ICP and positioning

Use this before any campaign, page or sequence. If the answers do not exist yet, getting them is the work.

Narrow until it hurts

An ideal customer profile that fits most companies is not a profile. Push on each of these until the answer excludes someone:

• The situation they are in, not the industry they are in. "Just hired their second salesperson" beats "B2B SaaS".
• The trigger that makes this urgent this month.
• Who feels the pain, and who signs. When these differ, you need two messages.
• What they do today instead — the spreadsheet, the agency, the intern, or nothing. This is the real competitor.

Positioning in one sentence

Fill this in with no adjectives:

For [situation] who [trigger], we [what we do] so they [outcome they would state themselves] — unlike [the current alternative].

Test it three ways. If a competitor could sign their name under it, it says nothing. If the customer would not use those words, it is our language, not theirs. If the outcome cannot be observed, it is not an outcome.

Alternatives are not competitors

Most deals are lost to inertia, not rivals. Write down what doing nothing costs them, in their units — hours, missed replies, rework. That number is the campaign.

What to hand back

One page: the situation, the trigger, the buyer and the user, the current alternative, the positioning sentence, and three proof points that are true today. Mark anything you assumed rather than heard, and list the two questions a customer call would settle.

What not to do

Never invent a persona with a name, a photo and a coffee preference — it feels like progress and decides nothing. Never claim a differentiator the product does not have yet; write it under "what we would need to be true". Never fabricate customer quotes.