Prospecting Glossary

Browse 9 prospecting terms defined in plain English, from the cultural dictionary of computing.

9 Prospecting Terms

Cold Call
An unsolicited sales call made to a prospective customer with no prior relationship or warm introduction. Cold calling is harder than inbound selling but still...
Cold Email
An unsolicited email sent to a potential customer, investor, partner, or candidate without a prior relationship. The quality of targeting and relevance matters...
Discovery Call
An early sales conversation used to understand a prospect's needs, problems, budget, urgency, and fit before deeper solutioning or demos. Good discovery calls...
Intent Signal
A specific indicator that a prospect may be entering a buying process, such as content downloads, job postings, website behavior, or partner alerts. Individual...
Lead Qualification
The process of determining whether a lead is a real fit based on criteria such as need, budget, authority, timing, and problem urgency. Good qualification...
Outbound Sales
A sales motion where the company proactively reaches out to prospective customers instead of waiting for inbound interest. Outbound sales depends heavily on...
Qualified Lead
A prospective customer judged likely enough to become a real opportunity based on fit, interest, timing, or need. Qualification standards vary widely, which is...
Sales Development
The part of the sales organization focused on generating and qualifying early pipeline through outreach, follow-up, and account research. Sales development...
SDR
Short for sales development representative, the role focused on outbound prospecting, qualification, and early pipeline creation. SDR performance often...

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