B2B Sales Glossary

Sales forecasting is the process of estimating future sales revenue for a specific period (e.g., week, month, quarter, year). It's essentially predicting how much of your product or service your company will sell, relying on a combination of historical data, market trends, current pipeline activity, and qualitative insights.

A sales workflow is a structured, step-by-step sequence of actions and tasks that a sales team or individual salesperson follows to move a lead through the sales process, from initial contact to closing a deal and beyond. It defines how sales activities are performed, when they are performed, and who is responsible for them.

A sales pipeline is a visual representation of all the active sales opportunities (deals) a sales team or individual salesperson is currently working on, moving them through various stages of their sales process. Unlike a sales funnel (which is customer-centric and focuses on the buyer's journey), a sales pipeline is seller-centric and focuses on the internal process of managing opportunities from initial contact to closing the deal.

The sales funnel, often depicted as an inverted pyramid or a literal funnel, is a foundational concept in sales and marketing that maps out the theoretical journey of a prospect from their initial awareness of a problem or solution to their ultimate purchase decision. In B2B sales, where deals are typically complex, high-value, and involve multiple stakeholders, understanding and optimizing each stage of the sales funnel is crucial for consistent revenue growth.

An outbound dialer is a software or cloud-based solution that automates the process of making outgoing phone calls from a predefined list of telephone numbers. Its primary goal is to increase the efficiency and productivity of sales teams, call centers, and other organizations that rely heavily on outbound communication.

An AI Sales Assistant Software is an intelligent application or platform that leverages Artificial Intelligence (AI), including machine learning (ML), natural language processing (NLP), and sometimes generative AI, to support, enhance, and automate various tasks within the sales cycle. Think of it as a virtual, data-driven sidekick for sales professionals.

AI sales automation refers to the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to automate, optimize, and enhance various stages of the sales process. It goes beyond traditional automation, which simply follows predefined rules, by leveraging AI's ability to learn, adapt, and make intelligent decisions based on data.

A predictive dialer is an advanced outbound calling system used primarily in call centers and sales environments to maximize the talk time of agents and increase overall calling efficiency. It achieves this by using sophisticated algorithms to predict when an agent will become available for the next call and then automatically dials multiple phone numbers simultaneously, often more numbers than there are agents available.

An AI Power Dialer is an advanced outbound calling system that leverages Artificial Intelligence and machine learning to automate and optimize sales and customer service outreach. Unlike traditional power dialers that simply dial numbers sequentially, an AI Power Dialer uses intelligent algorithms to enhance efficiency, prioritize connections, and provide real-time insights, ultimately maximizing productive conversation time for agents.

A Sales Communication Platform is a unified toolset that enables sales teams to manage, streamline, and optimize their communication with prospects and customers across multiple channels—phone, email, SMS, video, and chat. These platforms integrate with CRM systems and provide tools for real-time messaging, analytics, scheduling, and automation. They enhance collaboration, ensure message consistency, and support data-driven sales engagement strategies at scale.