In prospecting, the only thing worse than not setting a prospecting appointment is setting an appointment with the wrong prospect. Meeting with an unqualified prospect is a huge waste of time and can clog up your sales pipeline with bad opportunities.
Increase your odds of prospecting success by only focusing on the most appropriate prospects for your solution. That means defining what the most valuable customer looks like for your company using a “reverse engineering” concept based on specific demographic criteria and certain behavioral characteristics. In marketing lingo, these criteria form an “ideal client profile” or ICP.
Your ICP differs from opportunity qualification (think BANT), which happens after you’ve set the meeting. Your ICP is a more top-of-the-funnel concept. It’s a fictional representation of your best sales leads based on research, past experiences, current leads, and your team’s resources. Use your ICP to identify the prospects most likely to convert into highly valued customers.
When identifying your ideal customer, don’t just look at your entire customer universe. Instead, focus on your very best customer universe. You should also consider the customer accounts that have been the most profitable. Then look for patterns and similarities.
The first factor to consider in creating ICPs for sales is the basic demographic information of your best, most profitable customers.
Now that you have a general idea of which companies to target with your prospecting efforts, you must consider who to target within those companies. Consider the following buyer demographics:
Please note that these basic buyer demographics used in your ICP differ from the much more in-depth information used in creating buyer personas, which typically include psychological factors, business challenges, buying journeys, and motivators.
Finally, consider the prospect’s likelihood of engaging with you.