Finding the right prospects
How to describe your ideal client for appointment setting
Describe your ideal client in a way someone else could use to find them: the kind of business, the people inside it, the moments when they're likely to talk, and the businesses to leave alone. One page built from your best existing clients does more than a long list of sectors you'd like to sell to.
This guide gives you a worksheet to write that page, whether it's for an appointment setter, a new salesperson or your own outreach.
Why it matters more when someone else does the outreach
When you do your own prospecting, a lot of the targeting lives in your head. You know which businesses are a good fit the moment you see them. Someone booking calls or meetings for you doesn't have that instinct yet, so they can only work from what you write down.
A vague description, like "small and medium businesses in Sydney", leads to vague bookings: calls with businesses you can't serve, people who can't decide, and arguments about whether a booking should count. A clear one makes every later step easier, including agreeing what counts as qualified (our qualified meeting checklist covers that part).
Start from your best clients, not your wish list
Before you describe anyone new, look at who you already serve. Pick your best clients: the ones that are profitable, easy to work with and likely to stay. Then pick a few you'd rather not repeat.
| Your best clients | The ones you'd rather not repeat |
|---|---|
| What sectors are they in? | What made them hard work? |
| How big are they, in staff, sites or spend? | Were they too small, too big, or the wrong sector? |
| Where are they? | Did they want something you don't really do? |
| Who did you deal with, and who signed off? | Who was involved, and where did it go wrong? |
| Why did they start talking to you? | What should have warned you early? |
The patterns on the left are your profile. The patterns on the right become your exclusions.
A wish-list client you've never served can still go in the profile, but mark it as a test. A setter should know the difference between "this is who we win" and "this is who we'd like to try".
The profile, part by part
Work through each part below. The right-hand column is an illustrative example only, for an imaginary commercial HVAC business. It isn't a real client or a recommendation for your market.
| Part | What to write | Illustrative example |
|---|---|---|
| The business | Sector, size, location and how they're set up today | Offices, clinics and light industrial sites in one metro area, with one to five sites each |
| Who feels the problem | The role that lives with it day to day, in the words they'd use | Facilities or operations manager |
| Who signs off | The role that approves the spend, and whether they'd join a first call | General manager or owner, often from the second conversation |
| Why now | The moments when they're likely to talk | A lease change, a new site, a maintenance contract ending, repeated breakdowns |
| What they'd buy | The service you'd lead with, not everything you sell | Planned maintenance for their existing systems |
| What it's worth to you | A rough range for a new client, so effort matches value | Your own range, kept private if you prefer |
| Leave alone | Clients, open deals, partners, and sectors or sizes you avoid | Current clients, sites under a builder's warranty, single small shops |
| Deal-breakers | Anything that makes a booking not worth having | Only wants a one-off quote with no interest in ongoing service |
| What we may say | Claims you're happy for outreach to make on your behalf | Service areas and response approach you've approved; nothing about anyone else's compliance |
Keep each answer short and specific. "Facilities manager at a business with several sites" is useful. "Decision-maker at a growing company" isn't.
Turn the profile into criteria
A profile says who to look for. Criteria say when a booked call or meeting counts. They come from the same page:
- Fit comes from "The business" and "Leave alone".
- Person comes from "Who feels the problem" and "Who signs off".
- Reason comes from "Why now".
- Agreement is the last check: they've agreed to a conversation, not just to receive information.
If you pay per qualifying call or meeting, write those criteria down and agree them before any outreach starts. The qualified meeting checklist has a version you can adapt.
Keep it to one page, then test it
Long profiles get skimmed. If yours runs past a page, cut the parts nobody would act on.
Then test it against reality:
- Take the last few sales conversations that went well, and a few that went nowhere.
- Check each against the profile. Would it have found the good ones? Would it have ruled out the bad ones?
- Tighten anything that would have let a bad one through.
After the first round of bookings, look again. Who turned up, and who turned out to be a fit? A simple feedback loop, like the one in our handoff guide, shows you what to adjust. Change one thing at a time, so you can tell what made the difference.
Common mistakes
- Too broad. "Any business with ten or more staff" describes most of the market and helps nobody choose.
- Titles with no reason. The right role at the wrong moment often isn't ready to talk. "Why now" matters as much as "who".
- Forgetting who to leave alone. Contacting your own clients or partners can quickly undo their trust, and yours in the process.
- Describing the client you wish you had. Test new segments deliberately, alongside the ones you already win.
- Rewriting it every week. Give a profile long enough to show results before you judge it.
A template to copy
| Part | Your answer |
|---|---|
| The business (sector, size, location, current setup) | ______ |
| Who feels the problem | ______ |
| Who signs off | ______ |
| Why now (the moments they're likely to talk) | ______ |
| What you'd lead with | ______ |
| Rough value of a new client | ______ |
| Leave alone (clients, deals, partners, sectors, sizes) | ______ |
| Deal-breakers | ______ |
| What outreach may say on your behalf | ______ |
| Segments to test (not yet proven) | ______ |
Not sure where to start? Our readiness checklist helps you check you're ready to act on it. If you're a managed IT provider, the MSP guide shows the profile applied to one industry.
What to do next
GoodYarn's free meeting plan starts from a profile like this one. Tell us your website and who you'd like to meet, and we'll put together a short plan for your business: the customer segments we'd start with, the decision-maker roles we'd aim to reach, and draft criteria for a qualifying call or meeting. It's yours whether or not you go ahead.