If you sell to the manufacturing industry and your prospecting efforts are leading to low win rates or a bloated pipeline, it’s time to look at your ideal customer profile (ICP). Since everybody already has one, it’s not a matter of getting one, but about refining what you already have. This is because more often than not, sales organization’s ICP criteria are wrong, usually because they are too broad.
Sales reps struggle to sell to their ICP due to broad and non-specific ICPs. Further complicating the matter is their tendency to want to sell to anyone, according to top sales expert Dave Brock. When their pipeline starts looking lean, they start to relax their ICP criteria or throw wider nets to try to produce a different response. Both of which lead to lower win rates and longer sales cycles.
In 2023, B2B buyers expect personalization in their buying experience, making it critical for sales teams to address the specific pains and challenges of their ideal customer.
Salesteams going after wide markets usually have an ICP that is too broad or generalized.
If your ICP looks like this, you will end up with generic messaging and ineffective prospecting techniques, such as the "spray and pray" method, which wastes your sales team resources.
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Rather than throwing out what you already have, we went straight to some sales experts to see how they recommend improving your ICP in 2023.
The definitive answer was to focus on your “sweet spot” or the customers that have problems that you are the best at solving. This requires some research on your part to narrow down your criteria to find the juicy middle of the perfect customer your product was built to save, or your Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).
In order to create a more specific and narrow ICP, we’ve created a step-by-step template to follow below. Each step lays out the details of very specific criteria within the manufacturing industry to help inform the choices you need to make in this exercise.
By following these steps you eliminate confusion and wasted time by creating alignment around a specific profile that your product is perfect for.
The demographics that define your ideal customer.
There are 3 types of manufacturing and since each category is quite big, it’s important to only focus on one category:
According to G2's guide on manufacturing sales, each manufacturing process has different requirements and capabilities, which means the needs for their product and service will also be different. By targeting one specific manufacturing processes, salespeople can tailor their offerings to the specific needs of each customer.
Since each product category has completely different manufacturing processes and product features it's important the sales strategy is equally unique. With such distinct and broad categories, making a choice here shouldn't be hard.
Knowing whether your ideal customer uses a high volume/low cost or high cost/low volume manufacturing strategy will affect your sales approach.
The company size of your ideal customer will dictate the sales approach and tactics your team will use.
It’s easier to position your solution as the answer to your ideal customer’s needs when you understand what their company’s growth status looks like. For instance, if your salespeople are aware of whether their ICP prioritizes efficiency or expansion, it can enhance their prospecting efforts.
Filling in your ICP with the specific geographical information of the ideal company goes a long way towards preventing hiccups down the road. It’ll be easier to look out for and prepare if you know whether they are:
Each sub-industry of manufacturing has their own pain points, challenges and opportunities. By identifying which one fits into your ideal customer profile, your sales teams will better understand the ICP’s competitive landscape, regulatory environment, and other factors that may impact the decision-making process.
Main sub-industries in manufacturing:
The funding status of your ideal customer provides insights that are valuable to the initial sales efforts of your team. They will be able to tailor their pricing and sales strategies according to the priorities, financial health and decision-making processes when they know whether the company is:
The elements of your ICP's operation that affect your operation.
Including the technology your ideal customer is already using in your ICP is important for your salespeople to identify integration challenges, position their product as a complementary solution, and customize their sales pitch.
It’s also important to understand if the technology they are using is something your team is comfortable working with.
Identifying the sales cycle length of prospects in B2B sales is crucial because it helps businesses plan their sales and marketing strategies more effectively. The length can vary significantly between each sub industry:
Knowing whether their ideal customer is risk adverse or willing to take on risks makes it easier for your sales team to increase their deal closure rates. They're able to customize their offerings, develop effective risk mitigation strategies and craft compelling sales pitches. This information also helps establish trust with your ideal customer by allowing your team to position your product or service to address the potential risk and provide reassurance.
The company policies of your ICP are necessary to know in order for your sales team to build trust with prospects based on compliance and understanding. Maintaining efficiency on your team relies on how easily your reps can navigate policies related to procurement, pricing and approval processes for example.
The challenges that hurt the most for your ICP.
Understanding why customers choose your business is crucial in customizing products, services, and messaging to their specific needs. For instance, medtech equipment manufacturers are forced to constantly innovate and develop products. Their challenge or pain results from how very resource-intensive and time-consuming this process is.
Some typical manufacturing pain points:
The goals of highest priority for your ICP.
Identifying the core problems, needs, and motivations of your ideal customer allows your salesteam to position your products or services as solutions that directly fulfill those jobs. Knowing whether your ideal customer cares more about:
Or
Or
For example, helps increase the amount of successful sales engagements on your team.
The most important people that make up your ICP and what they are like.
Knowing what job titles have shown the most interest in your product is great but it doesn’t answer the question of who is responsible for making the decision to purchase. It’s critical in complex B2B sales such as manufacturing to include all of the stakeholders that are part of the decision making process into your ICP.
It’s important to know who is actually the most interested in what you are selling. Analyzing the job titles and narrowing down the most common ones coming through your inbound will help refine your ICP and improve your targeting. This will help you predict what kind of outbound leads are most likely to convert according to Jed Mahrle.
That’s a lot of data to go through, especially if you’re in manufacturing. Thankfully a good CRM can speed up this process.
You might be surprised by who is raising their hand the most.
In B2B sales, there is no one "decision maker." Decisions are often made by committees and influencers, requiring consensus from a variety of people. It's important to identify all those impacted by your solution within your ICP, especially for complex or disruptive solutions.
For example, this sales company discovered that their prospect's technical team was undermining the product being sold due to concerns about their team being rendered obsolete.
Understanding the manufacturing company personality allows sales teams to understand the values, culture, and decision-making processes of their ideal customer. This also helps them identify potential roadblocks or objections that may arise during the sales process and develop strategies to overcome them.
Some manufacturing company personality types to choose from:
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations on making some very tough choices. As an added bonus, you've just made it easier for your reps to adopt the habit top performing salespeople have of saying no more than yes.
Here's an example of what all that hard work might look like:
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If you'd like to fill out your own version of the above template, just click the button to download an editable PDF.
If you’re interested in taking this a step farther, Membrain Partner, Dave Brock recommends asking similar questions at the individual level, in order to better understand the stakeholders.
Questions such as:
You can hop over to our blog for the full list of questions Dave recommends.
Refining your ICP is essential for developing personalized messaging that resonates with prospects and leads to stronger relationships and increased sales. Our most popular blog on prospecting emphasizes that taking the time to build out your ICP with specific criteria ensures your sales reps target the right prospects with the right message right from the start.
In manufacturing, where the pool of prospects is smaller, a targeted ICP is especially critical to avoid burning through leads with irrelevant sales pitches. With longer sales cycles, the time and cost burden on sales teams is high, making it essential to be proactive in finding ways to increase their effectiveness. A refined ICP can reduce wasted time pursuing the wrong prospects, leading to a more significant impact down the line.
So, take the time. Refine your ICP in 2023 and set your sales team up for success.
Don't forget to download the free editable Ideal Customer Profile Template here.
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