The sales process · Customer research
Most of your wasted selling time goes to companies you should have refused.
An ideal customer profile describes the kind of company worth selling to: size, sector, location, what they already buy, and what rules them out. It is a filter rather than a wish list, and the honest test of one is whether it makes you turn enquiries down.
Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.
In one paragraph
An ideal customer profile describes the kind of company worth selling to: size, sector, location, what they already buy, and what rules them out. It is a filter rather than a wish list, and the honest test of one is whether it makes you turn enquiries down.
Ask an owner who their customer is and the answer is usually the whole market: anyone who needs a warehouse shed, any clinic that wants more patients. An answer that rules nothing out feels safe. It is also why the prospect list ends up with four hundred names on it and no orders.
An ideal customer profile is about the company, not the person inside it. Turnover band, staff count, sector, distance from you, what they already spend money on, who they buy from today. Write down what disqualifies a company as carefully as what qualifies one.
Keep this in-house. Nobody outside your business knows which customer paid late twice, which one rang at eleven at night, and which one you quietly hope never comes back. That knowledge is the raw material, and it is in your invoice book already.
It follows the people goals you set in the strategic plan, because the profile has to match the selling capacity you actually have. It comes before the buyer persona, which describes the individual inside a qualifying company who says yes.
Where this sits
Stage 2 of 10, customer research. Who buys, why they buy, and what they are comparing you against while they decide.
- The stage before
- Strategic plan
- The stage after
- Prospecting
If you want this done for you
Know exactly who your best customer looks like before you spend to find more of them.
The work
What this step is actually like.
“Start with the customers you already have”
Pull two years of invoices into a sheet and sort them by what they paid, how long they took to pay, and how many of your hours they swallowed. The pattern is in there already. Most owners are surprised by which name sits at the top.
“The disqualifier list is the useful half”
A builder who pays only after the flat sells. A trader who wants ninety days of credit your working capital cannot carry. A buyer two states away who needs a service engineer on site the same day. Name them, so the next enquiry from one is a two-minute call.
“Every line has to be checkable on the first call”
Turnover, staff count and machinery are things you can ask about or see. Ambition, professionalism and growth mindset are not, and a profile built on them cannot be used by anyone but you.
“Two profiles are fine, five are a way of avoiding the decision”
A workshop in Peenya may genuinely sell to both original equipment makers and repair shops, and those are different companies. Beyond two or three, you have written the market again under a new heading.
What we do
What you end up with.
The artefacts this step produces, what each one is for, and how you know it is finished.
The one-page profile
A single sheet with six headings. Sector and what they make or treat, size band, distance from you. Then what they already buy from someone like you, who signs the order, and what they can realistically spend.
Result: Finished when a new salesperson reads it in two minutes and can describe the target company back to you without the sheet.
The disqualification list
Five to eight lines naming the companies you will not chase, each with the reason attached. The reason matters more than the rule, because it is what lets somebody judge a borderline case.
Result: Finished when you have used it to say no to a real enquiry, and nobody in the office argued about it.
The fit score for incoming enquiries
One spreadsheet row per enquiry, with columns for company, sector, size, distance, what they buy now, and a fit score out of five. Whoever answers the phone fills it in while the caller is still talking.
Result: Finished when last month's enquiries are all scored and the high scores and the closed orders line up.
The evidence behind it
The invoice analysis itself, kept as the working file. When somebody challenges the profile in six months, the sheet settles it rather than whoever speaks loudest.
Result: Finished when every line in the profile can be traced back to a customer you have actually billed.
Template
Ideal customer scorecard
List the traits of your best customers and mark how well a new prospect matches.
| Row | Trait | Best customers | Poor-fit customers | Prospect matches |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Industry | ||||
| Size | ||||
| Location | ||||
| Buying trigger | ||||
| Budget holder |
Where this fits
Three pieces of sales work, in this order.
This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 0, foundation. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.
Step 1
Sales audit
Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.
Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.
Step 2 · you are here
Sales process design
One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.
Start here if every salesperson sells differently.
Step 3
Sales management
A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.
Start here if the team has targets and no routine.
FAQ
Questions owners ask before they call.
Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.
How long does this take?
We are a new business with no customers yet. Can we still write one?
Who in the company has to agree it?
How do we know the profile is wrong?
Is this worth paying someone to do?
How much does it cost?
How long is the contract?
Who will actually do the work?
What do you need from us?
What if we are not happy with the work?
Where to go next
The work that carries this step further.
The rest of customer research
Or read the whole sales process in order.
Your next practical step
Tell us what you are trying to grow, and we will read it before we call.
Eight short steps, mostly taps. Skip anything you would rather answer on the call.