Customer Success Playbook Podcast Season 2 Episode 26 - Kevin Maufer - Ideal Customer Profile

In this insightful episode of the Customer Success Playbook Podcast, hosts Roman Trebon and Kevin Metzger welcome Kevin Maufer, Principal Consultant and Fractional Leader at CX Services. With over 25 years of experience in customer-facing roles, Kevin shares his expertise on the critical importance of defining and aligning on an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This episode dives into the strategies for identifying and targeting the right customers to drive growth, enhance customer experiences, and ensure sustainable success. Tune in to discover practical tips and learn how a well-defined ICP can transform your customer success efforts.

Detailed Analysis:

Key Points and Themes:

1. Introduction to ICP:
   • Kevin Maufer defines the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) as the foundation for targeting customers who will benefit most from a company's products and services.
   • Emphasizes the importance of aligning ICP with business goals to drive growth and expansion.
2. Key Factors in Developing ICP:
   • Discusses criteria such as company size, annual revenue, number of employees, and industry focus.
   • Highlights the significance of understanding customer goals, objectives, and cultural fit.
3. Challenges of Not Having an ICP:
   • Explores the pitfalls of misalignment between sales, marketing, and customer success teams.
   • Describes the consequences of inconsistent customer experiences and the potential for increased churn.
4. Collaborative Approach:
   • Advocates for involving sales, marketing, customer success, and product teams in the ICP development process.
   • Stresses the need for ongoing collaboration and alignment to ensure the ICP remains relevant and effective.
5. Benefits of a Well-Defined ICP:
   • Improved lead conversion rates and revenue growth.
   • Enhanced customer experience through consistent and targeted support.
   • The ability to build specialized expertise within the team, leading to better customer interactions and satisfaction.
6. Practical Advice for CS Leaders:
   • Offers guidance on making a compelling case for change within an organization.
   • Suggests starting with marketing leaders to gain initial buy-in and expand collaboration to sales and product teams.

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You can also find the CS Playbook Podcast:
YouTube - @CustomerSuccessPlaybookPodcast
Twitter - @CS_Playbook

You can find Kevin at:
Metzgerbusiness.com - Kevin's person web site
Kevin Metzger on Linked In.

You can find Roman at:
Roman Trebon on Linked In.

Transcript

Roma Trebon: 0:21

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Customer Success Playbook Podcast. I'm Roman Trebon and with me always the co host Kevin Metzger. If you're listening, do us a huge favor and give our show a rating, subscribe and like so we can continue to grow our audience. Kevin, I'm doing that intro and I, and I realize I'm saying if you're listening, I guess if you're on the podcast, you probably are listening. So definitely give us a like and subscribe. Kev, we're in August, first day of school here in Cobb County. Can you believe how quick the summer went?

Kevin Metzger: 0:49

Man, it's unbelievable how fast the summer goes and it seems so short every year. It gets shorter, but yeah, I've got a senior and a freshman my oldest goes back to college next week.

Roma Trebon: 1:04

Yeah, well, I'm not that old, Kev. I don't have a college student yet, so I still feel young. So, all right, well, enough about school. We have an amazing show today, Kev. you want to give us the intro on what's going on?

Kevin Metzger: 1:15

Yeah, so today we have the pleasure of speaking with Kevin Malfur, Principal Consultant and Fractional Leader at CX Services. With over 25 years of experience in various customer facing roles, Kevin is a customer success leader dedicated to helping companies build and grow their customer success teams and practices. His mission is to deliver quality experiences and outcomes for customers, drive adoption, retention, and revenue growth, and increase valuation across a variety of industries. In this episode of the Customer Success Playbook, We explore the topic of aligning on the ideal customer profile. Kevin will share his insights on the importance of defining and aligning on an ideal customer profile, offering practical strategies for ensuring that your customer success efforts are targeted and effective. Welcome to the show, Kevin. We're excited to have you here.

