Developing Buyer Profiles

Don’t get me wrong, campaigns flop sometimes. But the ones that never hit, again and again? That’s a signal. And then they argue back: “I’ve defined my ICP…” You're not wrong, but they're based on vanity personas built from assumptions, job titles, or outdated data. The results are campaigns that underperform, and budgets that disappear without results. Here’s how to do it right: 1. The buyer’s real behavior, not their title Most ICPs list job titles, seniority, and company size. That’s it. Reality: Two VPs of Marketing at two similar companies behave completely differently. One responds to thought-leadership content, the other to competitor benchmarking. The difference? Behavior, not title. Your ICP must capture how they act, not just what their LinkedIn profile says. 2. Focus on micro-decisions, not just big ones Every ICP has tiny, often invisible decisions that determine whether they buy: Who makes the decision internally? Who reads emails but never replies? What small objections derail momentum early? Ignoring these makes messaging “look right” but fail to convert. 3. Emotional triggers outweigh rational ones People think ICPs are all about ROI, features, and KPIs. That’s only half the picture. Ask: What keeps them awake at night about this problem? What fears, frustrations, or aspirations drive action? How do they perceive risk and reward emotionally? 4. Validate with real data Don’t assume. Observe: CRM activity and conversion patterns Demo requests and feedback Support questions Social engagement The truth about your ICP lives in what your buyers actually do, not what your decks or assumptions say. 5. Make your ICP actionable Every campaign, message, and piece of content must map to your ICP: Does it reflect their behavior and triggers? Does it consider their micro-decisions? Will it resonate on an emotional and rational level? If it doesn’t, the problem isn’t your copy, it’s your ICP. Defining your ICP is not a checkbox. It’s the foundation of every marketing decision. Miss the details, and your campaigns, no matter how polished, will fail.

Here’s the exact game plan I used to go from assumptions to real buyer insights that drive revenue: DAYS 1-30: Stop Guessing, Start Listening Goal: Get direct insights from REAL cybersecurity decision-makers. 1. Identify Your True Buyer Personas “CISO” is a title, not a persona. - Who actually uses your product? - Who signs the check? - Who influences the purchase? 2. Set Up 10-15 Buyer Conversations Stop relying on surveys. Get on real calls with buyers. Schedule video calls with security decision-makers. Ask questions like: - What are your biggest security challenges right now? - What have you tried that hasn’t worked? - What would make your life 10x easier? 3. Analyze and Extract Themes Look for patterns in responses. What pain points keep coming up? What words do buyers use to describe their problems? (Use these in your messaging.) 4. Prioritize and Score Action Items Not all insights are created equal. Rank them based on: - Impact – How much will this move the needle? - Ease of Implementation – How quickly can you execute? DAYS 31-60: Align Messaging & Product Strategy Goal: Turn buyer insights into sharper marketing and product direction. 5. Rewrite Your Messaging Using Real Buyer Language Cut the fluff. Stop using words that buyers don’t say. 6. Test Messaging with Buyers Before Launching Big Campaigns Don’t just assume your new messaging is good. Validate it with your actual buyers. 7. Align Sales & Product Teams with Buyer Insights Share findings with sales so they can speak the buyers’ language. Work with product teams to refine roadmaps based on real needs, not assumptions. DAYS 61-90: Go to Market with CONFIDENCE Goal: Launch campaigns and sales strategies that actually convert. 8. Create Buyer-Driven Content Stop creating content for algorithms. Create for your buyers. 9. Refine Sales Demos with Buyer Feedback Most demos are product-first—they should be problem-first. Use buyer interviews to structure demos around: - The pain they mentioned. - How your product solves it in their exact environment. - Why your solution is better than alternatives. 10. Scale the Process Make continuous customer research a system, not a one-time project. Keep talking to customers every month to stay ahead of market shifts. By Day 90, you should have: 1. A go-to-market strategy driven by real buyer needs. 2. A product, marketing, and sales team aligned on how to talk to and sell to cybersecurity buyers. 3. A system in place to keep refining insights as your market evolves. Most cybersecurity vendors will waste 6-12 months making the same mistakes: - Writing messaging in an echo chamber. - Relying on generic personas. - Running campaigns that fall flat. The ones who commit to this process will: - Close deals faster. - Market with confidence. - Build products that buyers actually want. #marketing #b2b #gtm #customerresearch #audience1st #cybersynapse

