Glossary
GTM and lead-to-cash, in plain words
The terms we use, defined once. If a term means something different at your company, tell us.
- Go-to-market (GTM)
- The plan and the machinery a company uses to bring a product to its customers: who to sell to, what to say, which channels to use, how to price and how to sell.
- Ideal customer profile (ICP)
- A description of the companies most likely to buy, succeed with and stay with your product — used to decide who to pursue and who to ignore.
- Distribution engine
- The repeatable set of channels — outbound, partners, content, community and referrals — that puts a product in front of the right buyers every week.
- Revenue engine
- Everything that turns a market into cash: go-to-market, pipeline, sales, delivery, customer success and collections, designed to work as one line.
- Fractional CRO / CMO
- A senior revenue (CRO) or marketing (CMO) leader who works part-time for several companies, giving each one executive leadership without the cost of a full-time hire.
- Booked–banked gap
- The difference between revenue booked when a deal is signed and the cash that actually arrives in the bank.
- Lead-to-cash
- The full journey of a deal from the first lead, through quote, contract, invoice and collection, to cash in the bank — and on to renewal.
- Quote-to-cash
- The part of lead-to-cash that starts with the quote: pricing, approval, contract, billing, collection and revenue recognition.
- Revenue leakage
- Revenue a company has earned or agreed but never collects in full — through pricing errors, unbilled work, missed invoices, late payments, write-offs or silent churn.
- Days sales outstanding (DSO)
- The average number of days it takes a company to collect payment after invoicing a sale. A rising DSO means cash is arriving more slowly after invoices go out.
- RevOps
- Revenue operations: the team that runs the systems, data and processes behind sales, marketing and customer success so the revenue engine works end to end.
- Finance ops
- The finance team that turns signed deals into cash: billing, accounts receivable, collections and reconciliation.
- Closed-won
- The CRM stage for a deal the customer has signed. It is a booking, not cash — the money still has to be invoiced and collected.