Kevin Maufer: 2:11

Yeah. Great. Thanks for having me guys. we have been talking a while now and we all have children and they're all returning to school. I've got one that's married and living in Birmingham. So those days are done. we have a rising junior that's moving back to school, and a couple of weeks. So yeah, I'm with you guys. the school they used to go to started. Wednesday, yesterday, the 31st. since I've been living in Georgia for over 20 years now, that's the first time I've seen first day of school in July,

Kevin Metzger: 2:41

July. Yeah. We've, I think, last year, two years ago, Cobb County started in July too.

Roma Trebon: 2:49

I would love, you know, I'm excited to talk about the ideal customer profile for our audience. Like, how would you define an ideal customer profile? And why is this so critical for customers, organizations in general, but customer success teams?

Kevin Maufer: 3:03

Yeah, I think, I mean, at the core of it, you know, ideal customer profile, ICP. Is, you know, those types of customers that you're wanting to bring in to your business, want to, you want to sell to, and ultimately land as customers, to ultimately drive growth, and, expansion and sustainability. And, you know, you want to find the right kind of customer. And on the flip side, they're a customer that will absolutely benefit. From, your products and services. I mean that at the core, that's a simplified, concept of it. There's a lot of unpacking to do about what that looks like, but on the surface, that's where it is at the core.

Kevin Metzger: 3:47

Very cool. So what are some of the key factors to consider when you start developing the ideal customer profile and trying to understand what the ideal customer profile is?

Kevin Maufer: 3:56

I mean, you do the research and you look at, you know, what is ideal customer profile and a lot of times it's about, company size, annual revenue, number of employees, a number of locations. and then how does that fit into your business? are you strictly an SMB? Business or, an enterprise business or a little bit of each, and then you can start segmenting out what's enterprise, what's mid market, what's, SMB, what is the good fit for your, business to grow exponentially, bringing those types of customers in, are they in specific industries? Do they have, a particular focus, in their business? do they have an ICP? what customer base are they targeting? What markets are they targeting? As you get more granular in the process, you can even look at, what are their goals and objectives? their annual targets? And, as a company, what are they looking at culturally? now that's getting down into the granular details, but the basic concept of how does our product fit and deliver for this particular customer. is this the perfect fit? Is this the profile we want to target? And then, you define that and set the wheels in motion.

Roma Trebon: 5:17

Yeah, I like that. so, Kevin, for our audience who may not have an ideal customer profile or maybe an early in developing it, what happens when a company doesn't have this ideal customer profile, you know, what are the downfalls? If you've not done this legwork to define this

Kevin Maufer: 5:32

and you went right for the negative, man. first of all, there's misalignment. Yeah. from pre sales, if you have a business development team or, S. D. R. S. giving them a target, or an I. C. P. Really helps frame up their approach. However, if it's just, Go get leads. Then it's how do you define that? How do you kind of bring that through? And then how do you pick and choose which are the good opportunities and not? so there's misaligned priorities from sales to between sales and marketing and, customer success all the way down the line. different teams may pursue conflicting objectives. literally, you could be looking at, we're going to go all in on, mid market health care, services and you just, you know, we're going, we're, we're focused on enterprise automotive hold on, you know, so it's kind of it, that can happen if you don't have a definition, you know, if you don't have an ideal customer profile laid out there could be that creates Unfortunately, it creates when the deal is done, an inconsistent customer experience. Every customer is gonna be treated uniquely different because they are uniquely different from each other. So there's no consistency in there on that model as they're coming across. And so there's there's you can't build a playbook. If you, for example, have, if you have your enterprise profile, you have a mid market profile and you have an SMB profile, let's just say you have that, you can at least have a playbook for each one, if you don't have one defined at all, then it's, then every customer gets a playbook and it's just, you know, you're, you don't have a consistent experience overall. Which then can lead to challenges post implementation, go live and, and all that. And then again. That just inconsistency and experience just leads to challenges down the road when they go live, the services and support that's being provided is inconsistent, ultimately leading to something's missed and there's you know, at the end of the day, there could be a churn event coming very quickly.