Everyone understands the importance of making the right early stage hires. Less ink is spilled on the importance of finding the right early stage customers. VCs tell you to do sector analysis. What's your Ideal Customer Profile, and how do you segment them into cohorts with which you can efficiently engage? Geoff Moore taught us the bowling pin approach: get early customers to move within a particular segment, and all the other bowling pins fall behind them. All of these methods are useful, but they presume the existence of an initial base of customers. What do you do at the initial, Big Bang moment after you've hung a shingle out and built an initial version of a product you think you can sell? All the sector, segmentation, and SIC analysis in the world won't save your hide -- and if that's how you're approaching the problem, you've already lost. What you're optimizing for at this stage is a particular anthropological profile: an actual human being with the right risk attitude, the right technical instincts, and a propensity to purchase. They also have to have the juice to manhandle the skeptics, naysayers, and bureaucracy of their own organization. Once you find this kind of buyer who's ready and willing to take a risk on you, don’t break your pick trying to get every nickel off the table. Understand that you’re building something together. Your job is to make them wildly successful so they become your greatest evangelist with customers who inevitably follow -- and with whom you can build a more predictable revenue model based on sectors, segments, and SIC codes.

Five years ago, Warburg Pincus LLC invested in BetterCloud and urged us to work on a project to narrow our ideal customer profile (ICP). It's the most impactful thing I've ever done to improve conversion rates, shorten sales cycles, increase deal size and ultimately transform the company. A big mistake many CEOs make is believing their product is for everyone. It’s tempting. More potential customers should mean more sales, right? But in reality, chasing too broad a market drains resources, distracts your team, muddles messaging, confuses your product roadmap, and kills go-to-market efficiency. Being laser-focused on your ICP drives alignment across product, messaging, and the go-to-market motion. When the right prospect engages, they’ll feel like you built it just for them. Anyone who has built a product or service knows that the things a small business needs are very different than what a huge enterprise needs. A company is different from a school. An IT buyer is different from a security buyer, a sales buyer is different from a marketing buyer, a director level decision maker is different than a C level decision maker… but we still believe we can sell to different segments and personas as the same time. The process to define and use your ICP is relatively straightforward but does take time. The larger your business, the more data you have, the more resources you have to crunch that data the more time you should spend to do it as scientifically as possible. The high level steps are: 1. Build a Customer Dataset: Gather all your customer data. Current and churned customers, won and lost opportunities. Enrich it with firmographic, business-specific, and buyer demographic data. 2. Engage Your Team: Your best sales and customer success people hold invaluable insights about your most successful (and worst) customers. 3. Analyze & Identify Pockets of Gold: Identify common attributes of high-performing accounts and avoid the traps of poor-fit customers. 4. Communicate the ICP to the entire company with the “why” behind the attributes that make up an ideal customer.  5. Rework your messaging to appeal to your newly defined ICP and narrow your growth initiatives to be focused only on the accounts that matter.  6. Assign the right ICP accounts to your reps and ensure they’re focused on the right buyer personas. 7. Product Development: Reassess your roadmap to align with the needs of your ICP. You should see impact fast. GTM funnel metrics will improve. Conversion rates should rise, with better leads turning into stronger opportunities. You may not get more leads, but their quality will increase. I’ve been discussing this with many Not Another CEO Podcast guests, so don’t just take my word for it. I wrote a deep dive on how to “Narrow Your ICP and Transform your Company”, with real examples from other companies. You can read the full article here https://lnkd.in/e5EN3XSR

