Every piece of jargon used across the Key Account Director, the SaaS Commercial Playbook, and the planners — explained simply, no prior knowledge assumed.
You don't need a commercial background to use any SMART Business tool. If a term trips you up anywhere, it's defined here.
Software customers pay for as a subscription — monthly or annually — rather than buying outright. Most modern business software works this way.
A clear description of the type of company most likely to buy from you and succeed as a customer — used to focus effort on the right prospects.
A prospect who's shown real buying intent through how they've actually used your product — not just someone who filled in a form.
The predictable revenue a subscription business can count on each year from active customers — the core health metric for SaaS businesses.
The total revenue you can expect from a customer for as long as they stay. Compared against CAC to judge whether growth is healthy.
What it costs, on average, to win one new customer — marketing and sales spend divided by customers won.
The rate at which customers cancel or stop paying over a given period. The number every subscription business is quietly trying to lower.
A simple score for how likely customers are to recommend you, based on one survey question, scored from -100 to +100.
A measurable number that shows whether you're on track toward a goal — the few numbers worth checking regularly, not everything you could measure.
A regular check-in with a key account to review performance, address issues, and plan ahead together — usually every three months.
A qualification framework for judging whether a deal is likely to close — Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion, Competition.
The opportunity within an existing account that hasn't been sold into yet — other teams, products or budgets you haven't reached.
A widely-used framework for leading change, moving from building urgency and a guiding coalition through to embedding the new way permanently in how a team works.
A model for the emotional stages people move through during change — denial, resistance, exploration, then commitment. Productivity typically dips before it recovers.
The risk that people quietly revert to the old way of working once attention and support move on — different from a project risk, and easy to miss.