Kevin Metzger: 7:47

Kevin, you're talking about the ICP and how it plays in the business and it plays across the business, right? So you're talking about sales, you're talking about marketing, you're talking about customer success. Who, who should be involved when you start building the ICP? Love that

Kevin Maufer: 8:01

question. That's my favorite question. So, inevitably, Well, it's like historically. Okay. And, and this really didn't become a thing for me until after I saw it work like a full collaborative effort on ICP sales and marketing work together, build an ICP, you know, if, you know, kudos to the, to the company for actually saying, let's do this. Right? And so then it's like, great, we got marketing orders. And then, and then it's like, Oh, cool. Okay, it's done. Here you go. Customer success and support and PS and product. Here you go. Go deliver, go support. Then it's, we need to build a process. is there a pivot required here? We can't keep doing this., Post sales the way we have been because you've changed the profile of the customers that are coming in the door they have to get a completely different or not completely different, but at least a slightly different experience. but when you have product and customer success included in that process with sales and marketing, then you've got a whole different ballgame. It's a, it takes a little longer, it takes a little bit more hammer and away because sales and marketing, the funny thing is, is that they both have uniquely different ideas of what it is. But they get. To where they need to get to. And sales at the end of the day, it's just like, just tell me what you want me to say. Just tell me. And but but when you get customer success involved there, all of a sudden it's the, and especially if you get them involved from the very beginning, you don't have as many. questioning of where did you get this? Where it is coming from, how do we define this? How do we justify this? There's more questions of collaboration and how, okay, that makes sense, but you know, what about when they, you know, what are the expectations that are being set since we're out? You know, we've changed the profile slightly to go and. Deeper into these types of enterprise accounts. And you know, it's like, what is the expectation? Are we selling a service plan on top? You know, in are we baking that into the price and the cost because it's gonna take us X amount of hours to do for professional service to implement or for support to be on 24 7 7 days a week. Because that model looks different than it is, than it is today. You know, when you're 24 5 and and, and that sort of thing. So, or, hey, This customer is, is, wants, you know US based support. Okay. You know, where did that come from? Is that something then we have a complete reorg of, of sorts going on and how do we, you know, chase the sun, so to speak around the world and just, you know, those different types of post sales, what ifs. And need to be included in the development of that particular customer profile, because at the end of the day, they got to support it. They have to implement it. They have to grow it and expand it.

Roma Trebon: 11:14

I love it. I mean, I love the idea of this. I see P as, you know, from your experience, you know, I would, I would imagine there may be some pushback. On having an ICP, right? Some challenges and maybe developing it. I can, some of my sales, I already have some sales, got some sales people from my past that I would say, wait a second, I can't go after this the customers I was going after before. I, you're going to limit me to an ICP. I mean, talk about some, maybe some of the challenges, some of the growing pains as companies, companies may have as they start to develop this and then, and then we'll let out.

Kevin Maufer: 11:48

Yeah. First of all, two things is this can't be developed in in a vacuum. I mean, it's like. It's got to be a collaborative effort. So so gaining and that buy in and each leader, each participant in from the four, I say, you know, the, the diamond collaboration, right. Is the CS sales, marketing and product. They are tasked with getting. Buy in full buy in from their organization, from their key leaders, their key performers. And, and it becomes a kind of a intra department collaboration as well. I've seen, I've seen that work real well because it's, this is what we're putting together is what we have so far let's hammer away at it and let's come back with. the sales feedback and the CS feedback and let's, you know, let's work together because ultimately marketing is putting it together, making it pretty and just rolling it out and being able to and sometimes share that out in a collaborative way with. And in different, in different conferences and, and, and speeching, speech engagements and all these kinds of fun things when it comes to what are you doing in the industry? Kind of, you know this is our focus and this is what our ICP looks like. So gaining that buy in is a constant, constant battle and it's not, you know, it's, it's not done in a vacuum and it doesn't happen overnight. I mean, this is something that there is a sense of urgency around it, but you had to be realistic around what is it going to take to pull this together. And if it's, Hey, all hands on deck, we're focused on this, this quarter, we're going to get it done so that we kick off the second half with our new ICP. And, knowing that you're, we're going to have to leave some prospects, you know, by the wayside because they don't fit. Going into the back half of the year, for example. So been there in those situations as well.

