# Customer slicing: how to define your target customer > How to define your target customer: tell when your segment is too broad, slice it into groups you can actually find, pick the first one, and notice the people in the purchase you forgot to talk to. - Course: [Customer Development: Talking to Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews.md) - Module: The process - Lesson 14/15, ~41 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/customer-slicing ## Nine conversations, nine stories **Alex Tutor:** Nine conversations in, you and CatChow's product team are reading through the stories together. Today: how to define your target customer. **Sofia:** I reread my notes. A student with one cat wants the cheapest food. A family with four cats buys 10 kg bags. One woman's cat is on a vet diet. A breeder wants bulk discounts… **Alex Tutor:** And what did the team decide after reading them? **Sofia:** Nothing. Every feature idea is somebody's favourite. Whenever we try to drop one, someone says: “But the breeders would love it!” **Alex Tutor:** Classic signs of a **customer segment** that's too broad. Answers don't repeat, everything half-works, and you can't prove anything wrong because something always works for someone. **Alex Tutor:** You weren't having nine conversations with one kind of customer. You were having one conversation each with nine different kinds. > **Exercise:** Which signs suggest a team's segment is too broad? Select all that apply. ## Slicing questions: how to define a target customer **Sofia:** So I pick one of the nine at random? **Alex Tutor:** No, you slice. **Customer slicing** means splitting a broad group again and again with a few questions. First: within “cat owners”, who needs regular food delivery the most? ![A big round pie made of many tiny different figures is cut into thinner slices until one small slice of matching figures remains.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/customer-slicing-illustration-2.webp) **Alex Tutor:** Then: why do they need it? Do they already pay or build a **workaround** to solve it? Does everyone in that subgroup have the same reason? And where can I find them? **Sofia:** Let me try. The woman whose cat is on a prescribed kidney diet can't skip a single day. The food is sold in few places, it's expensive, and she sets phone reminders to reorder. **Alex Tutor:** That's a slice with a real motive: a missed day hurts, she already pays a premium and uses a workaround. Now repeat the questions inside that group until you know exactly who and where. > **Exercise:** Put Sofia's slices in order, from the broadest to the most specific. ## Who-where pairs: a target customer example **Alex Tutor:** A well-defined **target customer** is a **who-where pair**: a specific group plus a place where you can reliably find them. If you can't name the “where”, keep slicing. ![A map pin hovers over a vet clinic; in the waiting room, owners hold cat carriers and bags of special diet food.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/customer-slicing-illustration-3.webp) *Who they are and where to find them, in one picture.* **Sofia:** Then: owners of cats on prescribed diets, in the waiting rooms of vet clinics and in an online group for owners of cats with kidney disease. ![Slicing “cat owners” by motive: owners of cats on prescribed diets, found in vet clinic waiting rooms and an online kidney-disease group, form a who-where pair.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/diagrams/m5-l2-slicing.png) **Alex Tutor:** Now you could be talking to them tomorrow morning. Compare that with “women aged 25–45 who love cats”: nice for an ad brief, useless for finding a single person. **Alex Tutor:** Also notice how you sliced: by motive and situation, not by age or income. Demographics describe people; motives explain why they'd change what they do. **Alex Tutor:** Let's test that. Megan's team has suggested two segments for next week. Which one could you actually work with? > **Exercise:** The sales team of Megan, CatChow's head of sales, proposes two first segments for next week's conversations. Which one is a usable **target customer**? > **Exercise:** Megan suggests another segment: “owners of several cats”. Slice it once or twice and write one who-where pair Sofia could use this week. Add one sentence on why this group would care most. ## Choosing where to start **Sofia:** Now I have three pairs: diet cats at vet clinics, foster volunteers at the shelter, and students in dorm chats. Which one first? **Alex Tutor:** Check three things. Is it easy to reach? Is it profitable or big enough to matter? And is it rewarding for you, people you'll enjoy spending months with? **Sofia:** Students are the biggest group, though. **Alex Tutor:** Big, but they buy the cheapest bag and rarely stay long. Don't overthink it: spend twenty minutes, pick one, go talk. Starting narrow doesn't close the other doors forever. > **Exercise:** Match each fact about the “diet cats at vet clinics” segment to the criterion it supports. ## Meet Tom **Sofia:** I went to the clinic on our street. The cat owners in the waiting room were busy, but the administrator, Tom, had a quiet moment. Here's part of what he said. **Tom:** Half our clients ask what to feed after the appointment. The doctor writes the diet on a piece of paper, and a week later they call in a panic because the pet shop ran out. **Tom:** We