What's Your Ideal Customer Profile?

Every business, marketer and salesperson needs to target potential customers based on how they match their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This is important because we all operate with a finite number of hours within which we can apply to the right activities with the right people. Finding alignment in product/market fit, and within windows of need or opportunity, is far more effective than seeking to 'raise the dead' or pounding away hoping that luck can overcome the law of low averages.

This is why targeting ICPs, and then knowing your buyer personas and engaging based on trigger events or trusted relationships, is so important. Combine them together and you can be the a genuine top gun of your company.

But now, let's focus on your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile). Firstly, you will filter and target ICP organisations based on geography and vertical. For example: local government on the West Coast, or tier-2 accounting practices in Sydney, or manufacturing companies in Bangalore. Once you've gated your search based on geography and vertical, you then filer and look for signs of life based on the following criteria:

• Firmographic: Number of employees, roles they are hiring, revenue, geographic coverage, their customers or markets, financial results (revenue and profit), share price, etc. Your best customers and new prospects are growing. Organisations in steady-state or decline are reluctant to embrace change unless you reduce costs or improve cash-flow. Customers in growth mode are seeking to improve efficiency, grow revenue, expand markets, drive loyalty, etc. Firmographics are to businesses and organisations what demographics are to people.
• Technographic: What technologies do they use? Analyse your customer-base and identify common technical attributes and tell-tail signs of probability for a successful sales campaign to win them. Which competitors do you ideally replace or augment. For example, many Sitecore (Web CMS) customers also use Salesforce (CRM), and many Taleo customer also use Alteryx. New Voice Media have a telephony platform that works best when integrated into Salesforce.com. To maximise return on time invested into prospecting, New Voice Media should segment on companies known to be  Salesforce users. Even if you don't sell technology, there will be interesting common stacks within your best customers... look for others who have the same attributes.

There is an app that does 'lookalike analysis' of you customers to highlight to commonalities you should be seeking in others. The company is Triggr.ai and here is an example from the Chrome plug-in provided by Triggr. It's only available in Australia at present but for those in this market, every salesperson needs this plug-in for instant insight and sales intelligence data. Triggr provides insights into technologies being used, which roles are being hired, and also contact information (phone numbers and email addresses) for the senior buyer personas most likely to matter.

• Psychographic: What is the company's likelihood to change or buy. The reality is that it's based on the above two factors plus the profile of leaders in decision-making roles. Recruiters are interested in an individual's likelihood of changing roles? Triggr is a company I'm on the Advisory Board of and they can measure an individual's 'propensity to change roles'. It a clever science and art. Knowing someone's personality also tells much about their approach to decision-making and change. Crystal Knows is doing clever things in this regard... not cheap but very powerful.

Layered onto all of this we need to identify and track the windows of opportunity based on budget cycles, contract completion dates, technology refresh cycles, etc.

If you're seeking to break into new accounts, lead with a message of augment, leverage and improve what they have rather than a blood-curdling message of 'rip and replace'.

No-one likes change... it's just a whole lot of work and risk. be laser-focused on their business case, or the commercial value, of change. There must be a big and serious problem to solve or massive goal to achieve if people are to invest in change.

Thanks for reading and I discuss what it takes to succeed in sales today in my book, COMBO Prospecting, published by HarperCollins and The American Management Association and you can purchase it here on Amazon. If you valued this article, please hit the ‘like' button and also share via your Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook social media platforms. I encourage you to join the conversation or ask questions so feel free to add a comment. Please also follow my LinkedIn post page for all my articles and you can find out more on me at www.TonyHughes.com.au and RSVPselling.com.

Main photo from Flickr- Mike Mozart.