Free template

MSSP ideal customer profile worksheet

Your ideal customer profile is a description of the clients you’d clone if you could. This worksheet builds it from your three best clients rather than from guesses, and ends with a one-sentence ICP you can hand to anyone building your lead lists.

Use it before you buy data, brief an agency or write a single outreach message. Everything downstream inherits whatever this page gets wrong.

How to use it

  1. Pick your three most profitable clients that were easy to work with. Not the biggest, the best.
  2. Fill in each section from what those three have in common. Leave a line blank rather than guessing.
  3. Finish with the one-sentence ICP and the "not for" list. The second matters as much as the first.

Get it by email

I’ll send you the MSSP ideal customer profile worksheet as plain text, ready to paste and edit, plus links to the other free templates.

One email with the template. You may get the odd note from me after that; reply “stop” any time. Privacy

The template

Worksheet
1. YOUR THREE BEST CLIENTS
Client A: ______________  Client B: ______________  Client C: ______________

2. WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON
Industry: ______________________________
Headcount range: ______ to ______
Countries / regions: ______________________________
IT setup (e.g. Microsoft 365, hybrid, OT on site): ______________________________
Internal security staff when they signed: [ ] none  [ ] one person  [ ] a small team

3. WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN THEY BOUGHT (triggers)
[ ] Compliance deadline (which: __________)
[ ] Customer or insurer asked for proof of security
[ ] Incident at them or a peer
[ ] Security person left / role open
[ ] Growth, acquisition or new site
[ ] Other: __________

4. WHO SIGNED, WHO INFLUENCED
Signed the contract (role): ______________________________
Raised the problem first (role): ______________________________
Could block it (role): ______________________________

5. WHO YOU ARE NOT FOR
Too small: under ______ staff
Too big: over ______ staff
Industries or setups you don't want: ______________________________

6. YOUR ICP IN ONE SENTENCE
"[Industry] companies with [headcount] staff in [region], running [IT setup], with [trigger] in the last [time], where the [role] owns security."

Why it’s written this way

  • Start from clients, not the market. Market sizing tells you where demand could be. Your best clients tell you where you already win. Lists built from the second convert better.
  • Triggers beat firmographics. Thousands of companies match on size and industry. The trigger is what tells you which of them will take a call this month.
  • The "not for" list saves the most time. Naming who you’re not for is what makes the rest specific, and it stops a lead list from filling up with companies you’d turn down anyway.

Read more

More free templates are on the templates page.

Questions about this template.

What is an ideal customer profile for an MSSP?

A short description of the companies most likely to buy, stay and be profitable: industry, size, region, IT setup, the event that made them buy, and the role that signs. It’s built from your best existing clients, not from your service list.

How many ICPs should an MSSP have?

One to start, two at most. Every extra profile splits your messaging and your lead budget. Add a second once the first is booking meetings reliably.

Turn this into pipeline.

Reading about demand doesn’t book meetings. A 30-minute call gets you an honest read on whether 10 qualified meetings is realistic in your market, and a written scope if it is.

Book a no-pressure call

Short of 10 qualified meetings in the 60-day campaign? You get your money back. You only pay for meetings that happen, and you decide what counts.