ICP (Ideal Customer Profile)

The ICP (Ideal Customer Profile) indicates who you should look for. It is widely used in sales departments because it helps identify potential customers and, more importantly, who the decision-maker is so you can go directly to that person. In practice, it is the buyer persona with one more step: profiling not just the person, but the company and the people responsible. In this article we explain the objective of the ICP, a ten-step process to build it, a concrete example (Iberian B2B SaaS) and how to fit it with client profiling and the pre-demo resources you already have.

Objective of the ICP

The objective of the ICP is to find who will buy from you and identify their pains. It is not just about describing «who» you could sell to (that is target audience), nor just giving an emotional image of the customer (that is buyer persona): it is about profiling the company and the people responsible —title, size, type of business, technology, geography— and connecting that to the pain your solution relieves and where you can find that decision-maker. That way the sales team knows who to prioritise, who to talk to and what message to use.

If you have not yet covered the basics —target audience, buyer persona or Jobs to be Done—, in our resources on target audience and client profiling, buyer persona and Jobs to be Done you can see the evolution from classic segmentation to more operational approaches for the pre-demo phase.

Process: ten dimensions of the ICP

A well-defined ICP usually covers company, decision-maker, pain, commercial context and where to find them. Below is a ten-step process you can use as a checklist.

• Company size (employees, revenue or volume).
• Job title of the decision-maker (CEO, Sales Director, etc.).
• Pain you solve (lack of revenue, low conversion, loss of control in the demo, etc.).
• Unique way the company operates (consultative sales process, product vs. service, etc.).
• Specific technology used (CRM, marketing tools, tech stack).
• Type of business (B2B SaaS, services, e-commerce, etc.).
• Sale price or average ticket (range that fits your offer).
• Geography (country, region, language).
• Specific place to find the user (LinkedIn, accelerators, events, communities).
• Bonus — Trigger events: what event triggers the need (e.g. they finish a demo feeling they have lost control).

You do not need to fill all ten dimensions with the same level of detail from day one. What matters is that the ICP is useful for qualifying opportunities, preparing first contact and prioritising the pipeline. According to common B2B sales practice, a documented ICP shared between marketing and sales improves alignment and lead quality; reference to frameworks such as Gartner's on go-to-market can help you benchmark your definition.

Example ICP: Iberian B2B SaaS

A concrete example of an ICP could be the following. Directors or CEOs of Iberian B2B SaaS companies with 1 to 10 employees, without a repeatable and scalable sales process, who suffer from lack of revenue or low conversion. They have a consultative sales process, use CRMs to manage their customers and have an average ticket between €100 and €500. They are usually on LinkedIn, as well as in accelerators and incubators. Their trigger event is when they finish a demo feeling they have lost control of it.

With this definition, the team knows who to look for (directors/CEOs of small B2B SaaS), what pain to address (lack of repeatable process, revenue or conversion, loss of control in the demo), what context they have (consultative sales, CRM) and where to find them (LinkedIn, accelerators, incubators). The next step is to align message, qualification and demo preparation with that ICP; that is where client profiling and, if you use it, Jobs to be Done complement the ICP with «how» to talk and «what» to offer in each conversation.

ICP and client profiling: company, decision-maker and conversation

The ICP answers above all «who to look for» and «where to find them». Client profiling adds «how they decide», «what objections they have», «what they have tried before» and «how to prepare the demo». Together they allow sales not only to prioritise accounts, but to prepare each contact and each meeting with clarity. In the pre-demo phase, having a clear ICP reduces time lost on opportunities that do not fit; combined with an operational customer profile, it improves conversion and team efficiency.

How to keep the ICP useful

An ICP is not a document you write once and file away. It is worth revisiting it with real data: which customers have closed, which accounts were lost and why, and which profiles generate the most value. If you want to define or refine your ICP and align it with your pre-demo process, at Miranda's Consulting we work with sales teams on ideal customer definition, qualification and pre-demo preparation. You can find out more about us or contact us for an initial conversation.

Next steps

If you want to define or refine your ICP and align it with your pre-demo process, we can review your case in a no-obligation call. At Miranda's Consulting we support sales teams on ideal customer definition, qualification and conversion improvement.