Roma Trebon: 13:48

Yeah. And probably some current customers is too, Kevin, right? You probably have customers you already have that don't, after you come up with an an ideal customer profile, don't fit it.

Kevin Maufer: 13:57

Yeah. Right. And then you have those aha moments like, Oh, maybe this is something that we just simply can't deliver. We're spinning our wheels, trying to create new things for this one customer. And. Customized, customized, customized that no other enterprise customer wants or needs. Maybe we just need to cut them loose, you know? So you have those moments too, but you just, when you have that definition. There's a lot to be said about the foundation of your business just got stronger, you know, moving forward.

Kevin Metzger: 14:31

Yeah. So, Kevin, I mean, I'm asking a question that I think maybe I know the answer to, but the results of using ICP right after you use it, what are the, what are you going to see as improvements in your business? Where are you going to see are you going to see turn go down as a result of it, or maybe initially doesn't go up? While you get to really having that ICP come in, but then you see a longer term trail where turns gone down because you're now serving a customer that you're, you're able

Kevin Maufer: 15:03

to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I mean, there's going to be some moments like I mentioned before, you know, where we're going to have to break up because it's just, this is not how we're moving forward as a company. And So those are, those are tough situations, but net growth, net revenue growth tends to go up because you've got, you've got the momentum and you're in the groove from the beginning with the, with that, with that ICP and they come on board and you know, you've got the, the, the, the, the, the dedicated onboarding and implementation and support experience with in addition to customer success, that, into more growth. And that's, that's ultimately where you want to be in your, in your ICP is, is this a growing opportunity is, or is it, is this something that if we just land, we just need to maintain are we okay with that? You know, that in, in, but if we're better off with, growth opportunity, let's really hone in on what the, where does growth opportunities are. And then also, I mean, you're just talking about the overall customer experience because my, what I tend to stand on and, and, and really shaffer on a rooftop, so to speak, is that, yeah, customer success. And sales may own the customer, you know, but everybody owns the customer experience. So there's a touch point. There's a, there's an there's an event or there's a, you know, there's a, there's a group that always, they may not engage directly with the customer, but they are having an impact on the customer experience. And so I C P helps define with that and streamline what that journey looks like. And then ultimately has a better outcome for the for the customer experience. Regardless of what milestone they're hitting throughout the journey.

Roma Trebon: 16:57

I like it because it's like this guiding North star, right? Where everyone's aligned on the type of going after the type of customer you support, the why behind it. And it seems good. Like I can already like all the operational complexity. I'll go back to, I think you said the example, like a small business healthcare versus like an enterprise automotive, automotive, totally different. Right. And, and again, having similar journeys, journeys is great. But also it's trying to support them is tough. And then how, I think I would think the ability to build up expertise, right, when an ideal customer profile and you're, and you're, and you're getting the same type of customers over and over your expertise within the team must grow exponentially, right? Cause you're, you're continuously talking to those same clients, understanding their business pains. And if you attract more of those same clients, I would think that's manifesting itself in those interactions.

Kevin Maufer: 17:46

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I love your point of the Y and the North star. So, you know, in the grand scheme of things, the way I'm looking at this now is like, those are two key aspects that should be added to the development of an ICP. They need to be included in that. It's a, you know, why would we want this kind of customer? You know, what does it mean to the business? What does it mean to them? You know because it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a mutual agreement. And, you know, are they beneficial to our business? Are we beneficial to theirs? So, you know, getting to that why, but the ICP helps you set, you know, set that north star. And it it, there's any number of key metrics or targets that can come out of that experience from pre sales all the way through renewal. And and that can have an impact on the North Star for sure.

Kevin Metzger: 18:40

Along those lines, when you're defining the ICP, you mentioned the customer journey as well. Is the. Do you define the ICP prior to defining the customer journey and use that to help define what the customer journey looks like? Or can it be the opposite? Does it work either way?

