Chapter 2: What a strong ICP actually looks like

Speaker A: Welcome to another episode of the Uncut, uh, podcast, a B2B SaaS marketing series that takes listeners from A to Z in demand generation. In this show, we'll teach you how to build, execute and scale a modern demand gen engine from scratch. It's brought to you by myself, Jasper de Greyjf, and my friends in tech, Ted Van de Berg and Jasper Hissink. Welcome, gents.

Speaker B: Good morning.

Speaker A: What's on the agenda today? Three letters, one word.

Speaker B: Ideal customer profile.

Speaker A: That's not one word, but it is what we're going to talk about.

Speaker B: Did you want me to say ICP then?

Speaker A: Doesn't, uh, matter. Um, in today's episode, we'll need to talk about the ICP and uh, literally, just to break it down, you know, what you can expect from M. This episode we'll talk about what it is, the why, AKA the importance of it, how you should build it, Obviously not unimportant, some common pitfalls, and then, uh, last but not least, some examples of what to do versus what not to do.

Speaker C: Let's go for it.

Speaker A: Sounds like a plan. Sounds like it. Let's do it. All right, so, um, we'll kick it off with, um, the why. I'm sure the audience is very curious as to why they should care about this in the first place. Um, first question, what are we talking about? What is an ICP to begin with?

Speaker B: Yeah, I think an ICP or ideal customer profile is basically a strategic framework, uh, that allows you to sort of zoom in or identify a segment of the market. It first of all has shared characteristics, needs and behaviors. But also as, um, um, as in the word of ICP is actually a segment that you can serve, serve the best.

Speaker C: So it's not the profile of the person, but it's the profile of the company.

Speaker B: Yeah, indeed, Absolutely.

Speaker A: It's like, um, you know, my two cents, a target customer. Not based on behavior, but on characteristics that allows you to essentially build some sort of company profile that can truly be pursued, which is obviously very different from B2C in which you can do business with everyone. But then in this specific case in B2B SaaS, you know, the, that we serve, um, the outcome would be like a list of companies that one can pursue rather than the gazillions of consumers that one could potentially do business with.

Speaker C: Yeah. So therefore, like a very strategic exercise that you do on the marketing side.

Speaker B: Yeah. And if you do it well, it's actually a framework that you follow. Yeah.

Speaker A: So why would you guys say it's important to have a clearly defined icp,

Speaker C: I think it allows you to play where you're strongest. It, uh, depends on like how far you're in into the journey. Like let's say you're starting right off the bed. Like you don't have any past data, but let's say you're already a couple of years into the journey. You can see what the type of companies are that you actually win or that you win with the highest percentage and you can use that information to your advantage.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that is a good way to summarize it is like it allows you to, to focus your efforts on where they will be, where you have the most impact. I think it also we talk in a marketing podcast.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But this is actually something that should be carried and be accepted by the marketing, the sales team, but also the product team. Right. So it's a company wide focus. So for marketing you can focus your efforts on where they matter the most, but also for product to focus their product roadmap on the right segment.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head with the word focus. That's at the end of the day, what it's about. Um, a focus for everyone involved so that you know where to spend your efforts. Um, so let's say you have an ICP and it's like clearly defined. What is the next step?

Speaker B: The next step after you've defined your icp. Yeah, that is probably also input for the next few episodes.

Speaker A: Yeah, but like a logical next step. So perhaps just for the listener to understand, like, okay, I am going to think about what my ICP should be, what these characteristics are. I'm going to get crystal clear in terms of, you know, what they should comply with so that I can serve them very well. Then what is the outcome? And I can give the answer myself. Or at least so you guys see where I'm headed. Um, so to avoid that, it's going to be somewhat vague for the listener. The target account list.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: As the outcome that based on these criteria you get like a list of 100 accounts or a thousand accounts that all fit that ICP. Those ICP criteria that you've set.

Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So, I mean, you said it in other words, in the previous answer, but literally just a list that provides focus. Yeah, because I think one of the things that goes wrong very, very often in companies is that, you know, sales is trying to work its magic and then marketing is trying to work its magic, but they don't really know, you know, if you were to put them together, what they're really really focused on what they're working towards. So the getting the ICP straight is step one, but then getting um, the target account list in place is step two, and that suddenly clears it up for everyone. Okay, what is it that we should be doing?

