Sales glossary: 35 terms every field and in-person sales team uses

This sales glossary is written for people who sell face to face: in a living room, a showroom, a client's office or a workshop. The definitions are short on purpose. Where a term deserves a full explanation, the entry links to it.

How to use this sales glossary

The terms are grouped in three families: the methods and frameworks a team adopts, the moments of a sales meeting, and the vocabulary of pipeline, performance and coaching. Several French acronyms are included because French-speaking teams use them daily, and because their English equivalents are not always exact.

Sales methods and frameworks

• BANT. Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline. A quick checklist to decide whether an opportunity deserves more time. Useful as a first filter, too thin for complex deals.
• BEBEDC. Besoin, Enjeux, Budget, Échéance, Décideurs, Concurrence. A French qualification grid that separates the stakes from the need. Explained with SPANCO in our guide to BEBEDC and SPANCO.
• CAP. Caractéristique, Avantage, Preuve: feature, advantage, proof. The structure of a sales argument: state the feature, say what it changes for this client, then prove it. See the sales argument guide.
• CRAC. Creuser, Reformuler, Argumenter, Contrôler: dig, rephrase, argue, check. A four-step method for handling objections, detailed in our guide to the CRAC method.
• MEDDIC. Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion. A qualification framework for complex B2B deals, with extended versions MEDDICC and MEDDPICC. See MEDDIC.
• SONCAS. Sécurité, Orgueil, Nouveauté, Confort, Argent, Sympathie. Six buying motives the rep listens for in discovery. SONCASE adds Environnement. See the SONCAS method.
• SPANCO. Suspect, Prospect, Analyse, Négociation, Conclusion, Ordre. A model of the stages of the sales cycle, often used as pipeline stages under other names.
• SPIN selling. Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff questions, from Neil Rackham's 1988 book. A questioning method that lets the client state the problem and its value. See SPIN selling.
• Sales script. A written guide to what the rep says at each stage. Useful for learning and for consistency, harmful when read word for word. Examples in our sales script guide.

The sales meeting, stage by stage

• Discovery. The part of the meeting where the rep learns the client's situation, needs and stakes before presenting anything. The stage that decides the rest, as explained in our guide to sales techniques.
• Open question. A question that cannot be answered with yes or no, such as “How does it work today?”. It lets the client describe the situation in their own words.
• Funnel technique. Moving from open questions to narrower ones, then to closed questions that confirm what the rep understood.
• Reformulation. Restating the client's need in their own words and getting explicit agreement. It proves listening and gives the argument its target.
• Buying motive. The underlying reason a client buys: security, pride, comfort, money and so on. The same product is bought for different motives by different clients.
• Implied and explicit need. An implied need is a problem the client acknowledges. An explicit need is a clear wish to act on it. The distinction comes from SPIN selling.
• Sales pitch. The structured presentation of the offer, built on what discovery revealed. Short, tied to the client's needs, backed by proof. See our sales pitch examples.
• Objection. A doubt or resistance the client expresses. The first sentence is often not the real concern. See our guide to objection handling.
• Price objection. “It is too expensive.” Often a cover for a doubt about value, timing or trust rather than the budget itself. See the price objection.
• Closing. Asking for the decision: a signature, an order, or a dated next step. See our guide to closing techniques.
• Trial close. A question during the meeting that tests readiness, such as “How does this look so far?”. It surfaces doubts while there is time to address them.
• Next step. The action agreed at the end of the meeting, with a date, a time and a named task. In SPIN selling terms, an advance moves the sale forward, a continuation does not.

Pipeline, performance and coaching

• Close rate. Deals won divided by opportunities worked over the same period. The denominator must be defined and kept stable. See our guide to the close rate.
• Win rate. Deals won divided by decided opportunities (won plus lost). It excludes deals that ended with no decision, so it reads higher than the close rate.
• Conversion rate. The share of items that move from one funnel stage to the next, such as lead to meeting. The close rate is the conversion rate of the last stage.
• Pipeline. All open opportunities, organised by stage. Its value depends on each stage having a clear exit criterion.
• Forecast. The expected revenue for a period, based on the pipeline. Only as reliable as the qualification behind each deal.
• Qualification. Checking whether an opportunity is real and worth pursuing: need, budget, decision-makers, timing. BANT, BEBEDC and MEDDIC are qualification frameworks.
• Economic buyer. The person who can release the budget and has the final say. Often not the person in the meeting.
• Champion. A person inside the client organisation who has influence and actively supports your solution when you are not there.
• Sales cycle. The time and steps between first contact and signature. A single home visit on one side, several months and many meetings on the other.
• Customer visit report. The written summary of a meeting: needs, objections, decision-makers, agreed next step. See the customer visit report template.
• Ride-along. A manager accompanying a rep to real meetings to observe and coach. Called double écoute in French. See our guide to the ride-along.
• Roleplay. Rehearsing a sales situation with a colleague, a manager or an AI playing the client. Most useful when built from objections clients actually raise. See roleplay scenarios.
• Sales coaching. Regular, specific feedback to a rep on real meetings, focused on one behaviour at a time. See how to coach sales reps.
• Field sales rep. A salesperson who meets clients in person, at their home, office or site. See our guide to the field sales rep role.

Where these terms meet the field

Most of these terms describe something that happens in a conversation. In field sales, nobody but the rep hears that conversation, so the vocabulary stays theoretical. MIHOS records in-person meetings with the client's consent, scores them against your own method, and links every coaching point to the timestamped passage, so that “discovery”, “objection” and “next step” point to real moments in real meetings.

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a sales method and a sales technique? A method is a framework, such as SONCAS, SPIN or MEDDIC. A technique is a concrete behaviour in the meeting, such as an open question or a reformulation.

Which sales method should a field team start with? A questioning method for discovery, such as SPIN, and a simple qualification grid, such as BEBEDC. Add MEDDIC when deals involve several decision-makers over long cycles.

What is the difference between close rate and win rate? Close rate counts every opportunity worked. Win rate counts only those that ended in a decision, won or lost, so it reads higher.