ABCABC CompanyRevScoreboard · the ten things
ABC Company is fictional. Figures come from a real sales organization; every name has been changed.
04 of 10 · The Diagnostic

Ideal Customer & Segments

Who you actually win with, by the record, not by memory.

1The question

Who do you really win with?

2Why it matters

In most companies “ideal customer” is a feeling, and people in the same building hold different ones.

If one segment closes at five times the rate of another and nobody knows, territory, marketing spend and seller effort are all aimed at a customer that doesn't exist: the average one.

Once the cuts are on paper, those decisions get made on the record instead of the loudest memory in the room.

What the research says

Customers selected on lifetime value produced higher future profits than customers selected on other common metrics, and allocating effort by that value improved profit.

Venkatesan & Kumar (2004), Journal of Marketing 68(4), 106–125 · doi.org/10.1509/jmkg.68.4.106.42728

Availability: what comes to mind easily feels common. The memorable big win is not your typical win.

Tversky & Kahneman (1974), Science 185(4157), 1124–1131 · doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124
BEvidence grade B. One strong study, or an established framework in wide use. One strong study plus a validated discipline (declaring the cuts first). The cuts themselves are craft.
What it doesn't settle. Venkatesan and Kumar studied one firm's customers. The direction transfers; the size of the effect doesn't. No meta-analysis anchors segment targeting for sales teams, so the cuts themselves are graded C.

3What to collect, every time

Input A number the CRM can't give you: the plan, quotas, working weeks, spend.Field Does the field exist, is it required, and who fills it in?Definition Your own definition of a thing we then compute against.Prediction Your answer now, in writing, checked against the record later.
Definition
Which cuts matter: size, industry, geography, service lineDeclared before anything is computed, so no finding is manufactured afterward.
Field
Who fills in industry and company size, and whenBlank segments can't be analyzed.
Definition
Segments deliberately entered or exitedSo a strategy change doesn't read as a performance change.
Definition
What disqualifies a deal, and who may apply itBecomes a written rule.
Prediction
Your ideal customer in one sentence; your best and worst segmentScored against your own closed deals.

4How it's computed

  1. Take every closed deal in the window.
  2. For each declared cut: closed deals, win rate, average won deal, and days to win.
  3. Hide any cell with too few deals to carry weight, and say so.

5What ABC's record shows

Who ABC actually wins with

Closed deals created Jan 2024–Jul 2026
Win rate by company size
0 or blank employees
0.0%
1–9 employees
21.9%
10–19 employees
15.2%
20–49 employees
11.7%
50–99 employees
7.9%
100+ employees
3.6%
Won $ per 100 opportunities by company size
0 or blank employees
$0
1–9 employees
$117K
10–19 employees
$174K
20–49 employees
$323K
50–99 employees
$464K
100+ employees
$218K
Small companies close most often: 1–9 employees win 21.9%. But 50–99-employee companies return the most per opportunity, $464K per 100 against $117K, because the average won deal is $58,576. That rests on 16 wins, so treat it as a lead to test, not a law. Win rate alone would point the team at the wrong segment.
Why the “0 or blank” row shows no wins. Employee count is filled on 100% of wins and 83% of losses: it gets recorded as a deal closes. A blank size doesn't mean a bad segment; it means the field is filled late. Require it at creation.
By region
RegionClosedWin rateAvg won
Region 182515.8%$12K
(blank)4667.5%$18K
Region 34109.5%$14K
Region 221625.9%$18K
Region 69911.1%$27K
Other regions7714.3%$5,757
Region 5720.0%—
Region 4529.6%$8,399
By industry · 1,161 closed deals in the weekly report
IndustryClosedWin rate
(blank)3789.0%
Healthcare11122.5%
Construction1058.6%
Not For Profit5726.3%
Manufacturing5111.8%
Technology348.8%
Consulting339.1%
Finance306.7%

Industry is filled on 67% of these deals and isn't in the full-history report at all.

6What a sales leader does Monday

  • Write the ideal customer in one sentence from the table, not from memory.
  • Point prospecting time at the top two segments for one quarter and measure.
  • Make the segment fields required at creation.

7The founder version

Building your first CRM? Do this now, so you can answer the question in a year.

  • Capture company size and industry on every account from the first record.
  • After 30 closed deals, cut win rate by size. You will be surprised.