Sales Terminology 101

Upon beginning a search for a new sales professional or business development employee, there are sales related terms that you should be familiar with. Listed below, are 11 different terms that should help you in your resume search.

Business Development - business development is just another word for "sales." However, when sales candidates have the term "Business Development" on their resume, potential employers may perceive them to be a "Hunter" rather than a "Farmer."

Hunter - just as the name sounds, a hunter is a term for a sales representative that actively goes out and finds new business. A hunter is the opposite of a farmer.

Farmer - a farmer, in sales is someone who is considered to take more inbound business than go out and do new business development or a.k.a. be considered a hunter.

Sales Quota- sales quota was how much revenue the sales representative was responsible for driving at their last or current position. When looking through resumes, you always want to match quotas.

For instance, a sales representative who carried an annual quota of $300,000 would probably not be good for a job which requires the business development professional to carry a quota of $10m.

Industry Verticals Sold Into - a vertical is just a fancy term for an industry. When looking at sales resumes, you want to match up verticals. To give an example, if someone sold software at their last position into the education vertical, they are not a fit for a job that requires hair care sales into salons.

Cold-calling or Prospecting - cold-calling or prospecting is a key phrase that most clients want to see on a resume. This is the act of contacting a potential client who does not know you and beginning to establish a relationship to begin what is called the sales cycle.

Sales Cycle - a sales cycle is the length of time it takes to close an account from start to finish. Typically, the larger the monetary value of the account, the longer the sales cycle is going to be. Depending on the industry, sales cycles can range from 1 month to 1 year.

Again, when hiring a sales employee, you want to match sales cycles. A business development representative who is used to dealing with a sales cycle of 1 month may not be as successful in a job that is conducive to sales cycles of up to a year. Obviously, there are exceptions. However, this is something clients typically want.

Industry Contacts - candidates who have contacts in the industry in which the client hopes to sell into are worth more on the open market because they don't have much of what is called ramp-up time.

Ramp-up Time - ramp-up time is the time it takes a sales representative to learn the product and, subsequent company that just employed them. Obviously, things like industry knowledge and industry related contacts whom they can sell to in a quicker fashion, lessens the length of the perceived ramp-up time. This leads to quicker ROI from the hire.

30 / 60 / 90 - presentation that a potential sales employee lays down which includes a sales game plan for the first 30 / 60 / 90 days of employment. More often than not, this is provided to the employer via a PowerPoint presentation.

Upside Potential or OTE - O.T.E. is an acronym that describes that additional money that a sales professional can make in conjunction with their base salary. This is also known as the upside potential. The O.T.E. or upside potential can be expressed in dollars of a percentage of the sales representative's base salary.

Example of OTE:

Base Salary $100,000 + projected commission if quotas are met ($70,000) would be an upside potential of $170,000. Typically, benefits are not included in this number.