Stop selling to job titles, and start selling to situations instead

How to define your customer by their "horrible day" instead of their headcount.

👋 Hi, I’m James. I write Building Momentum to help you accelerate B2B SaaS growth through product marketing, GTM strategy, sales, and marketing.

---

Have you ever sat in a presentation where someone puts up a slide titled “Our ICP” and it reads:

“B2B SaaS companies, $10M-$50M ARR, 50-200 employees, North America.”

And someone in the room asks: “So... that’s like 8,000 companies. Which ones should we actually call?”

Silence.

I see this pattern constantly. Companies with reasonable-sounding ICPs built entirely on firmographics: company size, industry, revenue range, location… nothing else.

That’s not an ICP.

Six months later, they’re still stuck in the same place.

• Marketing can’t deliver the right leads

• Sales teams spray and pray without focus

• Win rates stay flat

• Churn goes up

• The team burns out

The problem isn’t work ethic or the budget: it’s your ICP definition.

Most ICPs tell you what a company is, but they don’t tell you when that company is ready to buy.

Situation influences purchase more than firmographics

The thing about firmographics is, they’re static and tell you literally nothing. They describe a company’s characteristics, but not their context.

A “Series B SaaS company” could be crushing it or bleeding cash. They could have a world-class GTM engine… or a pipeline held together with hope and spreadsheets.

One is browsing, and the other is buying.

But a “Series B SaaS company that just missed their board forecast by 40% and realized their pipeline has no repeatable process” is in a completely different state. That’s a company in a situation… and situations create urgency.

Let me give you a real example.

At Headstart, before I joined, the ICP was purely firmographic. Consulting and professional services companies, specific revenue range, offices in certain locations. Standard stuff.

It wasn’t working. The messaging was generic. Sales cycles were long. There was no pattern to wins.

So we shifted the definition. We started targeting companies that had published in their annual reports that diversity, equity, and inclusion was a strategic priority.

That was the trigger.

Once a company published that commitment, we knew they were serious.

We could reference their own language back to them. We could connect with people inside those organizations who personally cared about this work. The motivation was already there.

Everything changed. The sales team knew exactly who to target and when. The messaging got sharper because it could speak to a specific moment: the moment leadership made a public commitment. Close rates improved noticeably.

Why?

We stopped fishing in the ocean, and started fishing where the fish were already biting.

This is what I mean by situational ICP. The question isn’t “who is our ideal customer?” The real question is “What happened the week before they started looking for us?”

Was it a failed product launch?

A new executive who exposed gaps in the GTM? A competitor win that blindsided them?

A board meeting that went sideways?

A public commitment they now need to deliver on?

That specific moment, that trigger, is your real ICP.

When you shift to situational thinking, three things happen

Your messaging gets sharper.

You’re not writing for “B2B SaaS companies.”

You’re writing for “B2B SaaS companies whose last product launch flopped and the CEO is demanding answers.”

That specificity cuts through the noise and validates the pain before you even pitch the solution. It makes your prospect feel seen.

Your targeting gets easier.

You can build content around the trigger event, not just the company size.

Target companies with new hires in key roles. Companies that just announced funding. Companies that published commitments in annual reports. Companies that failed a compliance audit.

This powers ABM, outbound, and your entire content strategy.

Your close rates improve.

Because you’re reaching companies when they’re actually ready to change.

Most of your market is stuck in inertia.

They know they have a problem, but the emotional cost of change feels too high.

But companies in a situation? They’ve already overcome that inertia.

Something broke. Someone’s mad. The status quo isn’t acceptable anymore.

You’re not convincing them they have a problem… you’re showing up exactly when they’re ready to solve it.

Quick diagnostic: is your ICP sharp enough?

Before we go further, let’s diagnose your current ICP. Score yourself honestly on these 5 questions:

1. Can you describe their “horrible day” in specific detail?

If you can’t describe the exact moment their day falls apart, you don’t understand their pain well enough to sell to it.

(Credit to Alicia Carney for this question!)

