# Sales Onboarding Glossary: 60 Acronyms New Reps Need

> MEDDIC, BANT, ICP, ARR: the acronym wall every new rep hits in week one, defined in plain English on one page, grouped so you can find what you need fast.

Free cheat sheet for sales reps. Topic: [Onboarding & Ramp](https://www.peerlab.ai/library/topic/onboarding-ramp/). Published by PeerLab in the [Sales Enablement Resource Library](https://www.peerlab.ai/library/). Source: https://www.peerlab.ai/library/sales-onboarding-glossary-60-acronyms/

## How to use it

Keep this page open in a browser tab during your first month; whenever you hit an acronym in a meeting, deck, or Slack message you don't recognize, search this page before (or right after) asking a teammate.

## What's inside

- Deal qualification frameworks: BANT, CHAMP, MEDDIC, MEDDPICC, SPIN
- Company & market sizing: ICP, TAM, SAM, SOM
- Revenue & deal metrics: ARR, MRR, ACV, TCV, LTV, CAC, NRR, GRR, ROI, OTE
- Pipeline & funnel stages: TOFU/MOFU/BOFU, MQL/SQL/PQL, GTM, ABM, PLG
- Roles & teams you'll work with: AE, AM, BDR, SDR, SE, CS, CSM, EB
- Deal process & paperwork: POC, POV, RFI, RFP, RFQ, SOW, MSA, NDA, PO, CPQ
- Meetings, tools & everyday ops: CRM, KPI, OKR, QBR, CSAT, NPS, SLA, WIIFM and more

*The acronym wall hits everyone in week one. Bookmark this page: you'll reference it constantly for the first month, then never need it again.*

## Deal Qualification Frameworks
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| BANT | Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline | The oldest qualification checklist: does this prospect have money, decision power, a real problem, and a reason to act now? |
| CHAMP | Challenges, Authority, Money, Prioritization | Like BANT but leads with the prospect's challenge first, money last, reflects modern pain-led selling. |
| MEDDIC | Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion | An enterprise qualification framework: before you call a deal "qualified," you should be able to answer all six. |
| MEDDPICC | MEDDIC + Paper process, Competition | MEDDIC with two more checks: is there a legal/procurement process mapped, and do you know who else is being evaluated? |
| SPIN | Situation, Problem, Implication, Need-payoff | A questioning sequence for discovery calls: understand the situation, uncover the problem, explore its consequences, then get them to state the value of solving it. |

## Company & Market Sizing
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| ICP | Ideal Customer Profile | The specific type of company that gets the most value from your product and is most likely to buy and stay. |
| TAM | Total Addressable Market | The total revenue opportunity if every possible customer in the world bought your product. |
| SAM | Serviceable Addressable Market | The slice of TAM you could realistically reach with your current product and go-to-market. |
| SOM | Serviceable Obtainable Market | The slice of SAM you can realistically capture given your actual resources and competition. |

## Revenue & Deal Metrics
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| ARR | Annual Recurring Revenue | Predictable subscription revenue, normalized to a 12-month figure. |
| MRR | Monthly Recurring Revenue | Same idea as ARR, but the monthly version, ARR ÷ 12. |
| ACV | Annual Contract Value | The value of one customer's contract, annualized, used to size individual deals. |
| TCV | Total Contract Value | The full value of a contract across its entire term (e.g., a 3-year deal's full worth, not just one year). |
| LTV | Lifetime Value | The total revenue you expect from a customer over the whole time they stay with you. |
| CAC | Customer Acquisition Cost | What it costs, in sales and marketing spend, to win one new customer. |
| NRR | Net Revenue Retention | Whether existing customers' revenue grew or shrank over a period, including upgrades and downgrades (excludes new logos). |
| GRR | Gross Revenue Retention | Same as NRR but ignores upsell/expansion: measures pure retention, the worst-case revenue floor. |
| ROI | Return on Investment | The financial payoff a customer gets back relative to what they spent, the number you're ultimately proving in every deal. |
| OTE | On-Target Earnings | Your total expected pay (base + commission/bonus) if you hit 100% of quota. |

