The freelancer glossary

An accelerator is a program in which veteran entrepreneurs guide startup founders through the early stages of founding a company. In exchange, the accelerator receives a portion of the company’s equity.

Account-based marketing (ABM) is a strategy commonly used in B2B marketing. Using this approach, sales and marketing work together to engage high-value businesses or prospects.

Accountants manage financial records for individuals and businesses, assisting with tasks like preparing tax returns, bookkeeping, and preparing profit and loss statements.

An accredited investor is an individual who is allowed to invest in unregulated securities, such as private equity. An accredited investor is determined by his or her annual income and/or net worth.

Adjusted gross income (AGI) refers to your gross income, minus what the IRS calls “adjustments to income.” These include things like student loan interest and contributions to a retirement account.

An advertorial is a type of ad that blends in with the surrounding content. It’s often written for a newspaper or magazine, and intended to promote a brand’s product or views—though it may not be obvious right off the bat.

The American Psychological Association (APA) style is a set of writing guidelines for the social science fields. It establishes best practices for creating research papers and related projects.

Analytics refers to the process of identifying trends in data. Companies use analytics to make insightful decisions regarding a product, resources, forecasting, or financials.

Anchor text refers to the words that hyperlinked within an article or webpage. To aid SEO, you’ll want to be deliberate with the anchor text and make sure that it’s highly relevant to the page that it links to.

Annual contract value (ACV) is a metric that shows the average amount of money your company earns per contract in a year. It is calculated by dividing the total contract value by the total number of contracted years.

Annual recurring revenue (ARR) is a metric that sums up a company’s subscription-based revenue for a given year. It is calculated by taking the total annual revenue and subtracting non-recurring revenue from it.

An arbitration clause is a contract provision whereby all parties agree to resolve future issues with a third-party arbitrator instead of a judge and/or jury in court.

An art director creates and supervises the rollout of a visual production. Art directors may create the vision for a film, digital ad, TV commercial, catalog, or magazine.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a software’s cognitive ability to make decisions without the need for human intervention. AI is often used to accelerate processes that are traditionally performed by humans.

The Associated Press (AP) style of editing is widely used among American journalists today. It provides a consistent way of checking for grammar, punctuation, formatting, and more.

An attorney (aka attorney-at-law) is a lawyer who has passed the bar exam in the state where they are practicing law. Attorneys are licensed to represent their clients in a court of law.

Attribution is the process of giving credit where credit is owed. For example, if you mention in a quote or statistic within your article, you’ll want to attribute the original source.

An audio engineer (aka sound engineer) handles the technical and mechanical aspects of sound recording. His or her work may be featured in a commercial, music track, video game, or movie.

An author bio is a short description of your credentials and personality (among other details). It’s often used to earn a reader’s trust.

An ACH payment is when funds from one bank are sent to another, and are processed by the U.S.-based ACH network. ACH payments generally take three to five days to clear.

BANT is short for budget, authority, need, and timeline. In practice, the BANT framework helps sales teams to better qualify their leads by checking that the lead is both able and willing to purchase their product.

A bank transfer (aka wire transfer or credit transfer) is a method of sending money directly from one bank to another. This process is typically simple, fast, and secure.

A baseline number is a point of reference used to evaluate the performance of a marketing (or other) initiative. The exact number is up to your discretion; its main purpose is to help you track whether you’re making a positive impact or not.

Behance is a free social media platform for designers, illustrators, and others who want to showcase or discover creative work. It is part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite.

Beta testing is when you release an early version of a product to a select number of users. The goal is to identify bugs or areas for improvement prior to releasing the final product to the general public.

Billable hours are the hours that freelancers can include on their invoices and thereby charge a client for. Billable hours may include the time spent working, planning, participating in meetings, and more.

Billing cycle (aka billing period) is the length of time between two payment periods. As an example, freelancers may choose to invoice their clients on the 15th of each month.

A blog writer specializes in creating compelling and unique content for a site. He or she is often expected to accurately capture a brand’s voice and message within his or her writing.

Bootstrapping is when an entrepreneur doesn’t raise outside capital to start his or her business. Instead, the entrepreneur uses his or her own means to fund the operations of the business.

Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) refers to the last stage of the buyer’s journey in which the prospect is close to making a purchase decision.

A brand ambassador (aka brand advocate or evangelist) is someone who is hired to represent and promote a company to generate more interest in the company’s products and/or services.

Brand awareness is a measure of how many people can recognize your brand by its name. It represents the impact of your branding and marketing.

Brand positioning refers to how your consumers perceive your brand, especially as it relates to other products and services like yours. Marketing helps to shape this positioning.

Branding involves all the steps that you take to build an identity around your company (or product) so that it’s memorable and perceived positively by consumers.

In software development, a bug refers to an error within the app or platform. It is, in other words, a coding error that needs to be addressed.

A burn rate is a measurement of how much cash a company is losing in a given period of time. Burn rate is especially important to companies that are not profitable and rely on external sources of cash.

Burnout refers to a situation when someone feels mentally and/or physically exhausted from overworking. Burnout is one of the most common reasons why people leave their jobs.

A business account refers to a bank account that’s solely used for business transactions. It can be opened as a checking, savings, credit card, or merchant services account.

Business intelligence (BI) refers to all the tech and processes used to mine, visualize, and interpret raw data for a company. The core purpose of BI is to uncover new business opportunities and guide decision-making.

B2B is a business model in which a company’s primary customer is another company. For example, an airplane manufacturer sells its planes to a commercial airline.

B2C is a business model in which the company’s primary customer is an individual user. For example, a grocery store sells its goods to everyday customers.

A buyer persona is a detailed profile of your target customer(s). Buyer personas typically factor in things like demographics, job titles, interest, and behaviors to help you get into the head of your customer.

The buyer’s journey refers to the various steps that a person takes when researching, discovering, and making a decision about your product or service.

A byline is a line of text that provides the author’s name. For example, if you write a blog for a publication, your name would be featured in the byline.

C-Suite refers to the highest-ranking managers of a company. Examples of c-suite titles include Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Chief Operating Officer (COO), and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).

A call to action (CTA) is any part of content that directs people to take a specific action. For instance, a button that says “buy now” would be considered a CTA.

Cash flow positive is when a company is earning more money than it is spending or losing it in a given time. It is not to be confused with profitability, which is related but not the same.

A certified public accountant (CPA) is a licensed professional who provides financial advice for individuals and businesses. CPAs must meet certain work, education, and testing requirements.

A change order is a written agreement to modify the original scope of work or other terms of a contract. Both the client and vendor must agree to the amendment before it is considered valid.

The Chicago Manual of Style is a guide for academic and book publishing, established by the University of Chicago Press. It provides a set of rules for grammar, citation, style, and more.