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GTM glossary

30 sales and go-to-market terms that come up in the newsletter and podcast, in plain English.

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ABM (account-based marketing)#

Marketing and sales aimed at a defined list of named accounts rather than a broad audience, with messaging tailored to each account or segment.

ACV (annual contract value)#

The average yearly value of a customer contract. It shapes how much a company can spend to win each deal and how much human selling a deal can support.

AE (account executive)#

The salesperson who runs deals from first proper meeting to signed contract. In many teams SDRs or BDRs book the meetings and AEs close them.

AI SDR#

Software that tries to do an SDR’s job automatically: finding prospects, writing and sending outreach, and booking meetings.

ARR (annual recurring revenue)#

The yearly value of a company’s subscription revenue, usually used to describe the size of SaaS businesses.

BDR (business development representative)#

A salesperson focused on generating new pipeline, often through outbound. The line between BDR and SDR varies by company, and many use the terms interchangeably.

Buying signals#

Events that suggest an account may be ready to buy, such as hiring for a relevant role, raising funding, a leadership change, a job change or visits to your website.

Also called: intent signals

Related: Topic: Signal-led selling

Cold calling#

Phoning a prospect who hasn’t asked to hear from you. It’s one of the main outbound channels alongside cold email and LinkedIn.

Cold email#

An email sent to a prospect who hasn’t asked to hear from you, usually as part of a sequence of several messages.

CRM (customer relationship management)#

The system a sales team uses to record accounts, contacts, deals and activity, such as HubSpot, Salesforce or Attio.

Enrichment#

Adding data to a record you already have, such as a verified email address, phone number, job title or company size.

GTM (go-to-market)#

How a company finds, reaches and wins customers: who it sells to, how it’s positioned and priced, and which channels it uses, such as outbound, inbound, partnerships and paid.

GTM engineering#

Building the systems a sales and marketing team runs on: data sources, enrichment, buying signals, routing, sequencing and CRM automation.Advanced Client, Tom’s company, is a GTM engineering agency.

ICP (ideal customer profile)#

A specific description of the companies most likely to buy and get value from what you sell, usually by industry, size, region, tech stack, stage and buying triggers.

Inbound#

Leads who come to you, for example by filling in a demo form, signing up or replying to content, rather than being contacted first.

Intent data#

Data suggesting a company is researching a topic or category, often collected from activity on other websites. It’s one kind of buying signal.

Lead routing#

The rules that decide which rep gets a new lead or account, for example by territory, rotation or rep performance.

Lead scoring#

Ranking leads or accounts by how well they fit the ICP and how much interest they’ve shown, so reps work the best ones first.

Outbound#

Reaching out to prospects who haven’t contacted you yet, by cold email, phone or LinkedIn.

Pipeline#

The open sales opportunities a team is working, usually measured by number and total value of deals.

PLG (product-led growth)#

A go-to-market approach where the product itself, often through a free tier or trial, is the main way new customers find and adopt it.

RevOps (revenue operations)#

The function that runs the tools, data and processes behind sales, marketing and customer success, such as the CRM, reporting and routing.Tom’s company, advancedclient.io, builds this kind of revenue infrastructure inside a team’s existing sales stack.

Round-robin#

A routing method that hands leads to reps in turn, so everyone gets roughly the same number regardless of fit or performance.

SDR (sales development representative)#

A salesperson whose job is to start conversations with prospects and book meetings, usually handing qualified opportunities to an AE.

Sequence#

A planned series of outreach steps (emails, calls, LinkedIn messages) sent to a prospect over days or weeks until they reply or the sequence ends.

Also called: cadence

Signal-led outbound#

Outbound where who you contact, and when, is triggered by buying signals rather than a static list.It’s the kind of system Tom’s GTM engineering agency builds for B2B companies.

Speed to lead#

How quickly a company responds after a lead shows interest, such as a demo request, a sign-up or a positive reply.

TAM (total addressable market)#

In outbound, the full set of companies that fit your ICP and could buy from you. Mapping the TAM means finding and listing all of them.

Waterfall enrichment#

Checking several data providers in turn for a missing detail, like an email or phone number, and moving to the next one when the first has no result.

Website visitor deanonymisation#

Tools that try to identify which companies, and sometimes which people, visited your website, so sales can follow up.

Also called: visitor identification

These are general definitions, not advice. Browse topics or all issues for more.

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