-funnel
Running multiple parallel funnel tracks for different segments, products, or buyer motions.
Terms explained in full
Each of these has its own page: a plain definition, how it shows up in a CRM, and the questions people actually ask about it.
Lead management
Lead management is the process a company uses to capture new interest, decide whether it is worth pursuing, route it to the right person, and follow up until it either becomes a deal or is closed out.
Sales pipeline
A sales pipeline is the set of open opportunities a team is working, arranged by the stage each one has reached, so that the total and the shape of the pipeline can both be read at a glance.
Lead scoring
Lead scoring is a way of ranking leads by how likely they are to buy, by scoring what you know about the company (fit) and what the company has recently done (intent), then working the list from the top.
Sales cycle
A sales cycle is the repeatable set of steps a deal goes through from first contact to signature, and the time that whole journey takes.
Sales automation
Sales automation is software handling the repeatable parts of a sales process, so that logging, routing, reminders, follow-up sequences, and record updates happen without anyone doing them by hand.
CRM database
A CRM database is the stored set of records behind a CRM: the companies, the people, the deals, and every interaction the business has had with them, kept in one place and linked together.
Operational CRM
An operational CRM is the kind that runs daily work: it holds the records, moves the pipeline, sends and logs the messages, and automates the routine steps, as opposed to one built mainly for analysis or for sharing.
B2B CRM
A B2B CRM is a CRM built for selling to organisations: the account is the customer, several people are involved in each decision, and the relationship is expected to outlast any one transaction.
Outbound sales
Outbound sales is any sales motion where you start the conversation: you pick the companies, find the people, and reach out, rather than waiting for them to arrive with a question.
Social selling
Social selling is using social networks, in B2B almost always LinkedIn, to find, learn about, and build relationships with potential buyers, instead of reaching them cold through email or the phone.
Marketing automation
Marketing automation is software that runs campaigns to groups of people on its own: sending sequences, reacting to behaviour, scoring engagement, and moving contacts between segments without anyone doing it by hand.
Relationship intelligence
Relationship intelligence is the practice of working out who your organisation actually knows, and how well, by reading the communication that already happened rather than asking people to record it.