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Our Perspective

What this means for leaders navigating growth, change or transformation in their organisation.

The Hidden Drift

Growth rarely happens in a straight line. As your offer matures, the people who buy—and the reasons they buy—quietly shift. The danger isn’t change itself; it’s treating your ideal customer as a fixed persona while the market reshapes around you. That’s when you see bloated pipelines, longer cycles, and generic messaging that blunts any edge you’ve earned.

This drift is structural, not seasonal. Early adopters give way to pragmatic buyers; point use cases expand into broader jobs-to-be-done. Without a deliberate reset of who matters most now, teams optimise for noise rather than value. The outcome is predictable: activity rises, but commercial traction thins.

Redefine By Situation

The most practical move is to reframe “who” as “when and why.” Buying situations—triggers, risks, decision choreography—are far stronger predictors of value than job titles or sectors. The same person can be high-fit or low-fit depending on urgency, switching costs, and internal politics.

Start with a few distinct scenarios where you repeatedly win with healthy margins. Size each by expected value, cost to serve, and probability to close. Then choose. Concentration creates power: sharper relevance, cleaner qualification, and pricing resilience. You’re not narrowing ambition; you’re focusing effort where it compounds.

Make It Operate

Precision only counts if it shows up in the work. In our experience with growth-stage organisations, the turning point is translating a refreshed profile into simple, non-negotiable rules.

• Tag every deal by buying situation; review pipeline mix weekly, not quarterly.
• Update qualification to reflect triggers, risks, and decision patterns—not firmographics.
• Equip sales with situation-specific talk tracks, proof points, and objection playbooks.
• Align handovers and success plans to the scenario that was sold, not a generic template.

Small, systemic changes beat big, sporadic announcements. The organisation feels the focus shift in the day-to-day, where it matters.

Prove Brand Value

Brand earns its keep when it increases deal quality, shortens time to close, and improves renewal. Measure that, consistently, and the debate changes from volume to value.

• Track win rate, discount discipline, and cycle time by buying situation.
• Pair metrics with credible stories: signal clarity; decision friction removed; premium held.
• Anchor retention to situations, not accounts, so you can spot patterns early.

One reason this matters: Harvard Business Review highlights that a modest 5% lift in retention can correlate with profit increases of roughly 25% to 95%, underscoring why fit and follow-through beat reach.

The Payoff

Evolving your ideal customer is less a research project, more a leadership choice about focus. When you choose the few situations where you’re unmistakably relevant—and align systems around them—you don’t get louder; you get clearer. And clarity compounds into better wins, faster movements through the funnel, and relationships that deepen over time.

Sources:

• Customer Retention Versus Customer Acquisition — Harvard Business Review

1. Brand Architecture That Enables Post-M&A Growth
2. Building Trust: How Brand Promise Shapes Customer Experience
3. Evolving Value: Aligning Brand Story with New Pricing Models