Having a fully validated product may not completely guarantee a company’s success. There is no point in having good services and products if the type of customers you are prospecting is not ideal.
Incredibly, this reality is quite common in companies that are at the beginning of their journey. And even more consolidated organizations are concerned with better understanding who their customers are and what they need within their market.
It is by identifying the ideal customer profile, or ICP, as some call it, that we can be sure that we are selling not only more, but better. The term stands for Ideal Customer Profile and is nothing more than understanding the standard characteristics of the best customers.
Do you know that customer who really identifies with your company, with your products and services, who understands the benefit of your business, knows the importance of using your solutions constantly, and above all, manages to achieve good results? Imagine having more customers with this profile.
Identifying the realities
This concept of ideal customer is a concept that goes beyond the idea of target audience – that is, who may have an interest but is not necessarily your customer – and that of the buyer persona – which is the profile that would buy any of your products. The idea of ICP lies between the target audience and the persona.
Many companies have a strategy to shoot all sides when prospecting, thinking that focusing on quantity is better than quality. It turns out that it costs time and money.
By defining these profiles, you can work better on the approach, making it more efficient and focusing on customers who are truly profitable and valuable to your company. Its operation ends up optimizing prospecting efforts and gains the possibility of offering other products and opportunities for its customer portfolio.
In practice, it can greatly reduce the Cost of Acquisition per Customer (CAC), as well as, the time of the Sales Cycle and the cancellation rate, increasing customer satisfaction and conversion rates within the funnels. This all results in more sales and your company’s reputation in the market.
List, interview and analyze your best customers
Do a job of learning to identify and track your customers’ purchase profiles. To do this, take some important steps:
When it comes to “choosing the best customers” it can seem like a very difficult task. To carefully analyze this, make sure you have recorded your entire sales history. Consider some points like:
- Return on Investment to understand which accounts are most profitable and their effort.
- Understand which customers are above the average relationship term.
- How those who have a good average sales cycle behave.
- Who has the highest average ticket and lowest investment values.
- Understand what the relationship with him is like on a daily basis.
- Prioritizes those that are important for the maturation of processes
- How is the customer payment flow and new acquisitions
- Notice how often he uses his solution and gets positive results
- Mirror your actions based on frequent customer orders and problems
- Understand factors such as people who make the decision, the time in the company, the hierarchy and its dynamics and the skills required by this professional
The tip is to learn to identify behavior patterns that the best customers, always doing a comparative research with the market, and with other companies in its segment. Always keep reality as a measuring stick.
Work the data to have a real ICP
Once you are able to carry out information gathering steps, look at this data to identify common ground between them. This will help you to better design these business paths based on information gathered.
Analyze the company’s history and current situation, segmenting the performance and characteristics of this market. Use the data to understand common goals, challenges that you can help solve. Make this profile very carefully so that you can have the objections clearly and also how you can overcome them. Investigate the process of purchasing products or solutions within this reality.
Focus on the reality of your best current customers. Ask your commercial team for help in defining an ICP that is realistic and that has a specific profile. Be comprehensive in the description, after all, sales professionals deal with prospective customers every day, so they are able to understand pains and objections well.
