Reference

The RevOps glossary

41 concepts, grouped by use.

This glossary does not define what a lead is or what a CRM does. It covers the vocabulary specific to revenue operations: the concepts that describe the commercial chain as a system, and on which three teams inside the same company rarely agree without having worked at it.

Each entry gives a working definition and the common error that goes with it, because a concept used wrongly costs more than a concept nobody knows.

The engine and its layers

The vocabulary that describes the commercial chain as a system rather than as a succession of functions.

Revenue engine Moteur de revenu

The whole commercial chain seen as a single system, from the first signal the market sends through to revenue booked, then retained and expanded. The term insists on one point: performance depends on the assembly and the joins, not on the power of any single part. An excellent sales team attached to a poorly defined lifecycle produces less than an average team in a clean system.

Common error. Confusing it with the tool stack. The engine is an operating model, not a CRM.

Revenue leakage Fuite de revenu

Value lost between functions rather than inside any one of them. It never appears as a single number: it shows up as leads nobody called, deals that stalled without an alert, customers who churned without warning, and budget allocated on channel metrics never connected to revenue. Individually each loss looks negligible. Cumulatively they often exceed the cost of acquiring more demand.

Common error. Looking for the leak in team performance. It almost always sits in the handoffs, which is precisely where nobody is measured.

Commercial signal Signal commercial

The unit of work in revenue operations. Any event carrying buying intent, actual or potential: a form, a call, a reply, a repeated visit, a usage spike, a service request, and sometimes a silence where there used to be activity. Treating the signal as the unit, rather than the lead or the deal, allows the same handling logic to apply before, during and after the sale.

Common error. Counting only what fills in a form. The most predictive signals often fill in none.

Instrumentation Instrumentation

Designing an activity so that it produces usable data as a by-product of being performed. An instrumented call leaves behind a coded outcome, an attached account and a reason. An uninstrumented call leaves a note. Instrumentation is what separates execution that improves the system from execution that consumes it.

Common error. Confusing it with surveillance. Instrumentation exists to learn, not to monitor people.

Closed loop Boucle fermée

A circuit where the outcome of an action returns to change the rule that triggered it. A campaign whose closed-won deals feed back into targeting is closed loop. A campaign that stops at the click report is not. Most commercial setups are open without knowing it, and therefore repeat without improving.

Common error. Believing a dashboard closes the loop. It takes a decision, an owner and a verification, or the loop stays open.

Revenue operating model Modèle opérationnel de revenu

The written description of how a company turns demand into revenue: who decides what, on which criteria, with which data, at which cadence. It is distinct from strategy, which decides markets and offers, and from the org chart, which decides reporting lines. Two companies in the same sector with the same strategy can have radically different operating models, and equally different results.

Common error. Reducing it to a process diagram. An operating model includes decision rights, not just steps.

Definitions and governance

The least spectacular part of revenue operations, and the one that produces the most effect.

Definitional drift Dérive définitionnelle

The phenomenon by which the same term ends up meaning different things depending on which team uses it. It sets in without a decision: marketing adjusts its definition of a qualified lead to reflect its programs, sales adjusts its own to reflect experience, and nobody notices the gap until a report puts them side by side. It is the most frequent cause of meetings that open with a reconciliation of numbers.

Common error. Treating it as a communication problem. It is a governance problem: it needs a definition owner, not an alignment meeting.

Metric dictionary Dictionnaire des indicateurs

The document that gives every metric a single definition, formula, source and owner. It looks bureaucratic and is nonetheless the most direct cure for time lost in management meetings. A useful dictionary runs to a few pages and settles apparently trivial questions: does a recycled lead count as new, does a won-then-cancelled deal stay in actuals.

Common error. Writing it once and never maintaining it. A dictionary with no owner is wrong again within two quarters.

System of record Système de référence

The system that holds authority for a given object when several tools contain the same information. The decision is made object by object rather than tool by tool: the CRM may be authoritative for the account, the ERP for the order, the billing tool for recognised revenue. Without an explicit call, every tool behaves as if it were the centre, and discrepancies surface when they are most expensive to fix.

Common error. Naming one global system of record. Authority is distributed by object, sometimes by field.

Field governance Gouvernance des champs

The set of rules deciding which fields exist, who owns them, which decision each one feeds, who may write to them and what happens when they stay empty. It is the discipline that stops a CRM filling up with fields created on request and never retired. The most effective test is one question: which decision does this field feed. A field that cannot answer is a candidate for retirement.

