Know Your
B2B Buyer
A practical three-step process for building a genuine B2B Ideal Customer Profile, using your own team's knowledge and AI to do the work.
In B2B, you are not marketing to a company. You are marketing to a person inside a company who has a business problem to solve and a personal reputation on the line.
What you need
One or two people who sit closest to your best clients -- a salesperson and a delivery lead is a great combination. Thirty minutes per person. A way to record the conversation.
Interview Your Team
Sit down with your team member and work through these questions. Record the conversation -- do not take notes, just let them talk. You do not need to get through every question. If they go deep on one, stay there. Whenever you get a short or general answer, ask: "Can you tell me about a specific time that happened?"
PART A: YOUR BUYER'S WORLD
1.Think of your single best client. What was the specific business problem, risk, or inefficiency they were dealing with when they first came to you?
Not the surface-level answer. What was actually broken, slow, exposed, or costing them?
Follow-up: "Can you walk me through what that actually looked like day to day for them?"
2.What would it have cost them in time, money, risk, or reputation if that problem had stayed unsolved for another 12 months?
Follow-up: "Was there a specific moment where that cost became real for them?"
In B2B, there is always someone championing the decision internally. These questions surface what that person personally needed from the outcome.
3.Who was championing this internally? What were they personally on the hook for, and what would winning have looked like for their career, their reputation, or just their day-to-day life?
Were they trying to look innovative to their exec team? Protect their team from burnout? Hit a KPI at risk? Think about what was driving them as a person, not just as a job title.
Follow-up: "When that outcome landed, how did they react? What did it mean for them?"
B2B buyers do not buy on feeling alone. These questions surface the specific validation that moved them from interested to committed.
4.What did they need to see or hear before they felt confident enough to move forward, and what was the moment they actually decided to go with you?
Was it a case study from a similar company? A clear ROI projection? A reference call? A technical deep-dive? Something else entirely?
Follow-up: "Was there a specific conversation or moment where you could feel them tip from considering to committed?"
The best B2B clients renew, refer, and deepen the relationship over time. These questions surface what drives that loyalty.
5.Think about a client who could have left and did not. What kept them?
Was it a specific moment where you went above and beyond? Was it the consistency over time? Was it something they could not get anywhere else?
Follow-up: "What would they have lost if they had gone somewhere else?"
6.When a client refers you to someone else in their network, what do they actually say?
PART B: YOUR LIVED EXPERIENCE
These questions surface what only your business knows. The answers here are your most powerful content -- the things no competitor can replicate because they were not there.
7.Walk me through a specific moment in a client engagement where your approach made a real difference. What actually happened, and what would it have looked like without you?
8.What is the most common mistake you see this type of buyer make before they find you -- the thing that creates friction or risk before the relationship has even started?
Follow-up: "Can you give me an example of a time you saw that play out?"
9.What is your honest take on something the industry broadly gets wrong when it comes to serving this type of client?
Get the Transcript
Once the interview is done, upload the recording into a transcription tool -- Otter.ai, Descript, or simply upload directly to ChatGPT and ask it to transcribe. You now have the raw material.
Run the LLM Prompt
Copy the prompt below. Open ChatGPT, Claude, or any LLM. Paste the prompt, then paste your transcript directly underneath it where indicated.
I'm going to give you a transcript of an interview I ran with a team member about our best B2B clients. Your job is to turn that transcript into a completed B2B Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) using the structure below. Be specific. Use the actual language from the transcript wherever you can. Do not write in generalities. I want this to read like someone who genuinely knows this buyer, not a generic marketing document. --- B2B IDEAL CUSTOMER PROFILE: OUTPUT FORMAT WHO THIS BUYER IS (in plain English) Write 2 to 3 sentences describing the specific person who buys from us. Their role, their world, what they are navigating day to day. Make it feel human and real. Not a job title, a person. THE BUSINESS PROBLEM - What is the specific business problem, risk, or inefficiency that puts us on their agenda? - What would it cost them in time, money, risk, or reputation if it stays unsolved? - What are they actively trying to fix right now? THE PERSONAL WIN - For the person making or championing this decision, what does a successful outcome look like personally? - Are they trying to look innovative, protect their team, hit a KPI, something else? - What would make them feel they made the right call? THE PROOF THEY NEED - What specific proof or validation do they need before they feel confident choosing us? - What is the moment they decide to move forward? - What removes their doubt? THE REASON THEY STAY - Why do our best clients remain loyal? - What do they say when they refer us to someone else? - What makes leaving feel like a loss? VOICE OF CLIENT: REAL PHRASES Pull out 3 to 5 phrases or sentiments from the transcript that capture how this type of client talks about working with us. Only use what is in the transcript. Do not fabricate. THE ONE THING In one sentence: what is the single most important thing we offer this client that no one else does? OUR LIVED EXPERIENCE EDGE Based on the interview, summarise in 2 to 3 bullet points what only we know about this buyer. The hard-won insight, the pattern nobody else has spotted, the thing that only comes from years of doing this work. --- Here is the interview transcript: [PASTE YOUR TRANSCRIPT HERE]
What you will get back
A completed B2B ICP you can use as the brief for your marketing, your content, and your sales conversations. A genuine profile of the buyer only your business could have written.
If you want to go deeper, build content from this profile, test your messaging, or run this across multiple buyer types, that is where we come in.
