It’s no secret; generating higher quality marketing qualified leads (MQLs) that your sales team is more likely to convert to sales qualified leads (SQLs) with a growing average deal size and a measured close rate is going to unleash overall business growth. It really is THAT simple, but it is reliant on identifying your buyer profile.

If you don’t know who needs your solution, goods, or services then being able to capture those high value leads is left to chance and generating a high enough quantity to build a pipeline is unlikely. Nailing your ideal buyer profile and personas is the first major step to creating predictable growth for your company.

For established companies, this exercise can be much easier than it is for newer companies, as you can back into this with data and sales history from your enterprise resource planning system (ERP) and customer relationship management solution (CRM).

To start, you will want to utilize both systems to review the last 48 months of sales and mine the following information from the top 80% of deals closed:

• Average deal size
• Industry based on SIC codes/NAICS codes
• Employee count
• Geo-location of company
• Company revenue
• What was purchased
• Role/title of the buyer
• What the deal life cycle was
• What their pain points were
• How your product/solution addressed these pain points
• Sentiment towards you

Information like SIC/NAIC codes, employee count and revenue can be available with tools like LinkedIn Sales Navigator, Discover.org, Lead411, and Zoom info. Gathering this intelligence will help you create your ideal account profile (IAP), which can then be used to develop targeted, personalized marketing programs.

Once you’ve gathered the information above, you should organize it into three categories.

1. Demographics – Create a chart with your demographic segmentation information which includes industry, employee size, geography, and annual revenue. This is now your IAC.
2. Operational – Create a chart with your operational segmentation information which includes what they purchased, who purchased it, what the sales cycle was, and what common milestones were identified. This is now your ideal client profile (ICP).
3. Circumstantial – Create a chart with your circumstantial information which includes what their pain points were, title of the buyer, how you fixed the problem, and why they love you. This is now your target buyer persona (BP).

For new startups that are pre-revenue, this task is a bit more difficult as it takes cold calls to design an effective IAP, ICP and BP. Predictable University refers to this activity as “Interview Calls.” This happens to be one of my favorite types of calls to make because the task isn’t to sell, it’s to learn.

To do this effectively, identify 25 companies that you would like to sell to and could sell to if you had an established brand and delivery process. Research as much of the information above as possible with your prospecting tools, then take a deep breath and call the CEO or President’s office! Have your elevator pitch ready, be confident and tell them WHY people hire you. Then ask if they have 10 minutes to share industry knowledge with you. I guarantee, if you position this call correctly, any seasoned CEO or President would be happy to tell you why their company is the best and what they look for in products like yours.

Has your company been through the process of building out your buyer profile and identifying your ideal account and client profiles? If so, we’d love to hear what worked and what didn’t. Leave a comment below.

Are you getting ready to tackle this process and looking for additional information to ensure success when creating your buyer profile? View our on-demand webinar, 7 Steps to Create a Lead Generation Machine and schedule a 15-minute meeting with one of our marketing automation experts.