## Pipeline & Funnel Stages
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| TOFU | Top of Funnel | Early-stage prospects, just becoming aware of a problem or your category. |
| MOFU | Middle of Funnel | Prospects actively evaluating solutions, comparing options. |
| BOFU | Bottom of Funnel | Prospects close to a decision: negotiating, doing final diligence. |
| MQL | Marketing Qualified Lead | A lead marketing has flagged as engaged enough to be worth a sales look (downloaded content, attended a webinar, etc.). |
| SQL | Sales Qualified Lead | A lead a sales rep has vetted and accepted as worth actively pursuing. |
| PQL | Product Qualified Lead | A lead who's already used your product (free trial/freemium) and shown behavior that predicts they'll buy. |
| GTM | Go-To-Market | The overall strategy and motion for how you sell your product to the market. |
| ABM | Account-Based Marketing | A strategy that targets specific named accounts with tailored outreach, instead of casting a wide net. |
| PLG | Product-Led Growth | A go-to-market motion where the product itself (via free trial/freemium) drives adoption and sales, rather than a sales team pushing it. |

## Roles & Teams You'll Work With
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| AE | Account Executive | The rep who owns closing new deals, usually who you become after an SDR/BDR role. |
| AM | Account Manager | Owns the relationship and growth of existing accounts post-sale. |
| BDR | Business Development Representative | Outbound-focused rep who generates and qualifies new pipeline (often used interchangeably with SDR). |
| SDR | Sales Development Representative | Same as BDR at most companies, qualifies leads and books meetings for AEs. |
| SE | Sales Engineer | The technical expert who joins calls to handle deep product/technical questions and demos. |
| CS | Customer Success | The team responsible for a customer's ongoing health, adoption, and renewal after they buy. |
| CSM | Customer Success Manager | The individual who owns a book of customer accounts post-sale for adoption and retention. |
| EB | Economic Buyer | The person who actually controls the budget and has final sign-off authority on a purchase. |

## Deal Process & Paperwork
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| POC | Proof of Concept | A limited, hands-on test of your product in the prospect's environment before they commit fully. |
| POV | Point of View / Proof of Value | Either your strategic recommendation to a prospect, or (in some companies) a structured trial proving business value. |
| RFI | Request for Information | An early-stage document a buyer sends asking vendors to describe their capabilities generally. |
| RFP | Request for Proposal | A formal document where a buyer asks vendors to submit a detailed proposal, often used in competitive/procurement-led deals. |
| RFQ | Request for Quote | A buyer asking specifically for pricing on a defined scope, narrower than an RFP. |
| SOW | Statement of Work | A document defining exactly what will be delivered, by when, and by whom, common in services-attached deals. |
| MSA | Master Service Agreement | The overarching legal contract governing the relationship, under which individual SOWs or orders sit. |
| NDA | Non-Disclosure Agreement | A legal agreement protecting confidential information shared between you and the prospect. |
| PO | Purchase Order | A buyer's formal, internal document authorizing the purchase, often the final procurement step before you get paid. |
| CPQ | Configure, Price, Quote | Software (or process) that lets you build an accurate, approved price quote for complex or configurable deals. |

## Meetings, Tools & Everyday Ops
| Acronym | Stands for | Plain English |
|---|---|---|
| CRM | Customer Relationship Management | The system of record for every account, contact, and deal (Salesforce, HubSpot, etc.) Your single source of truth. |
| KPI | Key Performance Indicator | A specific metric used to track whether you (or the business) are performing, e.g., calls booked, win rate. |
| OKR | Objectives and Key Results | A goal-setting framework: a qualitative Objective paired with measurable Key Results that prove you hit it. |
| QBR | Quarterly Business Review | A recurring meeting (internal or with a customer) reviewing performance, health, and plans for the quarter ahead. |
| CSAT | Customer Satisfaction Score | A survey-based metric measuring how satisfied a customer is with an interaction or the product overall. |
| NPS | Net Promoter Score | A single-question survey ("how likely are you to recommend us, 0–10") used as a proxy for customer loyalty. |
| SLA | Service Level Agreement | A committed standard of service (e.g., response time) that you promise a customer, often in the contract. |
| EOD | End of Day | Deadline shorthand, "get me that by EOD" means before the workday ends. |
| EOQ | End of Quarter | The final stretch of a fiscal quarter, often when deal urgency (and pressure) spikes. |
| FY | Fiscal Year | A company's 12-month accounting year, which may not match the calendar year. |
| WIIFM | What's In It For Me | Shorthand reminder to always frame your pitch from the buyer's self-interest, not your product's feature list. |
| B2B | Business-to-Business | Selling to other companies, not individual consumers. |
| B2C | Business-to-Consumer | Selling directly to individual consumers. |
| SaaS | Software as a Service | Software delivered via subscription over the internet, rather than installed and owned outright. |