Define your Swiss ideal customer profile: a template and two completed examples

An ideal customer profile (ICP) describes the companies you want as customers: what they do, how big they are, where they work and in which language, what makes them ready to buy, and which companies you leave out even when they look close. Below are a worksheet for writing one for the Swiss market and two completed ICP examples, one for a recruitment agency and one for a managed IT services firm.

The profile is the first step of building a Swiss B2B target-account list. Once it is written, you can turn it into a list, estimate how many companies match it and review the list against it. An ICP describes companies. A buyer persona describes the people inside them who decide, and is easier to write once you know which companies you will research.

The worksheet

Fifteen fields in six parts. For each one, write a criterion a colleague could check on the company's website or register entry, mark it as a must-have or a preference, and note how you will check it.

Part	Field	What to record
Offer	What you sell	The service or product, and the problem it solves for a company, in one sentence.
	Why customers bought	For three to five recent customers, the situation that made them buy. Look for what they have in common.
Company	Activity	What the company must do, in the words its website would use. Name the close activities that do not fit.
	Sector	The broad sector or NOGA section the activity falls in. Use it to narrow the search, and judge each company by its activity.
	Customers	Whether the company sells to businesses, to consumers or to both, if it matters for your offer.
	Size	The employee range, and the evidence you accept for it: the website, job adverts, an estimate.
	Technology	Software the company must use, or must not use, when your offer depends on it, and where you would see it.
	Buying entity	The legal entity that would sign: an operating company, a branch, a holding or the Swiss subsidiary of a foreign group.
Territory	Cantons and communes	Where the company must be, and whether the registered office or the workplace counts.
	Language region	The languages you can sell and deliver in, and how you treat Bern, Fribourg, Valais and Graubünden, which have more than one.
Timing	Reasons to contact now	The dated changes that make a company worth contacting this month: a job advert, a new branch, a new manager, a capital increase.
Exclusions	Kinds of company to leave out	Competitors, holdings without staff, public bodies, companies in liquidation, and the close activities named above.
	Accounts to leave out	Customers, open deals and companies that asked not to be contacted, and the list each comes from.
Review	Acceptance rule	The minimum evidence a company needs before it goes to sales. With less, it stays in research.
	Owner and review date	Who wrote the profile, when, and when you will check it against the deals won and lost.

Download the worksheet as a spreadsheet (Excel, opens in Google Sheets and Numbers). It has the same fifteen rows, with empty columns for your criterion, whether it is a must-have and how you will check it. The two completed examples below are on their own sheets.

Write criteria a colleague can check

Start from the customers you already have. For three to five recent ones, write down the situation that made them buy: a role they could not fill, an office that outgrew its IT, a new site. Look for the reason they share: it usually points to the next customer, and it often cuts across sectors. If two groups of customers bought for two different reasons, write two profiles. To search directly from those customers, the guide to finding companies like your best customers covers choosing them and testing the results.

Describe the activity in the words a company would use on its own website. "Makes precision parts in its own workshop" can be checked in two minutes. "Industrial company" covers thousands of firms that have little in common with your customers. A sector or a NOGA code narrows the search, and one code often covers several activities, so the activity stays the deciding criterion.

Must-haves and preferences

Mark each criterion as a must-have or a preference. A must-have removes a company that fails it, and a preference only ranks it lower. Then decide what happens when the fact is missing, which in Swiss company data is common: the commercial register records no headcount, and many small companies publish none. The guide to sizing a Swiss company lists the clues you can use instead.

In Prospex, the canton and commune filters are strict: a company whose location is unknown is left out. Size, sector and customer type work the other way. Only a known wrong value excludes a company, so a company of unknown size stays in the list and shows the missing fact. Review those companies before you drop them.

Territory and language regions

Switzerland has four national languages. Seventeen cantons are German-speaking; Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura are French-speaking; Ticino is Italian-speaking. Bern, Fribourg and Valais are bilingual (German and French), and Graubünden is trilingual (German, Romansh and Italian). Write in the profile the languages you can sell and deliver in, then settle the multilingual cantons commune by commune.

