Sales Automation Glossary

Buying signals are real-world events or actions that suggest a business may be ready to purchase a product or service, like posting a job, filing a permit, expanding to a new location, or researching your competitors.

Company data is the set of facts about a business, including its industry, number of employees, annual revenue, location, and how long it has been operating, used to determine if it is a good fit for what you sell.

A CRM, or customer relationship management system, is software that stores all of your customer and prospect information, tracks your sales interactions, and helps your team manage their pipeline and follow up on opportunities.

Intent data is information that shows when a business or person is actively looking for a product, service, or solution. It helps you focus on prospects who are ready to buy instead of guessing.

Lead enrichment is the process of automatically adding missing information to a prospect's record, like their phone number, email address, company size, and industry, so your sales team has everything they need to make the call.

Lead scoring is the practice of ranking your prospects based on how likely they are to buy, using factors like how well they match your target customer profile and whether they are showing signs of being ready to purchase.

Local business prospecting is the process of finding and reaching out to businesses in a specific geographic area that could be potential customers, using tools that monitor local data sources like permits, business filings, and regional news.

Outbound prospecting is the process of proactively reaching out to potential customers who have not come to you first, typically through cold calls, emails, LinkedIn messages, or direct mail.

Phone outreach is the practice of calling prospects by phone as part of a structured sales process, often coordinated with email and LinkedIn touchpoints to maximize the chances of making contact and starting a conversation.

Sales automation uses software to handle repetitive sales tasks like finding prospects, looking up contact information, entering data, and sending follow-up messages, so your sales team can spend more time actually talking to customers.

A sales engagement platform is software that helps your sales team manage and send outreach to prospects across email, phone, and social media in organized, multi-step sequences.

Sales intelligence is the collection of data, insights, and tools that help your sales team understand prospects, spot opportunities, and make informed decisions about who to call and what to say.

Signal-based selling is a sales approach where you reach out to prospects based on real events or behaviors that suggest they need what you sell, rather than cold-calling from a static list.

A target customer profile is a clear description of the type of business that is the best fit for your product or service, based on characteristics like industry, size, location, and the problems they face.