Common error. Adding a field to satisfy a one-off request. Every field added without an owner degrades the value of all the others.

Decision rights Droits de décision

The explicit assignment, for each recurring commercial decision, of who decides, who is consulted and who is informed. Revenue operations treats this as a design object because most blockages observed in the field come not from missing information but from a missing designated arbiter. An exceptional discount, a territory change or a definition update each need an owner.

Common error. Confusing decision rights with hierarchy. The owner of a rule is not necessarily the most senior person, but the one who carries its consequence.

Operating cadence Cadence d’exploitation

The written rhythm of the reviews that keep the model alive: what is examined weekly, monthly and quarterly, by whom, with which agenda and which expected output. A useful cadence produces dated and owned decisions, not observations. It is the mechanism that stops a well-designed system degrading quietly within six months of going live.

Common error. Multiplying reviews without defining what each one produces. A review that does not end in a decision is an information session in disguise.

Revenue tech debt Dette technique commerciale

The accumulation of configurations, automations, fields and integrations built to answer a one-off need, never documented and never retired. It behaves like financial debt: invisible in the budget, it accrues interest as maintenance time, and it eventually makes every change more expensive than the original build. Its most reliable symptom is fear of changing anything.

Common error. Treating it with one big clean-up. It is treated with a documentation rule and a retirement plan, or it comes back.

Signal, lifecycle and handoff

The vocabulary of what happens to a demand between the moment it appears and the moment someone works it.

The three properties Les trois propriétés

Lifecycle stage, lead status and deal stage are three distinct attributes serving three different purposes, and confusing them is one of the most widespread configuration errors. Lifecycle stage describes the relationship with the organisation. Lead status describes progress on a contact attempt. Deal stage describes the progression of one specific opportunity. Merging them makes funnel reporting unreadable.

Common error. Using lead status as a sub-stage of lifecycle. The two advance at different speeds and for different reasons.

Fit and intent Pertinence et intention

The two independent axes on which a lead is read. Fit says whether the organisation resembles those the offer works for. Intent says whether it is currently looking. Treating them as a single score destroys the most useful information: a high-fit account with no intent calls for nurturing, a low-fit account with high intent calls for fast disqualification, and both would carry the same combined score.

Common error. Adding the two into one number. The decision depends on the combination, not on the sum.

Speed to lead Délai de premier contact

The time between a signal arriving and the first real contact attempt. It is the revenue operations metric that responds fastest to a repair, often within days, which makes it the preferred entry point for a first engagement. The useful measure is the distribution rather than the average: a respectable average can hide a quarter of leads worked after forty-eight hours.

Common error. Measuring time to first task created rather than to first real attempt. The task is not the contact.

Unowned lead Lead sans propriétaire

A record that entered the system without any person holding responsibility for it. It is the most common and least visible form of revenue leakage, because no standard metric surfaces it: it appears in neither conversion rates, activity reports nor the forecast. It becomes visible only when someone decides to count it.

Common error. Assuming automatic assignment is enough. Assignment without a first-touch check simply relocates the anonymity.

Handoff Passation

The transfer of a signal, lead or account from one team to another. Revenue operations pays disproportionate attention to it because it is the only point in the chain where nobody is measured: the upstream team met its target by transferring, the downstream team judges what it receives, and the loss sits between them. A designed handoff states what is transferred, in what format, and within what pick-up time.

Common error. Treating the handoff as a moment rather than as an object. It needs written criteria, exactly like a stage.

Sales accepted lead Lead accepté par la vente

A lead the sales team has explicitly recognised as worth its time, as opposed to one it simply received. The gap between leads passed and leads accepted is one of the most honest measures of commercial health, because it forces both teams to apply the same criterion at the same moment.

Common error. Making acceptance implicit. Without the possibility of a reasoned rejection, the acceptance rate measures nothing.

Recycling Recyclage

Returning a non-converted lead to a defined nurturing state rather than letting it disappear. The principle rests on a simple observation: not now is dated information, not a conclusion. A recycling scheme attaches a duration and a return action to each non-conversion reason, turning a dead database into a pipeline reserve at marginal cost.

Common error. Recycling without regard to the original reason. A lead lost on price and a lead lost on timing call for neither the same duration nor the same message.

Demand waterfall Cascade de la demande

The representation, as successive stages, of the passage from audience to revenue, each stage carrying a volume and a pass-through rate. Its value is diagnostic rather than predictive: it shows at which step volume collapses. Its limitation is that it assumes a linear journey, which few B2B buying decisions actually follow.