Speaker C: Yeah, and it makes it very real in terms of like, for everybody to understand like what's going on, like what the point was of the exercise then to have the ICP defined, then translated to a target account list and get the buy in for everyone. That's where a lot of the back and forth goes. Right. Because if you say, okay, we can only sell to 200 companies, suddenly the Excel sheet from the CEO that has committed to X amount of investment doesn't work anymore.

Speaker A: Yep, unfortunately not for him, for investors, for everyone involved. Yeah. Um, you know, what is, um, what is something that a lot of businesses run into, you think, you know, when they um, when they forget to unite marketing and sales through a target account list.

Speaker C: I think the biggest risk is twofold. A, um, sales or marketing. Because marketing can also like omit and forget about the ICP and just go to market to the accounts that they think makes sense, is that you focus your efforts on accounts and companies that uh, you're not going to be successful at, so you're not doubling down on your strengths. And the second risk is that uh, sales and marketing working on, on different sets of accounts in, in the market. Um, so if marketing and sales are not working together on uh, crafting that target account list, it could be sales that just takes the Fortune 500 list of companies does outbound there. And marketing takes a fully other set of accounts to uh, to provide air cover or show ads to.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Have you ever witnessed that yourself?

Speaker C: Both.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: So like marketing ignoring data just because you want to grab a bigger part of the market, uh, and be sales going after like a Fortune 100 list and then uh, coming back to marketing saying, hey, we want support versus like marketing being part of uh, or like me or in that case being part of the target account list, uh, crafting, um, one of the things that I've used in the past then like when I've noticed that it's like, okay, hey, we're marketing towards different accounts. It's like not uh, aligned was to use this kind of like a uh, Bullseye framework. I saw somewhere on LinkedIn being posted that you have different rings and that you can, um. This is going to be great for the graphic that you have like a tier one in the middle saying, hey, with these accounts that are like super fit. You do all the motions like you do outbound direct mailing ads, uh, one on one, ABM, etc. And then you have like tier two, tier three, tier four, and you combine the GTM motions next to it so that there is uh, a level of investment going into the specific sets of, of tiers. Uh, and that really helped because then you could still say we have 2,000 target accounts so you're not limited too. Or you have to go into discussions where you say, okay, but these companies we will not be able to sell to leave that open. Um, but you prioritize the efforts that you're putting into like the tier ones or the tier 2s.

Speaker A: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, I was in a similar spot, um, with a company that didn't really have a clear ICP to begin with. So it was very simple. Marketing was supposed to bring in leads and then sales was supposed to sell to these leads. You already know how that ended up. Some sales were made, but a lot of churn came through up until the whole company is essentially set on fire. And I think that is arguably the best example one can give because at the end of the day, you know, you're just not building a SaaS company that is sustainable because you're making sales and it looks like you're doing right things because revenue is coming through. But um, if at the end of the day your CAC LTV is just not where it's supposed to be, then investors will also turn their back on you very, very quickly and you're just never able to build a profitable business.

Speaker C: Uh, it's an important point. Like the churn part, like you can sell, you can get a lot of like pipeline generated, you can close a lot deals, but then if they don't stick.

Speaker B: Exactly. I think one of the biggest risk of not following that ICP framework, I mean following the ICP framework and the exercise is actually a sort of long term vision. Right. It sort of forces you to actually think, okay, what segments has the least churn the highest client satisfactory, we'll get into that in a second. But skipping this step, which a lot of companies unfortunately still do, you often then fall back on this shiny object syndrome. M right, is okay, where can we get the quickest revenue? And you don't really take into account what kind of revenue you're bringing in. Right. So. And yeah, it gets a disaster later indeed with Churn, but also with a product roadmap that gets chaotic and you build features for uh, companies that you don't even want to focus on and hold that thought.

Speaker A: I really like where you're heading at. Just one question in between. Why does it get so often overlooked?

Speaker B: Maybe before we explain that, why it's often overlooked. In my experience, it's not always overlooked, but it's often a one time exercise. So basically you do an ICP exercise and that is your focus for two, three, four, five years. Right? Well, I think that is the main mistake that I often see. Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, or it's the one that's built too limited. So it's a very simple, like, okay, companies that have 200 to 400 employees and that are in these 10 industries, that's our ICP. So that they do the ICP exercise but not to the fullest extent, not getting the full benefit out of it.

