Insights from Manufacturing Leaders: The Importance of Defining Your Ideal Customer & Aligning your Teams

Take a moment for me and recall your worst customer. You know the one? The one that no one in your business really wants to work with. They consume time, they are support intensive, they never pay on time, yet always want the best price but they do not value what you do for them. 

Guess what? They cost you money, you over resource them and they rarely hang around for long enough to provide any meaningful Lifetime Value, so they erode your profit.  

So why do we allow ourselves to do business with people we do not want to? Why do we allow ourselves to market and sell to customers who are simply put a poor fit? 

Now recall your best customer, the one who is the opposite of who you were just imagining. I bet that feels better! They love what you do for them, your product/service is a great fit, so they rarely need support and because the understand the value of what you do for them, price is rarely mentioned. They have been a great client for years, they always pay. 

That is your Ideal Client. So why is it we have this ongoing struggle to officially nail down what is our Ideal Client Profile and why is it that we cannot get our Sales and Marketing teams aligned on the importance of only doing business with clients that make us money? 

It’s a hot topic, which is why I was delighted to host two round table discussions with my colleague Duncan on exactly this topic at the Manufacturing Leaders’ Summit last week. 

Around the Table 

Over the course of two days, we entered discussion with twenty plus business leaders. Not one of them had this problem nailed. 

What we discovered, almost universally is how disconnected teams are when it comes to understanding who their ideal customers are. Marketing thinks one thing, sales thinks another, and product development or customer service has a completely different take. Quite frankly, this is a nightmare on many levels!  Without a properly defined Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) companies end up with fragmented messaging, misallocated resources, and lost potential.  

Let’s face it, this lack of alignment is costly. It wastes resources, leaves customers unimpressed, and makes it impossible to effectively target and engage the high-value prospects that really matter. If you don’t know who your ideal customer is, how are you supposed to refine your offering or get your messaging to land?  

Another glaring issue is the lack of basic interdepartmental Service Level Agreements (SLAs). You’d think these would be a no-brainer—clear agreements on who your business is going after, internal roles, responsibilities, and expectations between sales and marketing. But guess what? Most companies don’t have one. The result? Teams pulling in opposite directions, wasting time on finger-pointing, and playing the blame game when opportunities are lost, and targets aren’t achieved.   

Then there’s the shocking lack of structure. Sales and marketing teams are often working without documented processes, which leads to mixed messages, inconsistencies, and poor implementation and adoption of often expensive technology including CRM and marketing support systems. Everyone’s interpreting strategy differently, and without standardisation, scaling a business is more of a pipe dream than a plan.  

The good news is that not everyone’s content to let things slide. Some of the leaders we chatted with are stepping up, implementing SLAs to bring structure to sales and marketing efforts, and documenting processes to stop the chaos. They’re committed to running cross-department workshops to get everyone on the same page and building ICPs that everyone in their business understands. These are practical, actionable steps—and they’re making a difference.  

At the end of the day, this isn’t about buzzwords or strategies that look good on a slide deck. It’s about collaboration, clarity, and doing the work to align your teams. The companies that prioritise this now are the ones who’ll be thriving tomorrow.  

So, what’s your plan? How’s your organisation bridging the gap between sales and marketing? And are you making sure everyone’s working towards the same ideal customer? Drop me a line—I’d love to hear your take.