Selling into complex B2B Industries requires a completely different approach on LinkedIn. At Triangle, we typically spend 15+ hours on research before writing a single post. Step 1: We study your customers We go into LinkedIn and pull up 20-30 profiles of your ideal buyers. We analyze patterns across: - What posts are they engaging with right now? - What topics are they commenting on? - What language are they using when they discuss industry challenges? - Which thought leaders are they following? If your buyers are CROs or Heads of Strategy inside growth-stage companies, the nuance matters. Are they focused on regulatory risk? AI adoption? Margin pressure? Procurement scrutiny? That context determines what earns attention – and what creates instant skepticism. Step 2: We reverse-engineer your sales process We listen to your recent sales calls. We review your sales decks. We talk to your sales team. Why? Because your strongest content already exists – it's just trapped in private internal conversations. The objections you handle on calls, the moments where prospects lean in, the explanations that unblock deals – that's content. We translate what already works one-to-one into one-to-many positioning. Step 3: We map the competitive landscape We analyze: - What are competitors talking about? - What are the biggest voices in your industry saying? - Where's the white space opportunity? Most companies create content in a vacuum. They talk about their features, their team, their milestones – without considering what's already saturating the market. We identify the gaps where a credible, experience-led point of view can stand out. Step 4: We anchor everything to your differentiation After we've done all that research, we sit down for a strategic Deep Dive interview. We ask: - What you believe that others don't - The trade-offs you've made - The experiences that shaped your judgment That differentiation is what pulls you out of comparison mode and into category leadership. In long-sales-cycle, high-ACV deals, buyers aren't choosing based on features. They're choosing based on judgment, conviction, and evidence that you understand how they operate. That's why we spend time listening to your podcasts, watching your talks, reviewing sales calls, and getting genuinely immersed. The result: A commercial growth strategy that drives growth, not a content calendar.

Why Buyer Personas Are Often Useless (Unless You Do Them Right) Buyer personas. Every marketer talks about them, but how many of us actually use them to drive real results? Too often, buyer personas are treated as an exercise in check-box marketing: Create a template, fill in some basic demographics, and call it a day. But this is a recipe for wasting time and burning calories. The real power of buyer personas lies in the depth of insight they provide about the emotional, psychological, and behavioral triggers of your target audience. When done right, personas become your roadmap for everything—product decisions, messaging, marketing strategies, and sales enablement. But when done wrong, they’re useless. So, how should you approach Buyer Personas? 1. Go Beyond Demographics It’s easy to create personas based on age, job title, and income. But that’s not what actually drives a purchase decision. You need to understand why your customers buy your product—what pain points are they solving, what motivates them, and what stands in their way. 2. Focus on Behavior and Needs Instead of just a “one-size-fits-all” persona, segment by behavior and customer journey stage. Are they early-stage prospects or ready to buy? How do they interact with your product? Behavior speaks volumes. 3. Constantly Evolve Your personas shouldn’t be static! The market, technology, and customer needs evolve—so should your personas. Continuously gather feedback from your users, sales teams, and customer support. Buyer personas done right can drive growth, shape product development, and create hyper-targeted marketing strategies. But done poorly? They’re just another file on the shelf. #growthmarketing #buyerpersonas #marketing