Kevin Maufer: 18:59

Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it done both ways. Because inevitably what you need to do from an operational standpoint, you really need to get to the bottom of what the customer journey is today. And then while you're working through that, it's where do we want it to be? How do we want it to look? Which should it be like? That could be the approach for the customer journey. But if you have I. C. P. Already built, And determined and defined and agreed upon that can change the customer journey that that actually enhances the customer journey. So you know, should one come before the other? part of me wants to say, start with the ICP and build out the journey. But another part of me is, is thinking, well, sometimes you just need to define what the journey is today. You know, depending on when you come in to a company and figuring out, okay, what the heck is going on today? And then you come up with, well, it depends if we get this kind of customer or they're doing this thing, or, you know, Okay, we need an ICP You know, so it's there's any number they play on each other a little bit exactly exactly. Yep

Roma Trebon: 20:11

so kevin question if you know for I I You know, if there's a cs leader out there listening to the show and they say I don't have a customer profile I don't have an ideal customer profile this pain that they're talking about i'm experiencing, right? How would you, what advice would you give them to help make the case for change internally, right? Because you're going to have to get, like you said, your diamond group, all you have to get your product sales and marketing. And how, what advice would you give them as, as they say, Hey, this is something we should do, but now I need to get other groups involved as well to kind of, you know, get behind this idea of an ideal customer.

Kevin Maufer: 20:45

Your best friend is probably your, your marketing leader right off the bat. I mean, I have yet to come across a marketing leader that says, nah, that's not a good idea. I'm too busy. I, you know, I, I, I, I really believe that this is their opportunity to leave their mark. In a lot of cases. And so and that sales leader will be right behind them, you know, because they're always looking for ways to enhance net new enhance the the, the pre sales experience be able to actually in partnership with customer success, hint, hint. grow the revenue, grow the customer base that they already have. And how does that look? And how does that work? You get the ICP in there. And like, of course we're working together. We've been working together since the handoff and you know, we've, we're, you know, handling these folks all the way through. But I think, you know, right off the bat, if a customer success leader walks in the door and looks around and asks, you know, which, do an ICP, which your ICP and people are all I see what? Then it's kind of like then it's a you know, okay, who's the market? Let me go talk to that and see if we can have a conversation. And, generally starting there is then it's kind of like, Hey, I'm with you. Let's go. Let's, we just get sales product in here and let's start building this out. Yeah. I like that. It's all, it's all about buying. I mean, at the end of the day, it's kind of like the idea is where do you want to invest your time and money and resources. And is this going to have a long term impact? Will it cause some pain initially? Probably. But it's, it's a good pain that needed to happen anyway, and so it's just a matter of, you know, now you've got something to stand on and you can cont continue to move the, the company forward. And it's the ICP isn't necessarily etched in stone either. I mean, this is something that sometimes you gotta start somewhere and you agree and you move on and then you get a couple quarters in, you're going, you know what? You know, we're starting to evolve. We need, we have some new product aspects that and functionality that we really want to put, you know, let's, let's look, go back to the ICP, you know, no, don't just keep it there because, oh, it's built, we're moving, you know, it's something that can be, can evolve with the company as it continues to help grow revenue.

Kevin Metzger: 23:01

Yeah. How often do you think it makes sense to go back and look at it?

Kevin Maufer: 23:05

Oh, gosh. You know, I think initially when it, when it, when it's initially rolled out, I think definitely quarterly. Maybe even bimonthly just to see how things are going from a sales, you know, net new standpoint, what are the talking points? You know, what's the messaging look like? Because that's the, at the end of the day, When you're first on it, it's all about messaging and it's got to be consistent and it's got to be coming the same way, same delivery from every single person not just in sales, but you know, customer success and marketing because everybody's talking, it's, it's the talk track and it's the internal tags that everybody's hanging on to. And then as, as you expand into, you know, a quarter or two, then it's, okay, let's, let's look, it's relook at it. Make sure we're still aligned. Let's just not go, Hey, something just doesn't feel right. Let's look at the ICP. I think it's just, you need to stay on it. There needs to be a a focus. And that can I say tiger team? Is that an old term? There's there, you need to keep that, that that team together, you know, the ICP team and they, you know, they continue to, especially within the first year.