2. Can your sales team spot the difference between a good-fit and bad-fit lead in 5 minutes?

A sharp ICP gives your team conviction. They should confidently disqualify a bad fit early in the conversation.

3. Does your ICP exclude at least 70% of your total market?

Narrow focus isn’t limiting… the opposite! It’s liberating! It lets you build messaging that actually resonates.

4. Is there less than 2 steps between your feature and their revenue or cost outcome?

Every step is a chance for them to lose interest. “Close 30% more deals” is stronger than “better project management leading to faster shipping leading to more revenue.”

5. Are you seeing momentum with this segment?

If you’re not seeing faster cycles, higher win rates, and better retention, your ICP might be theoretically correct but practically wrong.

If you can’t confidently say yes to at least 4 of these, your ICP is probably costing you deals.

Fix 1: Listen to sales calls

Don’t skim - actually listen!

Your job is to find the moment of maximum frustration, the point where the prospect’s voice changes where they sound tired, or angry, or desperate.

That emotion is your trigger. Write down the exact situation they describe.

For example, you might hear: “The CFO presents a messy pipeline report to board. CEO asks pointed questions the VP Sales can’t answer. VP Sales gets told to ‘fix it in 30 days or we’ll find someone who can.’ They start Googling solutions that night.”

That’s a trigger. That’s the moment they became a strong, high-potential, motivated buyer.

Fix 2: Build your “Negative ICP”

Pull a list of your highest-churn customers. What do they have in common? Industry patterns? Size? Mindset? Buying motion?

Write down the 5 attributes that scream churn, and turn that into a one-pager for your sales and marketing team. Make it easy for them to disqualify bad fits early, avoid targeting them in paid marketing, etc.

This is critical: disqualification is more important than qualification.

Every hour your team spends on a bad-fit prospect is an hour they’re not spending on someone who’s actually ready to buy.

You’re not trying to build the perfect persona; you’re trying to get sharp enough that your messaging actually resonates.

And remember: your ICP isn’t static.

It’s going to evolve every 6 months as you learn what’s working and what’s not:

• You might refine it to be even more niche

• You might broaden it slightly as you find success in adjacent markets

That’s normal. The key is to commit to your current ICP with conviction for at least 6 months so you can actually learn from the market.

This is what I call the positioning loop:

• Clarity (define your ICP)

• Conviction (commit to it)

• Consistency (execute for 6 months)

… so you can actually learn fast and narrow, without spraying and praying.

The fear of narrowing down is real

Every time I’ve recommended narrowing an ICP, I’ve gotten pushback from founders and CEOs.

“If we go that narrow, we’ll leave 90% of the revenue on the table.”

“We need to keep it broad so we can see what sticks.”

“Our product works for everyone in this category.”

The fear is real. Nobody wants to miss being the next Salesforce because they niched too early.

But trying to be everything to everyone is the fastest way to become nothing to anyone.

You can’t build authority with a broad ICP.

Authority requires a point of view.

And a point of view requires choosing who you’re for… and who you’re not.

I worked with a seller who focused on an uncomfortably narrow ICP. They only sold to one specific customer type, in a specific region. Their pitch was three sentences. Their close rate was ridiculously high. Customers barely asked questions before signing.

When I asked if they worried about leaving money on the table, they said: “No. I worry about trying to serve everyone poorly instead of serving someone exceptionally well.”

That stuck with me.

Because narrowing your ICP doesn’t shrink your business. It expands your impact.

When you’re crystal clear on who you serve, three things happen:

1. Your messaging gets sharp enough to cut through the noise

2. Your sales team can spot good fits instantly

3. Your product roadmap has a clear direction

The hardest part of strategy is saying no. But it’s also the most important part.

Stop fishing in the ocean

In B2B, you don’t sell to company profiles. You sell to people in companies in specific situations that they desperately want to escape.

So here’s what I’d challenge you to do:

• Stop building ICPs on demographic filters

• Stop defining your market by company size and job titles alone

• Instead, ask: “What happened the week before they started looking for us?”

• Find that moment.

• Build your messaging around it.

• Target companies when they’re in that situation.

Because that’s when they’re ready to buy, when you can actually help them move forward.