• Registered office or workplace: the register records the seat, and a company can be registered in Zug and work in Lausanne. Say which of the two your territory means. In Prospex, the canton and commune filters read the registered office.
• Region shortcuts: in Prospex, "Romandie" ticks Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel, Jura, Fribourg and Valais, with the German-speaking Upper Valais and Sense district. "German-speaking Switzerland" ticks the other cantons apart from Ticino, all of Bern and Graubünden included. Narrow the result with communes, or exclude companies in the review with the reason "Outside my territory".
• Italian outside Ticino: the Italian-speaking valleys of Graubünden, such as Mesolcina, Bregaglia and Valposchiavo, fall under German-speaking Switzerland in that shortcut. A profile for Italian-speaking Switzerland adds them by commune.
• Bilingual towns: in Biel/Bienne, Fribourg or Murten/Morat the canton tells you nothing about the language a company works in. Its website and job adverts do, and that language is also the one for the first contact.

Prospecting in Romandie covers what else changes in a French-speaking market, from the FOSC notices to the cantonal registers.

Exclusions

Write the exclusions as precisely as the inclusions, in two groups.

• Kinds of company: competitors and similar suppliers, holdings without staff, public bodies and schools, companies in liquidation, and the close activities you named under Activity, such as a watch retailer for an agency that places watchmakers. In Prospex you write them in "Companies or categories to leave out", and each company is judged against that text. Companies in liquidation are left out unless you tick "Include companies in liquidation".
• Named accounts: your customers, your open deals and the companies that asked not to be contacted. With a CRM connected, "Leave out companies already in your CRM" removes the companies it finds there by domain and name, and uncertain matches stay in. An Excluded example removes a company and the companies most like it, which suits a competitor. Exclude any other company by hand in the list, with a reason such as "Already a customer".

Keep the reason with every exclusion. A reason that comes up again and again in the review belongs in the profile.

ICP example 1: a recruitment agency in the Jura arc

An agency in Biel/Bienne places polymechanics, CNC machinists, watchmakers and quality technicians in permanent roles with manufacturers along the Jura arc. The agency and its figures are invented.

Field	Criterion	In Prospex
What you sell	Permanent placement of polymechanics, CNC machinists, watchmakers and quality technicians.	The field "What do you sell to them?", which pushes other agencies down the list.
Why customers bought	Each of the last five clients had a technical role still open six weeks after posting its own advert.	Not a filter. It sets the reasons to contact now.
Activity	Companies that make watches, watch components, precision parts or medical-device parts in their own workshops.	The description: "Manufacturers of watches, watch components and precision parts with their own workshops in the Jura arc".
Sector	Industry and manufacturing.	Sector groups: Industry & Manufacturing. A company without a sector stays in.
Customers	Any: the roles exist whoever the company sells to.	No filter.
Size	11 to 500 employees. The agency's clients so far had between 20 and 300.	Size bands 11-50 and 51-500. A company of unknown size stays in and shows the gap.
Technology	None: the roles exist whatever software the company runs.	No filter.
Buying entity	The company that employs the workshop staff. For a branch, the company it belongs to signs the agency agreement.	Checked per company in the review.
Cantons and communes	A workshop in the Jura arc: Biel/Bienne, Grenchen, Saint-Imier, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Le Locle, Neuchâtel, Delémont, Porrentruy and the communes of the Vallée de Joux.	Cantons Bern, Solothurn, Neuchâtel, Jura and Vaud, narrowed to those communes. The commune is the registered office's, so a workshop elsewhere comes up in the review.
Language region	French and German. The consultants work in both, and the territory crosses the language border at Biel/Bienne.	The communes, picked by hand. The Romandie shortcut leaves out Biel/Bienne and Grenchen, and the German-speaking one takes in all of Bern and Solothurn.
Reasons to contact now	A technical job advert online for more than four weeks, a new branch or production site in the territory, a new head of production.	After the build: the job adverts and register changes shown on each company, with their dates.
Kinds of company to leave out	Recruitment and temporary staffing agencies, watch retailers, brands that subcontract all their production, holdings without a workshop.	The field "Companies or categories to leave out", and one agency added as an Excluded example, which also removes the companies most like it.
Accounts to leave out	Current clients, employers with an open mandate, and employers whose careers page refuses agency candidates.	The checkbox "Leave out companies already in your CRM" for the first two. The others are excluded by hand in the list, with a reason.
Acceptance rule	A workshop in the territory, confirmed on the website, and at least one technical job advert in the last twelve months.	The list review.

