Work out who buys from you, then find more companies just like them.
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How to define your ideal customer profile
To define your ideal customer profile, list your best customers (the ones who bought fastest, pay the most, stay longest and get real results), then write down what they share: industry, size, region, tools, stage, the event that made them buy and the person who signed. Turn those patterns into a one-page profile with clear include and exclude rules, and test it against your pipeline.
01
Pick your best customers
Pull your customer list and mark the ten to twenty you'd clone if you could: quick to close, good revenue, still with you, easy to work with and getting real results. Ignore the biggest logo if it was a poor fit. If you only have a handful of customers, add your strongest prospects and late-stage deals, and treat what you write as a first draft.
02
Collect the facts they share
For each customer, record industry, employee count, revenue range, region, business model, funding stage, the tools they use and what they were hiring for when they bought. Note who found you, who uses the product and who signed. A spreadsheet with one row per customer makes patterns obvious. Look for traits most of them share, not traits one or two have.
03
Find the buying trigger
Ask what changed right before each customer bought: a new leader, a funding round, a hiring push, a tool that failed, a new regulation, a growth target. Read call notes and ask a few customers directly. The trigger tells you when to reach out, which often matters as much as who, because a perfect-fit company with no trigger rarely buys this quarter.
04
Write the profile on one page
Turn the patterns into firm rules: the industries and sizes you include, the signals that make a company a priority, and the people involved, with the decision maker's title and what they care about. Add an exclude list for companies that look right but never buy or churn early. Keep it to one page so everyone selling and marketing works from the same version.
05
Add buyer personas to the profile
The ICP describes the company that fits. Buyer personas describe the people inside it: the user, the champion, the person who signs and the one who can block. Write a short paragraph for each covering their goals, the problem in their own words and the objections they raise. Build lists from the ICP; write outreach and ads to the personas.
06
Test it, then revise each quarter
Score your current pipeline against the profile. If deals that match it close faster and stay longer than the rest, it's working. If they don't, look at what your recent wins actually share and change the rules. Review the profile every quarter, or whenever a new segment starts buying, since a profile written once drifts away from who really buys.
An ideal customer profile template, filled in
ICP template
Company type: [industry or business model]
Size: [employee range] employees, [revenue range] revenue
Region: [countries or cities]
Stage: [e.g. growing, recently funded, established]
Tools they use: [tools they already rely on]
Buying triggers: [events that make them need you now]
Problem we solve: [in the customer's own words]
Decision maker: [title], with [title] as champion
Priority signals: [signals that move a company to the top]
Exclude: [companies that look right but don't buy or churn]
Filled in: payroll software for restaurant groups
Company type: independent restaurant groups, not franchises
Size: 3 to 15 locations, 50 to 400 staff
Region: United States
Stage: opening new locations
Tools they use: a modern point-of-sale system, payroll still on spreadsheets or a generic provider
Buying triggers: a new location opening, a hiring push, a tip-reporting problem
Problem we solve: 'Payroll takes our GM a full day every two weeks and tips are always wrong.'
Decision maker: owner or operations director; general managers are champions
Exclude: single-location cafes, national chains with in-house payroll teams
A buyer persona to pair with it
Role: operations director at a multi-location restaurant group
Goals: open new locations on time, keep labor costs predictable
Day to day: scheduling, hiring, vendor calls, end-of-week reports
Problem in their words: '[quote from a sales call]'
What they've tried: [current tool or spreadsheet]
Objections: switching takes too long, staff won't learn a new app
What convinces them: a quick setup, another restaurant group's story, [proof]
Where they spend time: [communities, events, publications]
Why Revnu for defining your ICP
Your ideal customer profile should come from who actually buys, not who you hope buys. Revnu reads your website and your customer list, writes the profile and then uses it to find more companies like your best ones.
1Reads your website and your best customers.
2Writes your ideal customer profile: company type, size, signals and the person who buys.
3Finds companies that match it and shows you why each one fits.
Built from evidence
Revnu looks for what your best customers share, such as industry, size, tools, hiring and stage, and writes the profile from those facts.
A profile you can use
The profile drives the work: which companies Revnu searches for, how it writes to them and which leads it rejects. When you correct it, everything downstream changes too.
Frequently asked questions
What if I don't have customers yet?
Revnu starts from your website and your market, proposes a profile for you to correct, and sharpens it as replies come in.
What is an ideal customer profile (ICP)?
An ideal customer profile describes the type of company that gets the most value from what you sell, buys with the least friction and stays longest. It covers traits like industry, size and region, plus signals such as the tools they use and the events that make them buy. Sales and marketing use it to decide which companies to pursue and which to skip.
What is the difference between an ICP and a buyer persona?
An ICP describes the company: industry, size, region, stage and the conditions that make it a good fit. A buyer persona describes a person inside that company: their role, goals, problems and objections. You use the ICP to choose which accounts to target, and personas to decide what to say to the people there. Most B2B teams need one ICP and two or three personas.
How do I describe my ideal client?
Describe them with facts you could check, not adjectives. 'Ambitious, growth-minded companies' fits everyone. '10 to 50 person accounting firms in the Midwest that just hired their first operations manager' tells you exactly who to look for and when. Include what they struggle with in their own words, who decides, and who you don't want, so the description rules companies out as well as in.
Can Revnu build my ICP and find matching companies?
Yes. It reads your website and your best customers, writes the profile (company type, size, signals and the person who buys), then finds companies that match and shows why each one fits. When you correct the profile, the companies it searches for and how it writes to them change too. With no customers yet, it proposes a profile from your website and market for you to correct.
Is this free?
You start with a free trial. Revnu asks for a card when you sign up and starts on what you typed straight away. After the trial, plans start at $99 a month. Cancel any time in Settings.
Does anything run before I sign up?
No. Nothing is checked or generated on this page. Revnu does the work inside your account, where it can read your website, keep what it finds and carry on from there.