Here is how a B2B marketing strategy SHOULD look like (and how it actually looks in most B2B companies). 𝐌𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐁2𝐁 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬: 1. Paid ads promoting product/demo 2. Automated email & LinkedIn outreach 3. Gated e-books to generate "leads" 4. Product pitching webinars 5. AI-generated blog articles. 6. Occasional posts on the company's social pages 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐦𝐞 (based on the State of Full-Funnel Marketing research): -Miserable "lead" to opportunity conversion and endless debates about the quality of the leads - Missed revenue targets - High cost of acquisition - Extended sales cycle Usually, the core problem of these companies is a lack of marketing fundamentals and a clear GTM strategy. 𝐆𝐓𝐌 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐲 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐁2𝐁 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐧𝐢𝐞𝐬 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐥𝐮𝐝𝐞: 0. 𝐆𝐨𝐚𝐥𝐬. Goals should be based on your current resources, opportunities, and historical growth, not based on wishes or unrealistic expectations. 1. 𝐓𝐚𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐭 𝐬𝐞𝐠𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬. Segmentation is the first step in developing ICP. Different segments have different use cases, buying processes, and revenue potential. You need to select the focus segment. 2. 𝐈𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 (𝐈𝐂𝐏). Here are 5 ICP pillars. - Firmographics - Buying committee - Account segmentation (Tiers & Lists) - Qualification and disqualification criteria - Customer research 3. 𝐁𝐮𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬. During customer research, define what triggers the buying process, and what are the typical steps buyers take. But keep in mind that most customers are not actively buying. Try to figure out what channels they use for education, who they follow, and what content resonates with them and motivates them to learn more about specific solutions (demand triggers). Understand typical questions, concerns, and inhouse approval process. 4. 𝐌𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 & 𝐏𝐨𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠. In the AI era, the differentiation, strong narrative, and clear messaging are vital. 5. 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥-𝐟𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐤𝐞𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐧. Define programs to influence the whole buying process: — Awareness and demand generation. — Demand capturing and activation — Sales and buyer enablement — Retention — Expansion 6. 𝐂𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 & 𝐀𝐝𝐯𝐨𝐜𝐚𝐜𝐲. Last stage is often ignored, but without an efficient CS and advocacy, your company will deal with: - Lack of case studies and referrals - High churn Build a great relationship and minimize time to value with appropriate onboarding. Embed customer research into the CS process. Leverage the opportunity to create case studies and share insights with marketing and sales for further expansion. 7. 𝐌𝐞𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐬 & 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐬. Create a dashboard with key revenue metrics and sales pipeline velocity. Define key leading indicators. Create a blended attribution model to see the impact of marketing.

It’s tough to admit, but a sales strategy I led completely flopped. Like most early-stage businesses, our focus at BrainX Technologies was on getting clients—any clients. And for a while, that worked. But as we grew, our approach didn’t scale. Why? We relied on generalized messaging and chased opportunities across multiple industries. The messaging was polished, the audience targeted, and the team fully aligned. Yet the results? Low engagement. Wrong leads. And Conversions? Frustratingly low. As a Sales Head, I had to figure out what went wrong. And the truth hit me hard: We didn’t really know who we were talking to. We skipped the foundational step of defining our Buyer persona, Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and choosing the right platforms. Sure, we knew their job titles, industries, and basic pain points. But that wasn’t enough to truly connect. So, we hit pause, went back to basics, and analyzed: 🔹𝗖𝗹𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗱-𝘄𝗼𝗻 𝗱𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘀: Who converted, and what patterns stood out? 🔹𝗘𝗻𝗴𝗮𝗴𝗲𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗺𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀: Which emails or messaging resonated most? 🔹𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀: Location, company size, and industry. 🔹𝗦𝗮𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗰𝘆𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗵: Which clients moved faster, and why? From this, we built a clear ICP: 🔹𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻: Where are our best-fit clients based? 🔹𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗧𝘆𝗽𝗲: Headcount vs. solo individuals 🔹𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆/𝗡𝗶𝗰𝗵𝗲: Who needs our solution the most? The results were clear. Sharper messaging. Better-fit leads. Smooth sales cycles. Higher ROI. Looking back, I wish we’d done this on Day 1. Skipping Buyer Personas and ICP might feel like saving time, but trust me it’ll cost you more in the long run. If you haven’t revisited your Buyer Personas or ICPs, now is the time. It can change how you connect with your audience. Have you been here before? I’d love to hear your experiences in the comments below. #buyerpersona #icp #sales #business #strategies #clientcommunication

