SEGMENTATION & TARGETING

ICP & Anti-Profile Builder

If I could only sell to 50 accounts in year one, which 50 — and can I name them?

Ideal Customer Profile

Not "hospitals." A specific buyer, in a specific setting, with a specific pain. Answer these the way you'd defend them to a skeptical board member — with a name in mind, not a category.

01
Who is the buyer — exact title and role, not a department?
e.g. "VP of Perioperative Services" not "hospital administration."
02
What setting are they in — site type, size, care model?
Ambulatory surgery center vs. academic medical center vs. community hospital changes everything downstream.
03
What specific pain do they feel today, and how urgent is it to them — not to you?
Urgency they feel, measured in their terms: time, risk, cost, reputation.
04
Who else has to say yes — where does budget authority actually sit?
Name the other people in the room, not just the champion.
05
Can you actually get in front of this person? What's the real access path?
A perfect-fit buyer you can't reach isn't a beachhead — it's a wish.
06
If they only remembered one sentence about you, what would they repeat to their boss?
Write it exactly as they'd say it out loud — not your tagline.

Anti-Profile

Who to avoid — and why. The anti-profile is what keeps a hungry early-stage team from chasing every lead that says yes to a meeting.

01
Who looks like a good customer on paper but isn't? Why does that mismatch happen?
Right industry, wrong urgency. Right title, no budget authority. Name the pattern.
02
What early red flags should the team learn to spot in the first conversation?
Specific phrases, org structures, or buying signals that predict a stalled deal.
03
What segment or setting have you already learned to avoid — and what did it cost you to learn that?
Real experience, if you have it: a stalled pilot, a long sales cycle that went nowhere, a site that couldn't actually buy.

Your working profile

This compiles automatically as you answer above. Use it as the first draft of your ICP / Anti-Profile worksheet deliverable.

Ideal Customer Profile
Anti-Profile
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Use this in other tools

Send your ICP to the Value Proposition Worksheet and the Value Analysis Packet Builder

Click the button, open either tool, and paste into its “Bring in your ICP” box. The buyer, setting, pain, and decision-makers you defined here fill in the matching fields there, so the message is written for this buyer, not a generic one.