Speaker A: And then what's the consequence of that?

Speaker C: Well, then you get like the, into the problems of the churn or like building the wrong features or competing uh, against companies that are actually better. Better or have better position than you.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd like to go even one level deeper because there's probably a reason behind the fact that you're selling too, too broad of an audience and that's probably because there's pressure to grow. So they're not going back to like the exercise of resharpening the ICP just because they're working towards the next round or the founder themselves just want to make a quick buck, whatever. It might be different. The reason is probably different for everyone. But um, I think in a lot of cases they're just working towards the next round and they don't have time to actually go back and see like, okay, with who should be best do business because they need revenue now. Because without the next round of funding there will be no business anymore or there will be a down round or whatever. It might be all of these scenarios that you really don't want as a founder.

Speaker C: But what would you do if you're in that crunch?

Speaker A: It's a very good question. Um, you know, obviously this is a somewhat easy question to answer once you've been in that position because you have witnessed yourself how it unfolds. If you don't go back to like square one and redefine your icp because it gets really, really tricky to turn things around once you're in that downward spiral.

Speaker C: Uh, you already know that the route is a dead end. Like you can go after it, but you know it's going to not lead to anything.

Speaker A: Exactly. So you might be able to get the money in in terms of, you know, getting the funding in that next round. But then the same shit show will start again because they have expectations, you know, that, okay, my current Runway allows me to, I don't know, be around for another year. And then after that year I need new money again. So perhaps to answer your question, if you need money in the short, short term, let's say, okay, six months from now, right. Um, then, okay, go get it. But then you might have to squeeze in a sweet little lie that suddenly it's not about the hypergrowth anymore. Once you've got the money in, it's actually about, yeah, going back to the basics and making sure that your business is actually one that's going to last.

Speaker C: Or single out like one of the things I've done in the past where you say, okay, we want to try out this bigger ICP or this longer list, or we want to go international or want to tackle a new segment because our product is going to go that direction and I think we can sell to them. Really well said. You make the split second 80% we focus on our core ICP and 20% of the resources or 10% of the resources actually go towards that new, the newly defined icp, uh, criteria. Because some of the times with product development, uh, be like, hey, if we get this to work in three months, we can sell to so many more of these people or we can do X amount of amazing things which might be true or might not be true. So that's where you can hedge your bets, uh, and say, okay, 80% are going to go here and the rest we're going to use as like a trial to bet on the next, uh, or extended icp.

Speaker A: Right. Jasper, I, um, asked you to hold your thought just a couple of minutes ago.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, essentially what you were explaining, if I understood you correctly at least, is what happens when it gets overlooked. So maybe you can re. Explain that for the audience.

Speaker B: Um, what happens when it's overlooked or when you, at least in my experience, when you don't follow the icp, uh, framework is that you, a lot of people fall back on like short term gains and losing the, the, the big picture. Um, they, they lose the big picture, at least the scope of it. And then what I have to see is that, that you've, they've come to this shiny object syndrome, right? So that they think like, okay, this very big company in this industry that we don't really serve yet, uh, actually wants to work with us. Okay, let's, let's reel them in. And that Means we should also be able to close 10, 20 more of those. Um, it's a, I think a short term focus and that's what you get if you don't follow the icp. A short term focus has a lot of long term hidden costs in churn in retention, in customer satisfaction. But also what I said about building your product for the segment that you want to serve.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love how you phrase that, especially the hidden cost part.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because I indeed think it always starts with like a lack of focus. M Right. Some sort of need for more money resulting into a lack of focus. But then what they might not understand is that as a direct result of that the product will essentially start to proliferate because you need features for the SMB and for the enterprise and then for the mid market and then for a specific customer that you kind of made a promise to against. Kind of like what you said to yourself you would. Mhm.

Speaker B: Um, I actually have a good example here of a company I worked for where back then I was still a bit junior but the company I worked for did it really well was a customer feedback. It was a feedback solution and they did it in the Netherlands and they basically did customer feedback but at one point also employee feedback, at one point also recruitment feedback. So they did all these different segments. Right. But even in hr, employee feedback and recruitment feedback you're dealing with different departments. So they were serving all these different verticals, different pain points, different benefits, etc. Um, and they were growing in the Netherlands but it was super stuck there. Like you couldn't really take the same approach and go to a new market like Germany or whatever. And then they notice, okay, we actually see the best results and numbers and client satisfaction again, lifetime value in this recruitment feedback space. So they pivoted their whole positioning, the messaging, the whole identity from a customer of uh, a feedback solution towards a recruitment feedback solution and after that a recruitment analytics solution. All because they really thought, okay, there's this block right here, we can't grow any further outside of the Netherlands. We need this focus right now. They did a very extensive analysis, made the decision and actually scaled a lot further all about making decisions there as well.

