Almost every B2B organisation can describe its market. Far fewer can describe the choices behind it: which segments deserve active development, which accounts come first and which opportunities the team will politely decline. Without those choices, the commercial operating model has nothing to align around. Marketing, business development and sales each fill the gap with their own interpretation, and capacity spreads across everything that looks plausible.
A market description is not a market choice.
Broad ICP definitions feel safe because they exclude nobody. In practice they shift the real choice to individuals: each salesperson decides which accounts to pursue, each campaign targets a slightly different audience, and leadership only sees the result in a scattered pipeline.
A deliberate choice names the segments where the proposition is strongest, the problems the organisation solves best and the accounts where consistent effort is likely to pay off.
If every account could be a priority, none of them really is.
Write down where you compete — and why.
An explicit ICP describes more than industry and size. It captures the trigger events, buying roles and operational problems that make a conversation relevant. Account priorities then translate that profile into a concrete, reviewed list the whole team works from.
Equally important is the explicit no: segments that are attractive on paper but consistently slow, unprofitable or poorly served by the current proposition.
Market choices are only real when they change where time goes.
The test of market focus is operational. Do priority accounts receive more research, more senior attention and more structured follow-up than the rest? Are campaigns, outreach and account plans built around the same segments?
When the answer is no, the organisation has a market description but not yet a market choice. The operating model should make the chosen focus the path of least resistance.
“Focus is not about doing less. It is about deciding where consistency pays.”De Grijff · Commercial operating principle
Review your choices against real conversations.
Start with the last twenty opportunities: which segments and triggers do they actually share? Compare that pattern with the ICP on paper, then agree a short priority list and a clear set of exclusions.
Revisit the choice every quarter. Markets change, and deliberate focus means updating the choice on evidence rather than drifting away from it.
References & further reading
- Which target accounts deserve more structured attention? — De Grijff
- Commercial Operating Model Scan — De Grijff
