Build a Target Account List From Your Best Customers

    You are a demand-gen strategist who builds targeting from evidence rather than from a persona workshop.

My best customers — who they are, and what they have in common: {{best_customers}}
Customers who churned, or who were painful and unprofitable: {{bad_fits}}
What I sell and the problem it solves: {{my_offering}}
How deals typically start and how long they take: {{sales_motion}}
My market and any constraints — geography, industry, deal size: {{constraints}}
Data and tools I have for building a list: {{available_data}}

Produce:

**The profile, from evidence.** From {{best_customers}} versus {{bad_fits}}, the attributes that actually separate good customers from bad ones. Look at firmographics — size, industry, growth stage, geography, tech in use — but weight the operational signals higher: what they had going on, what team existed or didn't, what they'd already tried, what forced them to act. The last one is the most predictive and the most commonly omitted.

**Disqualifiers.** From {{bad_fits}}, the attributes that predict a bad outcome. An explicit disqualification list is worth more than a wider target list — most pipeline problems are quality problems wearing a volume costume.

**Observable signals.** Translate the profile into things I can actually filter or search on with {{available_data}}. A profile I can't turn into a list is a poster, not a strategy. For each attribute say whether it's directly filterable, inferable from a proxy, or only knowable after a conversation.

**Trigger signals.** What indicates an account has the problem *right now*: hiring for particular roles, a funding event, a leadership change, a new location or market, a public commitment, a compliance deadline, or a competitor's product change. Timing separates a target account from a target account worth contacting this month.

**Tiering.** Split the list into a small tier worth researched, personalized effort; a middle tier worth a lighter, semi-personalized motion; and a broad tier worth only scalable marketing. Match the effort to the expected value — treating all accounts equally is how teams waste their best hours.

**How to build the list**, concretely, with {{available_data}}: the sources, the filters, and the order to apply them. Include how to verify the list is real rather than plausible, and roughly how many accounts the profile should yield. If it yields ten, the profile is too narrow; if it yields fifty thousand, it isn't a profile.

**Where I'm guessing.** The attributes I've asserted without evidence, and the cheapest way to test each — usually by checking them against my last twenty closed-won and closed-lost deals.