Speaker C: Uh, prioritizing. Yeah.

Speaker A: So, so that's essentially the consequence when you don't do it.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Product proliferation churn new, new players entering the market and therefore consistently losing grip on the market you used to serve so well.

Speaker C: Yeah. Uh, and all the like the subsequent steps afterwards going to get harder and harder. Like how do you position yourself? Um, I don't know, because you have, let's say you market Mark Platz in the Netherlands or like the marketplace, uh, ebay, that's like for everyone. Everything you can buy there, I don't know, you can buy a new car, but you can also buy a new T shirt. Uh, then if you go head to head with like you introduce a new company, you go head to head with a Mark Platz or with an ebay, that's going to be very tough because like it's a winner takes whole market. But then if you start, uh, this company vinted very specifically it's clothes and then they are able to really capture a big part of the market because they are tailoring towards like a different,

Speaker B: um, good example, different group.

Speaker A: Yeah. Because their ICP is very clear and therefore their positioning and therefore their whole product at the end of the day. Excellent example. I think, um, everyone is now in the know as to why it would need an ICP and what the consequences are. In case, you know, you're not super critical about this exercise, let's talk a little bit about the making of from now on so that people get to understand, okay, you know, what are some of the questions that need answering in order to properly build it out. So perhaps let's start with what is the must answer question?

Speaker B: If up to you guys, just the one golden question.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, I think this is a perfect scenario, right. If you, if you can answer who gets the most value out of us and why, which is maybe a bit of cheating on um, on this question of yours, but I'd say that is what you should chase for. Right. So, um, who gets the most value of what we do and why? You have that answer then.

Speaker C: And can you identify the different clusters of people there? So that there is.

Speaker B: Yeah, I sort of include that in the, in the whole.

Speaker A: But do you agree with that?

Speaker C: I agree. And then the trick is there like identifying um, or measuring who gets most value, like is most value. That then translates to like an NPS score or to renewal rates or to higher uh, AC fees within the deals that you've done in the past.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that maybe probably you have a question later on how we actually do this framework and then that is definitely part of this. Yeah.

Speaker A: Just to add to your question, I think who gets the most value is a good way to put it, but perhaps to some somewhat vague because what does value mean? Perhaps a better way to phrase it is which pain, mission critical pain are we actually solving for who? I personally at least think that the best, uh, SaaS companies which typically start out small, run into something that is just a huge pain to either themselves or to people in the market and then they go and solve. Exactly that.

Speaker C: I would add, I think that's a great definition. I would add that you then as the uh, the company that you are uni position to help solve. So you're the best person to help solve this mission critical pain point.

Speaker A: Right, Good. That was uh, the mission critical. The must answer question. What are some other questions that really need answering in you guys opinion?

Speaker C: Well, you're defining the opposite of your icp. So like what are the companies that we don't want more of? Uh, that's sometimes easier to answer. It's like hey, what are the characteristics? So you just invert the process. You say hey, what are the companies won't get any benefit out of us, uh, for whom it's only going to touch a small part of their um, for the ones that um, uh, turned with the highest rate. So just you can help to strike down some of the criteria uh, from the other way.

Speaker A: I'm not sure I agree with that. I think I do, but I would only agree with that once a company has been in business for a while. So they actually have an understanding of, okay, which customers tend to churn over and over and over and how do we categorize them?

Speaker C: You can't do it at the start.

Speaker A: You're right. Exactly. So let's put us in the shoes of like a business owner that has an idea, uh, a certain pain that he wants to resolve. What are some of the questions that, that he or she really needs to answer in order to make sure that there's enough focus for the product that he has in mind.

Speaker C: Great question. First thing that comes to mind is like the level of implementation. This might not be the key reason, but one of the things, like if I need to spend six months before like the time to value, like if the time to value is six months for implementing my technology, maybe selling through small businesses uh, is not the right way because of the consultancy that's needed to implement the tool. So then you're automatically thinking about like implementing it into large organizations.

