“Not a serious buyer” is a feeling. “Has no budget line for a purchase above our minimum order” is a fact.
A hard disqualifier takes an account out of your ideal customer profile. If you cannot check it, it is not a rule. It is a bias.
Feelings and facts
Here are four rewrites. The left column is how these tend to get said. The right column is something a stranger could look up or ask.
- Not a serious buyer becomes: has no budget line for a purchase above our minimum order.
- Too much hassle becomes: requires custom hardware we do not make.
- Wrong fit becomes: cannot meet our data-handling terms.
- Probably too small becomes: fewer than the smallest size band we have ever won.
If you cannot rewrite a disqualifier into something checkable, cut it.
Where they go
In my workbook, you list the disqualifiers once. Any account that matches one shows as Out. It stays out of the fit tiers and out of the test results, so a single hard no does not get averaged away by a good score elsewhere.
The other half
Write your anti-ICP too. It is the groups that came up Avoid in your deal counts and also scored poorly on how easy they were to serve. It is the other half of the profile, and it protects your time.
An example
Redwater Integration is a fictional drone maker. In its made-up example it writes three hard disqualifiers: cannot meet data-handling terms, no licensed pilot on staff, and needs custom hardware. Each one is a fact. Someone who had never met the sales team could check it.
The catch
A disqualifier that sounds like a fact can still hide a habit. “No decision-maker access” can quietly mean “I did not try hard.” Review the list when you review the whole profile. I set a quarterly review date as my default.
The ICP discovery workbook has the Lists tab and the Out marker. The free ICP builder skill (opens in a new tab) pushes you to turn “not serious” into a checkable fact while it interviews you.
I’m Seth Levanen. I find the AI shortcuts that keep the quality and drop the busywork. Email me if you want to talk about it.