Sales Fundamentals
105 flashcards by MentisLibrary
Prospecting, BANT and MEDDIC qualification, objection handling, and the pipeline metrics managers actually inspect. Built around what moves a real deal forward rather than closing tricks that stopped working decades ago.
- What is the sales process?
- The repeatable sequence of stages a seller follows from finding a prospect to closing and expanding an account
- What is prospecting?
- Identifying and reaching out to potential buyers who are not yet in your pipeline
- What is an ideal customer profile, or ICP?
- A description of the type of organization that gets the most value from your product and is most likely to buy and stay
- What is a buyer persona in sales?
- A profile of an individual role in the buying process, covering their goals, pressures, decision criteria, and objections
- What is cold outreach?
- Contacting a prospect who has had no prior engagement with your company
- What is warm outreach?
- Contacting a prospect with some existing connection: a referral, prior engagement, or inbound activity
- What is social selling?
- Using professional networks to research, engage, and build credibility with prospects before and during the sales process
- What is a trigger event in prospecting?
- An observable change at an account that creates a reason to buy now
- What is a sales cadence or sequence?
- A defined series of outreach touches across channels over a set period
- What is a sales development representative, or SDR?
- A specialized role focused on prospecting and qualifying leads, then handing qualified opportunities to account executives
- What is an account executive?
- The seller who owns the opportunity from qualified meeting through to close
- What is inbound versus outbound sales?
- Inbound works leads that came to you; outbound proactively initiates contact
- What is qualification in sales?
- Determining whether a prospect is worth investing selling time in, and whether a deal is realistically winnable
- What is BANT?
- A qualification framework covering Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline
- What does the Budget element of BANT actually require?
- Establishing whether funds exist or can be found, not necessarily whether a line item is already allocated
- What does the Authority element of BANT require?
- Understanding who can approve, who can veto, and how the decision will actually be made
- What is MEDDIC?
- A qualification framework covering Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, and Champion
- What is MEDDPICC?
- An extended version of MEDDIC adding Paper process and Competition
- What are Metrics in MEDDIC?
- The quantified business outcome the buyer expects, ideally agreed with them and traceable to their own numbers
- Who is the economic buyer?
- The person with the authority to release the funds and to overrule the budget, regardless of title
- What are decision criteria versus decision process?
- Decision criteria are what the buyer will evaluate against; decision process is the sequence of steps and approvals required to reach a signature
- What is a champion in a sales deal?
- A person inside the account who wants you to win, has influence, and will sell on your behalf internally
- How do you test whether a champion is real?
- Ask them to do something that requires internal effort or political capital, such as arranging access to the economic buyer
- What is the paper process?
- The steps and time required for legal, security, procurement, and signature after commercial agreement
- What is SPIN selling?
- A questioning method structured around Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need payoff questions
- What are implication questions in SPIN selling?
- Questions that develop the consequences and cost of a problem, raising its perceived seriousness
- What are need payoff questions in SPIN selling?
- Questions that get the buyer to articulate the value of a solution themselves
- What is the Challenger sale?
- A model finding that the highest performing sellers in complex sales teach the customer something new, tailor the message, and take control of the conversation
- What are the five seller profiles in the Challenger research?
- Hard worker, relationship builder, lone wolf, reactive problem solver, and challenger
- What is consultative selling?
- An approach where the seller diagnoses the buyer's situation and advises, rather than pitching features