Speaker B: Right. What do you think?

Speaker A: I think it all starts with the industry. So which industry am I going to serve? Is it uh, let's say the supermarket industry? Is it the fitness industry? Is it the marketing agency industry? Just to give a couple of examples.

Speaker B: But before that you, you need to have a question answered to be able to identify the industry.

Speaker A: Right, exactly. Which is if up to me at least the mission critical question, which pain am I resolving? So probably if you know that, you already know which industry you're going to be serving as well. But in some cases it might still be very broad. You might be able to serve various industries, but may then also want to reduce it to just one in order to make sure that it becomes mission critical.

Speaker C: So that's a tip you would always give. You will always say, like, start with one industry, even though you can serve five, or you could serve five. Well, you start with one.

Speaker B: I personally don't think you need to per se zoom in on industries. I think it's good enough to start with jobs to be done and pains that can be industry agnostic. Right. There are other characteristics to focus more

Speaker C: like a use case, uh, instead of vertical.

Speaker A: I don't agree, especially not in the beginning of your company because as a business owner I would like to keep my positioning very, very clean and essentially communicate to a group of people, okay, this product was specifically made for you. Because at least in my experience, if that is not the case, some people may not feel that it was made for them. And as soon as we start seeing traction, for instance in again the fitness, uh, space and then specifically gyms, then you might take it a little broader and also go offer that product to, I don't know, personal training studios or whatever it might be. But in the very beginning I just want to, I just, I just want to make sure there's 100% fit before I go do something else that I agree with.

Speaker B: But again, in my point of view, it doesn't always need to be a industry identifier. It could be that you're selling software to procurement teams that procure cybersecurity products. They need to have, let's say, a procurement tool in place to already audit all the cybersecurity tools that they buy. That doesn't need to be an industry vertical, but it's a job title vertical or job to be done approach. So I don't think you have to limit yourself per se to a industry. It could be other characteristics.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's a good example. It doesn't always have to be the case, but it's definitely not recommended to go too broad if you're just starting out.

Speaker C: And also like the industry is one level, like where it gets, like where it gets interesting is all the different identifiers you can uncover underneath. Right. It's like, hey, if a company uses technology X, that might be a super strong fit with what we do, um, or if they have uh, a chief data officer in their company. That means that data is an important part of their strategy. So therefore, uh, we can sell really well to them.

Speaker A: Yeah. Some other questions that come to mind. Um, which segment do we choose and why? So is it SMB, Is it mid market? Is it enterprise? Something like that? What's the. Well that's kind of in line with that. But what's the company size? How much revenue should they have? Is there, is it important to think about the headcount that they have? Yes or no. Um, where are they located? Are we talking about a certain country? Are we talking about a continent? That sort of thing.

Speaker C: How the company is structured. Like is it uh, hub and spoke? Is it companies, uh, with like thousands of different locations. There's a lot of interesting drill downs you can make in terms of like the setup of a company. So we work with one tool. It's like perfect for a company that has a thousand franchise locations.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Versus one headquarters with like a thousand people in there.

Speaker A: Totally. And then the last one that comes to mind and that's a bit of an afterthought. So not the most important question while creating your icp. But sometimes it's just a whole lot easier to do business with a certain company if a certain role happens to be present within that company. So for instance an E commerce manager, for instance, um, a sole marketer in our case, you know, we know, okay. If it's a SaaS business with just one marketer, they're probably going to need video at some point or web design at some point. And then you know, making a sale for us is almost like a no brainer to them.

Speaker C: Um, so it's a Persona characteristic, but then like as a company characteristic. So from a company level, if that Persona is in the business, it makes sense for us to bump them up the priority list.

Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's enough, uh, enough questions maybe to um, you know, to, to create your icp. To be clear, maybe uh, a good question would be do, do we need a tool to build your icp?

Speaker C: I think you need a tool to build um, build out your target account list which is going to be the result out of it there. I think it can help to use

Speaker A: a tool fully agreed. Do you also need a tool to build out your icp?

Speaker B: The CRM would be, would come in handy if you already serve customers. If you already have let's say product, market fit or right before. Are you looking for that? Take a CRM with a lot of sales and customer data would Be very useful to uh, understand who your best fit customers are.