Common error. Using it as a steering model rather than a diagnostic instrument. A buyer moving backwards breaks the waterfall without anything being broken.

Pipeline and forecasting

The vocabulary that decides whether a forecast is an instrument or an opinion.

Evidence-based stage Étape fondée sur la preuve

A pipeline stage defined by what the buyer has demonstrated rather than by what the seller has done. Proposal sent describes an internal action and can stay true for six months. The buyer has confirmed the problem, named the other decision makers and stated a timeline describes three verifiable facts, capturable as fields, and makes the gate enforceable by the system.

Common error. Writing evidence criteria nobody can verify. If the evidence does not fit in a field, it will not be entered.

Stage gate Seuil d’étape

The system rule that prevents a deal advancing until the required evidence is present. Its real effect is often misread: a gate does not slow down selling, it slows down deals that were never real. Since the required evidence is what the seller needs anyway in order to win, the friction lands on optimism rather than on commercial work.

Common error. Placing a gate on administrative data. A gate requiring a field with no commercial use will be worked around within a month.

Exit criteria Critères de sortie

What must be true for a deal to leave a stage, as opposed to entry criteria which say what got it there. Organisations almost always write the latter and almost never the former, which is why deals accumulate in the middle of the pipeline. A well-written exit criterion makes stalling detectable by a rule rather than by a manager's memory.

Common error. Writing exit criteria with no maximum duration attached. Without a clock, an unmet criterion never alerts.

Deal hygiene Hygiène des affaires

The measure of the gap between what the pipeline displays and what is actually true: close dates in the past, amounts never updated, stages inconsistent with the last activity, deals with no next action. It is a leading indicator of forecast reliability, usually preceding it by about a quarter.

Common error. Turning it into an instrument of reprimand. Hygiene is handled by automatic rules, not by reminders in meetings.

Pipeline coverage Couverture du pipeline

The ratio between open pipeline and the target for the period. The commonly cited ratio means nothing except against the company's real win rate and cycle length: coverage of three is comfortable at a forty per cent win rate and insufficient at fifteen. Coverage is therefore always read by segment, never in aggregate.

Common error. Adopting a coverage ratio read elsewhere. It depends entirely on your own win rate.

Velocity Vélocité

The speed at which value moves through the pipeline, combining deal count, average value, win rate and cycle length. Its interest is in making comparable levers that are not intuitively comparable: shortening the cycle by ten per cent and raising the win rate by ten per cent have the same effect, and one of the two is often far cheaper to obtain.

Common error. Calculating it in aggregate. An average velocity across two segments with very different cycles describes neither.

Forecast category Catégorie de prévision

The classification stating with what degree of commitment a deal enters the forecast, independently of its stage. A deal can be in a late stage and stay in a low category if an external condition is unresolved. Separating the two dimensions is what allows a forecast to rest on rules rather than on a seller's temperament.

Common error. Deriving the category mechanically from the stage. The two answer different questions and must be allowed to diverge.

Forecast accuracy Justesse du prévisionnel

The measured gap between what was forecast and what was delivered, tracked over time. Few organisations measure it, which deprives them of the only way to improve a forecast: without a history of error, no correction is possible and every quarter starts from zero. The stability of the gap matters more than its absolute value.

Common error. Chasing perfect accuracy. A forecast consistently fifteen per cent optimistic is more usable than one accurate on average and erratic.

Loss reason taxonomy Taxonomie des motifs de perte

The closed, mutually exclusive list of reasons a deal is lost. Without it, the most frequent reason is price, which is almost always wrong: price is the reason the buyer gives, rarely the one that decides. A useful taxonomy separates budget, timing, scope, competition, no decision and late disqualification.

Common error. Leaving the reason as free text. An uncoded reason cannot be counted and never reaches marketing.

Economics and post-sale

What decides whether growth is healthy or merely fast.

Conversion model Modèle de conversion

The quantified sequence of pass-through rates between each state, from first touch to booked revenue. Its main function is not to predict but to make the inverse question calculable: how many signals are needed to reach a given target, and which step is the most expensive to improve. It is the tool that turns a revenue target into an acquisition plan.

Common error. Building it on aggregate averages. A per-segment model gives different answers, and those are the ones that matter.

