How account fit is scored.
A score is only useful if a salesperson can see where it came from. Here is the method, worked through on the fictional Meridian Industrial Supply record.
1. The criteria come from your team
We sit down with the people who sell and write down what separates your best customers from the rest: the industries, the size, the type of business, the products or situations that make a company worth approaching, and anything that rules a company out. If you already have this written down, we use yours. The ICP Lab video shows it being built from a customer list.
2. Each criterion gets a weight
The weights sum to 100 and say how much each criterion counts. In the example, the industrial customer base carries 40 because it decides whether the company is in the market at all, and company size carries 10 because it changes how the account is worked rather than whether it is worked.
3. Points are awarded, and withheld
Each company earns points out of each weight. Points are withheld for anything that could not be confirmed, with the reason written down, rather than filled in by guessing. That is why the example loses five points on size: the staff estimate fits, but the revenue figure comes from two sources that disagree.
| Criterion | Weight | Points | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industrial customer base | 40 | 36 | Sells into mining, construction and manufacturing, the industries in the agreed profile. Four points withheld because the share of each sector is not published. |
| Distribution model | 30 | 27 | A distributor with trade ordering and maintenance supplies, which is who the profile describes. Three points withheld for own-brand lines that may compete. |
| Territory | 20 | 16 | Sydney and New South Wales confirmed from the website. Coverage of other states is not confirmed, and the number of sites is not found. |
| Company size | 10 | 5 | The staff estimate sits inside the agreed range. Revenue is an estimate from two sources that disagree, so half the points are withheld. |
| Total | 100 | 84 | Gold in this example's bands (Gold from 80, Silver from 60, Bronze from 40, Coal below). The bands are set with you. |
4. The total falls into a band
The bands are set with you and written into the CRM as the tier. In this example Gold starts at 80, Silver at 60, Bronze at 40 and anything below is Coal. The tier is a priority, not an instruction: who owns each tier, which tiers are eligible for outreach and whether anything is archived are configured separately, and they are your call.
5. Fit is not intent
A high score means the company looks like your best customers. It does not mean they have a project, a budget or any wish to hear from you this quarter. That still comes out of the conversation, or from a signal we watch for if monitoring is switched on. We keep the two apart on the record and in the report.
6. The score changes when the facts do
Records are rechecked on an agreed cycle. When a fact is confirmed, a site is added or a company changes what it does, the score is recalculated and the change shows in the weekly report, so a tier never quietly goes stale.