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I was a contractor at a consulting company once who decided to follow this approach. They decided their ideal customers one who wanted a lot of butts in seats,

I was a contractor at a consulting company once who decided to follow this approach. They decided their ideal customers one who wanted a lot of butts in seats, so stopped doing training unless the client also agreed to contracting, and stopped taking small clients. I had a training gig for reasons to complicated to explain. All they had to do was send out the class notes and bill the customer for three times what I got from teaching the course. They refused to do it because it did not fit their ideal customer profile. It took about a year for the company to go under.

scott_w 2y ago
It’s possible for a company to completely misidentify their ICP, typically because it’s what they want their ICP to be rather than who it is. It sounds like that happened in your case: they wanted to target a customer that either didn’t exist or who their contracting services were a shockingly poor fit for.
LeFantome 2y ago
There is a big difference between targeting your product and messaging and turning away business. If you are having to turn away business, you may have the wrong ICP. You turn away business because of the opportunity cost, not because of the profile. If you are turning away customers because you are busy servicing better ones, you are not going out of business.