Coaching Enterprise Start- Finding Best Fit Prospects
Enterprise start-ups should spend their scarce support resources on those prospects that are aligned with the start-up’s strategic interests.
I suggest they adopt a mindset of which prospects are going to get the privilege of being their customers. They need a filter to choose the prospects that should become their first customers. That filter is their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
It describes the attributes of the customers that are going to be best fit.
It looks like this:
| Ideal Customer Profile | Examples |
| Attribute #1 | Is the Prospect in the right market segment? |
| Attribute #2 | Has the Prospect demonstrated that they do business with startups? |
| Attribute #3 | Is the Prospect the size we want to support? |
| Attribute #4 | Is the prospect in geography we support? |
| Attribute #5 | Does the Prospect have the right legacy systems? |
| Attribute #6 | Did the Prospect ask for more info? |
| Attribute #7 | Did Prospect Identify the Economic Buyer? |
| Attribute #8 | Did Prospect schedule a meeting with Economic Buyer |
| Attribute #9 | Did The Economic Buyer share Pain & Priorities? |
| Attribute #10 | Does the Economic Buyer agree with our Value Propositions? |
| Attribute #11 | Is the prospect committed to doing an evaluation of our solution? |
| Attribute #12 | Has the prospect named all evaluation team members? |
| Attribute #13 | Will the Prospect give us access to the evaluation team? |
| Attribute #14 | etc. |
Attributes 1 through 4 can be determined through diligent research before a first meeting.
This is the initial filter to screen for best fit prospects.
The rest are determined in first and second meetings with prospects
When they have an ICP that feels right, they can build a list of prospects they are targeting and to rank the list for best fit by using the ICP attributes.
By putting a grade (High, Medium, Low) in each cell, they can rank the list based on best fit. When they do this, founders may realize they are spending their time with the wrong prospects.
Founders need to learn about this crucial element of sales productivity:
How to identify those prospects I can close in the least time.
If you are an Enterprise start-up founder and want to lean more, contact me.