Speaker A: Totally. If you've been in business and you want to run an analysis, okay, you know, what's my most profitable customer or my, or my longest lasting customer? A CRM definitely comes in handy. Um, if you're a business that's starting out or just a founder with an idea, then fuck it all, I would say.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Because all you need to do is just be super specific and have the discipline in order to build out something that allows you to be successful over time. So to build that sustainable business.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I think these are, these are two different paths that are, are important to sort of zoom in on. Either you are just entrepreneur starting and you don't have any customers yet, then basically what I heard you say a little bit is that you identify a pain, a problem that they have and you don't really need a tool to, to, to have that. But then you sort of validate that through either market research, discovery calls and those things. But then the other approach is when you already have a running business and it's growing, but you're sort of stagnating and there's something needs to change and you have to revisit your icp, then the approach to this framework is completely different because then you start with already, what do you have? Right, Totally. M. So maybe something that we should clarify a little bit about how these two, uh, approaches to the ICP different.

Speaker A: Take the stage.

Speaker B: Yeah, because, well, you basically also explained that if you're just starting out, then that is the way to go, which you just mentioned. If you already have your business and you have your clients. I think the first question that you need to ask, because that's sort of the pathway to this discussion just now, is who are our most successful customers? And that you, if, uh, you have a CRM, you can export all of your customers to a Google sheet and you can already just look at the data like, okay, who do we get the most lifetime value from? And look at uh, the deal size and those things. Who gives us the highest CSAT scores, satisfaction scores and where do we have either the highest net retention rate or at least the least churn. Right. And then you look at your company characteristics of what are the shared industries locations, company sizes, those things. Um, and then on the third one you could look at your, your CRM again and win loss data. So who are easiest or quickest to sell to? Um, I think that is then step three and a step four is a final one which I would always recommend is you look at negativity traits. So what are ICP trades that actually lead to churn and make sure that those are exclusion rules.

Speaker C: I think that's a great summary. On step two, I would add also the qualitative side to uncover more characteristics that could play into like a great customer or a bad customer. Some things are, like, superficial you can get from the CRM, like deal value or like, um, how long was the sales cycle, those kind of parts. But I would always interview those customers to better understand, like, how is their world looking? Like, like, what are, what are their workflows? Like, what are they using? How are they using you? What part of the business, um, to uncover off there in some hidden, uh, success criteria, what makes your, uh, product being adopted or being so successful within that company.

Speaker B: All right, good point.

Speaker A: At the end of the day, it's all about product market fit. If I at least listened well to your story and then in identifying through various metrics, the ones that you mentioned, where the product market fit is the strongest. Nice. I like that.

Speaker C: And the importance of this exercise, like, once you have set this or you have done this exercise well and spend the time on setting your icp, it has major implications. Right. Because your whole go to market motion is going to change if you're going to sell to SMB or you're going to sell to enterprise, or the way you position yourself, how you go to market, where you go to market. So it's crucial that you get it right.

Speaker B: Uh, and what you touched on before the target account list. Right. Which is a logical next step as well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Forms its basis.

Speaker A: So, speaking of that target account list, because if that is the outcome in order to provide that focus, then obviously that target account list is also going to change over time because this is an exercise that is never done. So how often would you guys say that a company should revisit the ICP criteria?

Speaker B: My recommendation is always. Yeah. Okay. In most cases, I would do it biannually twice a year to actually revisit the framework and do the exercise. If you're very a volatile market, like AI, do it once a quarter, but I'd say generally six months. M. We're just doing.

Speaker C: And when you're doing that, like three months check or six months check.

Speaker A: What.

Speaker C: What is the checklist that you have? Like, what would it think you would.

Speaker B: Yeah. For me, again, those four steps that I did have stuff changed in the sales process, uh, one loss reasons, um, and data that you have, um, you have like, feedback, qualitative feedback from the Sales team. So I would just revisit step one to four again and actually see if things have changed in the, in the 60s.

Speaker A: Good. We're like a half hour in, so probably we should wrap up in a bit. Who of you guys has a great example of what to do, or perhaps even better, what not to do when

Speaker C: it comes to ICP or like defining your icp?

Speaker A: Yeah, so what I would find very engaging is a story in which either a company did it so well that the focus was totally there and they crushed it for the years to follow. Or obviously the exact opposite in which you kind of like twist the knife in the wound just because it becomes so apparent what the consequences of essentially not being critical enough when it comes to defining your SAP.

