WHO
You want the definition of your customer to be as narrow and specific as possible so that it feels like you’re narrowing your total addressable market (TAM). I’m not asking you to actually narrow your TAM, your TAM is still your TAM. Through the exercise of narrowing and specifying your TAM, you’re creating a path to a successful TAM.
We want you to get to an exact customer profile that you will know, with 100% certainty, that your customer will buy from you today if you were standing in front of them.
Once you know WHO that customer is, and can identify all the attributes of that customer, at that point you’ll start reaching your entire TAM and build off the list of customer attributes.
Here is an example of how granular you need to get in describing your addressable market.
Nope: We sell our product to the healthcare industry starting with private hospitals.
Good: We sell our product to the healthcare industry starting with private hospitals. Typically these hospitals have 250-500 employees and we sell to the Director of IT.
Best: We sell our product to the healthcare industry starting with private hospitals. Typically those hospitals have 250-500 employees and are located in the middle- to upper- class suburban areas. Our typical buyer is one of those hospitals that has the title of Director of IT, has 5 to 10 years of experience, but has been at this hospital for under a year. These hospitals typically use a specific legacy software that we can replace. The Director of IT has decision making ability and budget approval up to $100K annual.
List of Attributes
As part of developing out and defining your customer or WHO, list out the attributes of your customers in detail below. Review the “best” description above for guidance.
