For its first five years, WITHIN grew the way many successful agencies do. Referrals drove new business. Word of mouth created momentum. Clients expanded across channels once relationships were established. The model worked, but it was largely reactive.
When Taylor Thomson joined the company, he began asking questions that had not previously needed clear answers. Who exactly was WITHIN trying to serve. How many companies actually fit that profile. What was the average contract value. Where was the economic sweet spot.
“We’ve done a lot of work taking critical looks at who our ICP is, what our addressable market looks like, how many companies fit it, and where ACV really makes sense,” Thomson explains.
Those questions triggered a fundamental shift. WITHIN moved from opportunistic growth to intentional targeting, from broad inbound demand to a strict ideal customer profile, and from flexible acceptance of new clients to disciplined selection.
The Limits of Organic Growth
Organic growth offers efficiency. When clients come inbound through referrals, revenue increases without heavy investment in sales or marketing. Early in WITHIN’s life, this dynamic fueled steady expansion as clients added channels and increased spend over time.
The downside is predictability. Organic growth provides limited control over who shows interest, which types of clients enter the pipeline, and whether those clients align with long-term economics. As WITHIN matured, leadership recognized that growth without direction eventually creates operational strain.
Thomson describes the company’s early model as successful but unfocused. It produced revenue, but not always the right kind of revenue. Scaling required clarity around who the business was built to serve.
Defining the Ideal Customer
The ICP work was not theoretical. Over the course of several months, Thomson and the leadership team analyzed existing clients through multiple lenses. Profitability, retention, expansion behavior, service intensity, and internal friction all factored into the assessment.
Clear patterns emerged. Certain company sizes adopted performance branding more effectively. Certain industries understood the value of integrated media and lifecycle strategy. Certain revenue ranges supported the level of strategic engagement WITHIN delivered.
Equally important was understanding which clients WITHIN served best. Fit was not only about budget. It was about alignment with the agency’s delivery model, expectations around strategy, and operational maturity on the client side.
“Being a good fit for the type of business we’re running matters,” Thomson notes. “Not every company that could benefit from performance branding works economically as a client.”
The Math Behind Focus
Once the ICP criteria were defined, the next step was quantifying the addressable market. How many companies actually met the profile. How many could realistically be targeted. How much growth could that market support.
This exercise constrained strategy in a productive way. If the ICP universe consisted of hundreds of companies rather than thousands, the go-to-market approach had to change. Account-based methods became viable. Broad awareness campaigns became less relevant.
Thomson’s finance background made this rigor non-negotiable. Growth plans had to align with real market size, not optimistic assumptions about infinite demand.
At the same time, the team evaluated average contract values across client segments. The goal was to identify a range that justified acquisition and service costs while remaining sustainable through economic cycles.
The result was a dramatic shift. WITHIN increased average annual contract values from roughly $250,000 to approximately $1.8 million over a two-year period. That change reshaped operations, sales motion, and client relationships.
From Broad Outreach to Account-Based Strategy
With a defined ICP and realistic market math, WITHIN transitioned to an account-based model. Rather than marketing broadly and qualifying inbound interest, the team identified specific companies that fit its criteria and coordinated marketing and sales efforts around them.
This approach required discipline. True account-based execution only works when the target list is small enough to support deep research, personalization, and alignment across teams. ICP clarity made that possible.
“What’s driving it is the type of customer we believe we can serve best,” Thomson says.
Marketing strategy followed suit. Content focused on known ICP pain points. Event strategy narrowed to conferences where decision-makers from target accounts actually attended. Partnerships became deeper and more selective, centered on vendors serving the same customer profile.
Knowing When to Say No
One of the most meaningful outcomes of strict ICP discipline was permission to decline business. As WITHIN matured, it no longer needed to accept every opportunity to grow.
Client minimums became one filter, but not the only one. Some prospects wanted execution without strategy. Others operated in industries where performance branding was structurally difficult. Still others introduced operational friction that outweighed revenue upside.
Declining those clients improved metrics across the organization. Retention increased. Profitability stabilized. Teams spent more time on work that matched their expertise.
Thomson views this selectivity as a sign of organizational maturity. Early-stage companies often cannot afford it. Mature revenue organizations must enforce it.
A Revenue Operations Perspective
Thomson’s vantage point across finance and revenue operations made the ICP work especially impactful. He saw not only revenue figures, but profitability, service costs, and operational efficiency.
Some clients generate impressive topline numbers while quietly eroding margins. Others create clarity, expansion, and stability. Strict ICP discipline aligned economic value with operational fit.
“Finding the sweet spot,” Thomson says, is where those two realities meet.
What Other Companies Can Learn
Few companies will share WITHIN’s exact ICP. Markets, services, and economics differ. The methodology, however, is widely transferable.
Analyze which clients generate the most value with the least friction. Quantify how many companies actually fit that profile. Understand average contract values and lifetime value. Ensure your delivery model works economically. Then align go-to-market strategy around those constraints.
Most importantly, enforce the discipline. ICP definition is not a one-time exercise. It requires ongoing reinforcement, especially when growth pressure tempts teams to widen the net.
WITHIN’s transformation shows what happens when leadership commits to focus. Fewer opportunities. Better clients. Higher value. Sustainable scale.
ICP before tactics. Fit before volume. That is how intentional growth begins.
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