Speaker B: Maybe I can start with a good example, uh, of a client of ours. The code embed. They're there. I'll summarize it in one sentence. They have an embedded payments software and only for vertical SaaS in Europe. So only vertical SaaS companies. Not even all SaaS companies. Vertical SaaS companies in Europe for embedded payments. And then they even have some other identifiers, um, like company size. If you're too big, then you probably go to a Stripe or January, build something yourself. But in this super, super big industry where Aijen and Stripe and a lot of others are huge players, they've really found their niche and identify actual pains that Igen and Stripe can't really solve. They're like, yeah, this is our zone. And that makes it so easy for us as an agency to communicate to that market to identify the target account list vertical SaaS companies Europe within this company size and actually really lay out their pins and how we solve them. I think they did it super about.

Speaker A: So in essence you're saying what they nailed is identifying a couple of pain points that the giants in the space just don't care enough about or don't understand well enough.

Speaker B: Exactly.

Speaker A: And then do that so well that they're just being brought in as a point solution.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, awesome. Solid takeaway.

Speaker B: Do you have an example of, uh, a. Of a negative one?

Speaker A: Yes. Um, it's actually very interesting. It's a company that I used to work for. They had a lot of traction, um, in the Netherlands specifically, and in one sub segment, the gym space. But then at some point, not sure if greedy is the right word, but obviously money needed to come through and I guess the company just wanted to go faster or they fell prey to shiny object syndrome. So first there was, you know, a guy with a Huge personal trainer network knocking their door, essentially wanting to use their software. And they were like, oh yeah, that's great because we expand our market and yada yada, it will be a big sale because all of these personal trainers, trainers will follow. And then later on they also decided to go pursue fitness, um, chains. So then suddenly you have single location gyms, you have personal trainers, you have the enterprise with the chains, um, even a couple of studios, such as yoga studios. And what you just saw is that the needs when it comes to the product across these four, um, company types were just vastly different. So that, you know, we pretty much already touched upon this earlier in the podcast. But the product started to proliferate and I guess the worst mistake was that there was no understanding of what at the end of the, the most sustainable customer was. So the customer that would give them the most profit just because the underlying metrics look best. And they essentially gave carte blanche to the sales team as to who to go sell to. And then obviously the personal trainers, there's loads of them. So you can keep on selling and you can keep yourself busy and you can, you know, collect a nice paycheck every month pretty much. Um, because these are, these sales are very transactional. And let's be honest, most salespeople are just not going to care whether these personal trainers or clients in general, general churn all the time. What they care about is a really decent, nice life. And there will obviously be exceptions, but in this specific case, some may not have made up, may have not even noticed. And then, yeah, over time you just end up in a huge downward spiral because churn is through the roof. Revenue goals are not being hit, at least not your net revenue goals. Um, you know, collecting new funding is going to be very, very tricky. And yeah, a down round is essentially the, uh, the outcome of it all.

Speaker C: That's a great example.

Speaker B: Example.

Speaker C: Did the company learn at the end, like, did they identify that this is where the, uh, misstep was made?

Speaker A: Well, one of the things that, uh, I noticed is that they were like classic founders in the sense that they have loads of business idea and they just love being in business and they always see opportunities and you name it, but that it was very, very tough for them to be critical and disciplined in terms of, okay, this is who my business was built for. This is, you know, what the product should look like because it is for them. They tried to be everything for everyone. And of course there were learnings for them along the way. But, uh, I think they'd be a whole lot further if they would have stuck with, you know, the, the niche version of their idea. All right, that's, um, that's it for today's episode. Perhaps a quick takeaway, really just the company strategy on the ICP makes or breaks the company's success. Founders lead marketers, if you're listening, be very critical in the ICP creation process. And marketers, in case you're looking for a new gig, be very critical, ICP wise, during the selection process. Do they really know who they're doing business with? Yes or no.

Speaker C: And just have a look at the target account list to know if the company has a strong ICP or not.

Speaker A: Totally, totally get in the weeds before you sign. Um, when it comes to the next episode, what are we going to be talking about?

Speaker C: Ted I think we're going to talk about market research.

Speaker A: Market research. It is the logical next step post, um, ICP creation, understanding who you're going to be doing business with, where and why. But that's it in terms of the spoiler. More next week.