Only 10% of people searching for a business to buy actually succeed. The other 90% spend months spinning their wheels. Here's the critical mistake that kills most acquisition attempts: They never clearly define what they're looking for. Most brokers ask about revenue targets or industry experience. Both are the wrong metrics. Here's what actually matters: All acquisitions map into 4 opportunity profiles based on how you'll create value. Matching the profile to your strengths predicts success better than industry knowledge. Think stock investing: growth vs. value. Let me walk through each: Profile 1: Eternally Profitable Businesses with predictable demand and high customer retention. Essential services, recurring revenue models, natural barriers to switching. You're buying stable cash flow with minimal disruption risk. Low operational complexity makes these ideal for first-time buyers. Profile 2: Turnaround Underperforming businesses with fixable problems. Buy at a discount, apply your operational strengths to unlock value. Dawn Zier joined Nutrisystem as CEO in 2013 after years of decline and transformed performance significantly. Turnarounds require decisive day-one action: cutting costs, changing strategy, replacing team members. Higher returns for those who can execute. Profile 3: High Growth Companies growing 25%+ annually command higher multiples. 2 risks: If growth stops, you overpaid. If it continues, you need more working capital. Fast-growing companies consume cash as they scale. Match this profile only if you have additional funding or can improve cash conversion. Profile 4: Platform Solid businesses missing 1 critical capability. Gary Vaynerchuk took his parents' liquor store from $3M to $60M by applying digital marketing to traditional retail. Find businesses where your specific skill creates disproportionate value. The framework changes how you search. Instead of browsing by industry, identify which profile matches your strengths. Then set financial parameters based on capital you can deploy. Define size by Seller Discretionary Earnings, not revenue. SDE is what you actually take home: net profit plus owner salary and discretionary expenses. The sweet spot is $250K to $700K in SDE at 2.5x to 3.5x multiples. Clear target definition eliminates months of wasted searching. Master this, and everything else becomes possible. I've refined this framework over 7 companies. Whether you're buying a business or investing alongside operators, understanding how to evaluate opportunities is essential. I break down acquisition strategies, private market opportunities, and evaluation frameworks weekly in M&A Weekly. Join thousands learning how private markets work: wealthstack1.com

B2B buying behavior is evolving fast. In the past, sales reps played the key role in educating the buyer throughout their journey. According to a buyer trends study by 6sense, today's B2B buyers are nearly 70% through their purchase process before engaging with sellers. What's more, 85% have mostly defined their purchase requirements before reaching out to vendors. Much of the buyer journey now is self-directed and self-served. This shift is primarily driven by the availability of digital resources. What this means is that if you want to align with B2B buyer behavior and fuel greater SQLs and sales pipeline, you better have a sophisticated digital strategy and a strong-as-heck digital presence throughout their journey. Here’s how you can achieve that: 1. UNDERSTAND YOUR ICP Build an audience insights engine. Understand your ICP’s frustrations and pain points as deeply as possible. Continually interview customers, survey your audience, track what they are searching for in Google and the AI engines, listen to sales call recordings and talk to your sales team, and conduct win-loss analysis of your CRM data. 2. FIND THE GAPS Conduct a gap analysis. What is your audience currently focused on, yet you have no web pages or content addressing those questions or concerns? Identify the gaps and prioritize the most important topics. You'll likely be surprised by the number of gaps you spot. 3. CREATE IMPACTFUL CONTENT Then, create web pages, content, and experiences that truly resonate with your audience based on your deeper ICP understanding. Solve their problems. Eliminate their frustrations. Empower them to achieve more. If a content piece doesn’t, then ditch it. Ruthlessly focus on being the most useful content provider to your ICP. And make sure that the content covers the questions they are wrestling with when they are not only problem-aware, but also solution-aware, and product-aware. 3. AMPLIFY, AMPLIFY, AMPLIFY This is a step that many marketing teams fail at. It’s not enough to create content. You gotta amplify it to ensure that your valuable content is actually reaching your audience. To that end, make it easy to discover your brand. Make sure that your SEO & AEO game is on fire, and that you’re just as focused on PR, content amplification, event marketing, and social media. If you are world-class at these four steps (or striving to be), you’ll be sure to significantly increase SQLs and pipeline with today’s self-directed B2B buyers. Let’s Destroy Mediocre Marketing!