Unit economics Économie unitaire

The cost of acquiring a customer set against what that customer returns, and the time needed for the second to exceed the first. In revenue operations the interest of these metrics is operational rather than financial: they allow channels and segments to be compared on a common basis and settle budget trade-offs that are otherwise decided by preference.

Common error. Calculating aggregate unit economics. They are only usable at segment level, where they often diverge by a factor of three.

Time to value Délai de première valeur

The time between signature and the moment the customer obtains the first concrete result they were buying. It is the best predictor of renewal available before renewal itself, and it demands precise definition: an observable milestone in the product or service, not an impression of satisfaction.

Common error. Defining it as the end of onboarding. Onboarding is a supplier activity, first value is a customer outcome.

Health score Score de santé

The weighted combination of indicators meant to predict whether an account will renew. Its value depends entirely on calibration against real churn: a score built on intuition produces alerts teams stop reading within a quarter. A useful score is back-tested on already lost accounts before going live.

Common error. Putting too many indicators in it. A three-component calibrated score beats a twelve-component assumed one.

Net revenue retention Rétention nette du revenu

The recurring revenue of a customer cohort at the end of a period against its starting point, expansion included and churn deducted. Above one hundred per cent, the existing base grows on its own, which changes the nature of the business: growth stops depending entirely on acquisition. It is the metric that most clearly separates durable growth from bought growth.

Common error. Confusing it with gross retention. Gross retention cannot exceed one hundred per cent, net retention can, and that is the whole point.

Expansion trigger Déclencheur d’expansion

The system rule signalling that an existing account is ready for an additional offer, based on a usage threshold, a growth event or a service signal. Its purpose is to remove expansion from the realm of individual attention: without a trigger it depends on which manager looks at which account, and in which week.

Common error. Triggering on a calendar rather than on a signal. An expansion call at the wrong moment costs more than it returns.

Models and schools of thought

The representations revenue operations uses, and their limits.

Bowtie model Modèle nœud papillon

A representation extending the funnel beyond signature, as a mirror: acquisition on the left, signature at the centre, then adoption, retention and expansion on the right. Its contribution is to make visible that the right half is measurable with the same instruments as the left, whereas most organisations instrument only the left.

Common error. Adopting it as a diagram without instrumenting the right half. The model is only worth the metrics it forces you to define after the sale.

Dark funnel Entonnoir invisible

The set of interactions preceding the first identifiable contact that no tracking tool captures: private conversations, communities, referrals, content consumed without identification. Recognising it has an immediate practical consequence: part of marketing work will never be attributable, and building an allocation model that ignores this systematically underfunds what works.

Common error. Trying to make it measurable. The right treatment is to ask the buyer what brought them, not to attempt to track them.

Go-to-market motion Séquence go-to-market

The way an offer reaches its market: sales-led, product-led, partner-led, or a combination. The term matters in revenue operations because each motion demands a different engine: a product-led motion moves most qualification into usage, a sales-led motion leaves it in the conversation, and the two are not steered with the same metrics.

Common error. Running two motions in one pipeline. They have incompatible durations, rates and stage definitions.

MQL and SQL MQL et SQL

Marketing qualified lead and sales qualified lead, two labels inherited from a period when marketing and sales worked in sequence. They remain useful when they rest on a written, shared criterion, and become harmful when used as a team target: an MQL target mechanically produces volume at the expense of fit.

Common error. Using them as a marketing performance metric. The only healthy use is tracking the gap between leads passed and leads accepted.

Attribution: two meanings Attribution : deux sens

The word covers two distinct notions, easily confused. Marketing attribution distributes credit for a conversion across several touchpoints. Lead assignment designates the person who becomes responsible for it. The first is a measurement problem with no exact solution, the second is a rules problem that has one.

Common error. Using the term without specifying which. In a mixed meeting, we need to revisit attribution names two unrelated projects.

Questions

Frequently asked

Why not define the basic B2B terms?

Because a sales director knows what a lead is. What is missing is not everyday vocabulary, it is the vocabulary that describes the chain as a system, and that is precisely where teams diverge.

Are these industry standard definitions?

They are the ones Revops uses and applies. Revenue operations has no standards body, which is exactly the problem this glossary addresses.

What is the common error line for?

A concept used wrongly costs more than a concept nobody knows. Most of these errors occur in companies that know the definition perfectly well.

A shared vocabulary saves a week.

The Diagnostic starts by establishing these definitions in your own context, because most commercial disagreements are vocabulary disagreements that do not know it.

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