A choice by canton would take in Bern, Thun and the Bernese Oberland, where the agency has no candidates, which is why the territory is set commune by commune. Only the website and the job adverts show whether a company has its own workshop and has hired technicians in the past year. The guide to finding employer clients for a recruitment agency takes the list from there, and using job adverts for recruitment prospecting covers the reason to contact now.

ICP example 2: a managed IT services firm in Lausanne

A firm of eight technicians in Lausanne runs the computers, Microsoft 365 accounts and backups of small offices for a monthly fee per user. The firm and its figures are invented.

Field	Criterion	In Prospex
What you sell	Managed IT for small offices: workstations, Microsoft 365, backups and a French-speaking helpdesk, for a monthly fee per user.	The field "What do you sell to them?", which pushes other IT providers down the list.
Why customers bought	Most recent customers had passed ten workstations with IT still run by the office manager or a freelancer, and had lost data or a working day to an outage.	Not a filter. It sets the activity and the reasons to contact now.
Activity	Offices where people work at a computer all day: fiduciaries, architects and engineers, law and notary offices, property managers (régies), groups of medical practices.	The description, in those words.
Sector	Professional services, real estate and health.	Sector groups: Professional Services, Real Estate, Health & Social.
Customers	Any.	No filter.
Size	10 to 50 employees, and smaller offices that are growing.	Size bands 1-10 and 11-50. Companies in the 1-10 band are reviewed by hand for offices of five or more.
Technology	Preference: Microsoft 365 for mail. Companies on another provider stay in.	The technology filters (Enterprise plan), which read the mail provider from DNS records and the software named in job adverts.
Buying entity	An independent office. A branch of a national group whose IT is run from head office goes to research.	Checked per company in the review.
Cantons and communes	Vaud and the French-speaking part of Fribourg, within an hour of Lausanne for site visits.	Cantons Vaud and Fribourg. Companies in the German-speaking part of Fribourg are excluded in the review as "Outside my territory".
Language region	French. Support and contracts are in French, so an office that works in German falls outside the profile, even in a bilingual town such as Fribourg or Murten/Morat.	The Romandie shortcut ticks six cantons. Untick Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura and Valais.
Reasons to contact now	A new office or branch, a move, a new partner or managing director, two practices merging, job adverts for office staff.	After the build: the register changes and job adverts shown on each company, with their dates.
Kinds of company to leave out	IT service providers and software companies, schools and public administrations, holdings without staff, companies with their seat at a fiduciary and no office of their own. A company advertising for an in-house IT administrator goes to research.	The field "Companies or categories to leave out", in those words.
Accounts to leave out	Current customers and open quotes.	The checkbox "Leave out companies already in your CRM".
Acceptance rule	A sector match, an office in the territory confirmed on the website, and no in-house IT team on the website or in job adverts.	The list review.

Two criteria here can only be settled company by company: the language the office works in, and whether it already employs its own IT staff. A job advert for an IT administrator answers the second, and the profile sends those companies to research: a company building its own IT team may still buy backups or a helpdesk from outside.

From the profile to a list in Prospex

Prospex builds a list of Swiss companies from a description of your customers and the filters in the worksheet: cantons and communes, size bands, sector groups and customer type, with technology on the Enterprise plan. Each company comes with the reason it matches and the facts still unknown, plus the register changes and job adverts that give you a reason to contact it now. Legal form, founding year, register events and job-advert keywords are not list filters today, so keep those criteria in the description or the review.

See an example list, then continue with the review of the list and the account research template for each company you keep.