Decoded · Topic
Sales terms, decoded for Gen Z: what they mean, where you’ll hear them, and the pop-culture version.
CAC (customer acquisition cost) is the total sales and marketing spend needed to win one new customer. LTV (lifetime value) is the total profit that customer brings over the time they stay. The ratio between them tells you whether a business is buying customers at a profit or at a loss.
A lead is anyone who has shown some interest or fits your target profile: a form fill, a download, a name on a list. A prospect is a lead that has been qualified: you have confirmed they have a real need, the budget, the authority and a timeline. Prospects go in the pipeline; leads wait to earn it.
A sales quota is the revenue or unit target a salesperson or team is expected to achieve in a set period, usually a quarter or a year. Pay is tied to it: commission typically accelerates above quota and bonuses depend on reaching it.
An upsell is persuading an existing customer to buy a bigger or better version of what they already have. A cross-sell is persuading them to buy something additional that goes with it. Together they are expansion revenue: growth from customers you already won.
Churn is the rate at which customers stop doing business with a company over a period, usually a month or a year. For subscription businesses it is the single most watched number after revenue, because every lost customer has to be replaced before growth even starts.
A sales pipeline is the organised list of every potential deal a sales team is working on, sorted into stages from first contact to signed contract. It shows how much revenue is in play, where each deal sits and how fast deals move.
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