Kevin Metzger: 24:19

And, and I assume you could really put some KPIs around whether or not the I CCP is performing the way you expect it to. Yeah. Across the organization, right? I mean, from marketing all the way through sales and Oh, from, from

Kevin Maufer: 24:33

SDRs all the way through, you know, I mean, it's kind of like the, what, what is their lead conversion rates? You know, are they giving, are they getting the right kinda leads into sales that can be converted and all that? Absolutely.

Roma Trebon: 24:46

This will probably show my age, but this is where I think our show title, Kev, should be. Are you down with ICP? You know me, right? Like, Thanks.

Kevin Maufer: 24:57

That's going to be in the back of my head. I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. Thanks.

Roma Trebon: 25:01

There you go. Sorry about that. Kev, we want to start hitting Kevin with the hard hitting questions. Yeah, let's, let's, let's do it. All right. Are you ready for this? This is our rapid fire section. We're going to go back and forth here and I'll start out. Are you an early bird or a night owl?

Kevin Metzger: 25:21

Early bird.

Roma Trebon: 25:23

Bird. All right. All right. All right.

Kevin Metzger: 25:26

What's a favorite book that you've read recently?

Kevin Maufer: 25:30

Oh, I'm actually reading the classics. So, you know, it's, it's, it's like, I've been reading, Emily Bronte, I've been reading I actually read Moby Dick last year. I mean, do you know how thick that book, if you actually have the book? So, so but all the classics that we all hated reading in high school and college, I just been hammering through those. And then, but also, you know, there's a customer success type books that I'll read ever so often. That, that kind of escaping me right now, cause I've been reading the classics a lot lately.

Roma Trebon: 26:05

Place you'd like to travel that you've never been.

Kevin Maufer: 26:09

Oh, Greece.

Roma Trebon: 26:12

Nice. All right. Here's the, here's the hard hitting question. Better pickleball player, me or Kevin.

Kevin Maufer: 26:21

Are you kidding

Roma Trebon: 26:21

me? Kevin joins us at our Atlanta pickleball games. And it's been great to get them out there. So I was trying to put in

Kevin Metzger: 26:34

Atlanta. We've got the next one coming up on August 16th. Come join us. Yes, sir. Yeah. I come in

Kevin Maufer: 26:40

sweats, sweat your tail off.

Roma Trebon: 26:42

Yeah. Kevin, where, where can our audience find more about you and find out what you're, what you have going on?

Kevin Maufer: 26:48

Yeah. So you can go out to my website, meet CX services. com and learn more about, you know, what I do, who I am. Obviously I'm on LinkedIn as well. And yeah, I mean, I just, I'm, I'm. I'm a customer success geek, love talking about it. And I wish I got paid to have conversations with. people about customer success because man, I'd be living large. But no, I love it. And it's the kind of stuff that gets you up in the morning and driving a quality experience and hanging out with these guys and others like us that are you know, we all have that, that same focus and mindset.

Roma Trebon: 27:25

Well, we appreciate you joining us and say, don't check that mailbox every day for the royalty checks from this show, but there's some monetary stuff down the line, so Well, Kevin, this is an awesome topic. Again, if you want to learn more about the ideal customer profile, Kevin, check out, check them out on LinkedIn. You can also find myself on LinkedIn at Roman Trevon find Kevin at Kevin Metzger. Check out our customer success playbook page on LinkedIn please like subscribe, you'll know when the latest show comes out. When we have a guest interview like we had with Kevin, you'll get a notification on your phone. Boom, tune in, listen let us know what other guests and topics you'd like us to cover. to talk about as as Kevin said, we love talking CS here. So we're always looking for, for great minds to to learn from. So as always, thanks for listening and keep on playing.