Do you know where your ICP takes a dump?

"We've done the workshops. We know where they take a dump. So what?"

That's a paraphrase that an agency owner recently told me. He'd been through three different ICP exercises in the last two years. Different consultants, same notes, same vague outcome about "target clients who value quality." He was done.

If you've ever muttered something like this about Ideal Customer Profile work, I get it. Another bloody workshop where you map out personas, stick Post-its on walls, and write down that your ideal ecommerce brand client "is scaling fast" and "cares about customer experience." Groundbreaking stuff.

But here's the thing: if your ICP work ends at the workshop, you've wasted everyone's time. The point isn't to know these details. The point is to understand why they do what they do, so you can make smarter decisions about where, when, and how you show up.

Let me show you what this actually looks like.

The behaviour: Your ideal ecommerce brand client wakes up, grabs their phone, and immediately opens Shopify to check yesterday's revenue. Before coffee. Before brushing their teeth.

Why they do this: Because yesterday's revenue dictates today's mood. If it's up, they can breathe. If it's down, they're already trying to figure out what broke. They're not checking out of curiosity. They're checking because their business lives or dies on daily metrics, and they're fundamentally loss-averse. It's the same reason people check their investment portfolio more often during a downturn than an upturn. The losses hurt more than the gains feel good.

When you get that, you can do this: Frame everything around preventing disasters, not chasing opportunities. "How to stop your ROAS tanking" will always outperform "How to optimise your ad spend." Your social and email posts at 6-8am should be written for someone who just got punched in the gut by their dashboard. Be the voice that helps them make sense of what went wrong right now, not next quarter. And forget about "big picture strategy" content in the morning. They don't have the headspace. They need triage.

The behaviour: Your ideal client has seven demos booked this week. Different agencies pitching CRO, email, paid, UGC, influencer outreach. Their calendar is rammed.

Why they do this: Not because they're ready to hire. Because they're terrified of missing out on the one thing that'll fix their growth problem. They're shopping, not buying. Most of those demos will end in "we'll think about it" because they don't actually have the budget or internal bandwidth. But they keep booking them anyway because sitting still feels like falling behind. It's the same psychology that makes people compare hotel prices across twelve different sites even though they all show the same Travelodge for £89.

When you get that, you can do this: Stop trying to get into their demo queue. You're just more noise. Instead, position yourself as the agency they call after those seven demos don't work out. Be the "we've tried everything else" conversation, not the "let's explore this" one. Your positioning should be: "We work with brands who've already tried the obvious stuff." This filters out the tyre-kickers and attracts people who are actually ready to spend money.

The behaviour: Slack is always open. Always pinging. Their 3PL is asking about a shipment. Their developer is flagging a bug. Their head of growth is panicking about Meta CPMs. It never stops.

Why they do this: Because ecommerce is operational firefighting. Slack isn't a tool for collaboration; it's a tool for damage control. And they resent it. They're exhausted by the constant pinging, but they can't turn it off because something genuinely urgent might slip through. It's like living next to a train track. You can't ignore it, but you'd give anything for silence.

When you get that, you can do this: DON'T launch a Slack community. Don't add to their notification fatigue. Instead, give them a reason to leave Slack for 20 minutes. A podcast they can listen to on the dog walk. Short-form video they can watch while the Zoom room loads. Your content should be an escape, not another tab demanding attention. And if you're positioning your service, emphasise what you remove from their plate, not what you add. "We handle this so you can close Slack" beats "We'll collaborate with you in Slack." The value isn't in being present. It's in creating absence.

The behaviour: Your ideal client loves your pitch. They get it. But they need to convince their co-founder, their CFO, or their investor board. And that person keeps asking "why can't we just spend more on Meta ads?"

Why they do this: Because the person with budget authority isn't in the weeds. They see revenue going up or down and assume the solution is simple: more traffic. They don't understand CAC bleed, email attribution, or why you can't just "scale what's working." Your actual client knows this, but they don't have the language or the evidence to win the argument. It's the same dynamic as trying to explain to your mum why you can't just "make the website faster" – technically accurate questions, commercially naive assumptions.

When you get that, you can do this: Stop selling to your point of contact. Start arming them to sell upward. Create one-pagers they can forward. ROI calculators with hard numbers. Case studies that show "Brand X tried just scaling ads, hit a ceiling at £150k/month, hired us, now doing £400k." Build the business case for them so they don't have to translate your marketing speak into CFO speak themselves. Your best clients aren't the ones who can sign the contract. They're the ones who can win the internal fight to sign the contract.

The behaviour: Their Shopify app list is out of control. Klaviyo, Yotpo, Gorgias, Recharge, LoyaltyLion, Triple Whale, and sixteen others they installed during a panic six months ago and forgot about. They're paying £2,000/month in app fees for things they don't use.

Why they do this: Because every problem feels like it needs a new tool. ROAS dropping? Install an attribution app. Retention weak? Add a loyalty platform. Returns spiking? Get a returns portal. They're drowning in point solutions, and every new vendor relationship means another login, another integration, another thing to manage. They're exhausted by their tech stack, but they don't know how to simplify it without breaking something. It's the digital equivalent of never throwing anything away because "I might need it one day." Spoiler: they won't.

When you get that, you can do this: Lead with simplification, not addition. Show them how you reduce complexity, not add to it. "How we cut a client's app stack from 23 to 11 and their site speed improved by 40%" is more compelling than "why you need our platform." Create content like "3 Klaviyo flows you're ignoring that would replace two of your apps." Position yourself as the agency that works within their existing Shopify/Klaviyo/Gorgias setup, not as another vendor relationship to manage. The insight isn't "integrate with everything." It's "help them delete things." Marie Kondo for their tech stack, if you will, but with actual commercial benefit rather than just vibes.

Knowing your ICP isn't about collecting trivia. It's about understanding the why behind the behaviour, so you can make decisions that actually fit how they operate.

They wake up checking Shopify? Don't just post at 6am. Understand they're loss-averse and frame accordingly.

They book endless demos? Don't fight for a slot. Position as the post-demo conversation.

They live in Slack? Don't add noise. Give them an escape.

They need to convince someone else? Don't just sell. Arm them.

They're drowning in apps? Don't add complexity. Show them how to delete.

The workshops aren't pointless. What's pointless is writing down observations and never asking why those observations matter. When you understand the why, the strategy writes itself.