keep a small shelf of diet food, but ordering it is my headache. The supplier wants at least 30 bags per order, and the owner decides what we stock. **Alex Tutor:** Look what just happened. Tom isn't a cat owner, but he's part of how the food gets bought. The vet recommends, the clinic stocks and sells, the owner pays and feeds. ![Three figures linked by dotted lines: a vet writing on paper, a clinic administrator with a shelf of diet food, and a cat owner with a carrier.](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/inline/customer-slicing-illustration-4.webp) **Alex Tutor:** And the clinic has its own problem: minimum orders and running out of stock. It's a second customer with its own needs, not just a place to meet owners. > **Exercise:** Which of Tom's lines best shows that the clinic is a separate customer with its own problem? ## Everyone in the purchase: a multi-sided market **Alex Tutor:** CatChow is now in a **multi-sided market**: cat owners on one side, clinics on the other. Each side needs its own conversations. **Alex Tutor:** And inside the clinic there are several people. The one who orders isn't the one who pays. The **decision maker** controls the budget; every **stakeholder** can quietly block the deal. **Sofia:** So I map who does what in the clinic before I talk to anyone else there. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. And not only the most senior person. The clinic owner makes a nice line in a report, but Tom is the one who fights with the supplier every week. > **Exercise:** Match each person to their role in how diet food gets bought through the clinic. **Sofia:** So once the clinic owner says yes, I'm done there? **Alex Tutor:** Not quite. Her yes opens the door, but the vet and Tom live with the decision every day. If it makes their work harder, it quietly fades. **Sofia:** Like Tom “forgetting” to reorder because the new supplier's order form is a pain? **Alex Tutor:** Exactly that. So who can actually stop a deal? > **Exercise:** The clinic owner controls the budget. If she likes CatChow's offer, the deal is safe, because the vet and Tom have no real say. ## Questions for the second side **Sofia:** I'm going back to Tom tomorrow. What should I ask him? **Alex Tutor:** The same rules for honest answers, now about the clinic's life. How did the last order go? Who was involved? Who decides, and where does the money come from? **Alex Tutor:** Listen for **purchasing criteria** too: what makes the clinic choose one supplier over another. That's worth more than any list of wished-for features. **Sofia:** And no mentioning a clinic subscription. > **Exercise:** Write two or three questions for Tom that reveal who takes part in choosing and paying for the clinic's diet food. Follow the rules for honest answers: past specifics, no pitch. **Sofia:** I've got my questions. But how do I know which ones show what the clinic really values? **Alex Tutor:** Look for decisions the clinic has already made, not ones it imagines. What it once gave up to get something tells you what it really values. **Sofia:** So the past again, same as with cat owners. **Alex Tutor:** Same rule. Now compare a few ready-made questions for Tom. Only one of them gets at what the clinic really values. > **Exercise:** Sofia is back at the clinic. Which question to Tom best reveals the clinic's purchasing criteria? ## One conversation per side **Megan:** Can't we save time? Tom sees hundreds of cat owners. Let's just ask him what owners want and skip talking to them. **Alex Tutor:** Tom can tell you what owners say at the reception desk. That's second-hand, filtered through his own worries. **Alex Tutor:** Each side needs its own conversations: owners about their lives, clinic staff about theirs. Casual chats make that cheaper than it sounds. **Megan:** Fine. Two lists of questions, then. > **Exercise:** In a multi-sided market, a well-informed person on one side can replace conversations with the other side. ## Slicing a B2B segment **Megan:** My team wants to sell to “pet businesses”: clinics, groomers, shelters, pet shops. Could you check that before we start calling? **Alex Tutor:** “Pet businesses” is the B2B version of “cat owners”. A shelter and a grooming salon have almost nothing in common. Same method: slice, pair, pick, and map the people inside. **Sofia:** I'll write it up as a plan for Megan. **Alex Tutor:** Good. Keep it short and concrete, with names of places, not categories. > **Exercise:** Turn “pet businesses” into a first segment for CatChow's B2B conversations. ## What to remember **Sofia:** It feels like I'm giving up on most cat owners. **Alex Tutor:** Only for now. Win one group properly, then widen. A product that half-works for everyone is worse than one that really works for someone. > **Slicing a segment** > > - **Too broad** if every conversation is different, nothing can be proven wrong and every feature is someone's favourite. > - **Slice** with questions: who needs it most? Why? Do they already pay or use a workaround? Does everyone in the group share the reason? Where are they? > - **Who-where pair**: a specific group plus a place to find them. No “where” means keep slicing. > - **Start** with a pair that is easy to reach, profitable and rewarding. > - **Map everyone** in the purchase: users, payers, decision makers, influencers. Talk to each side separately. **Alex Tutor:** One more lesson. You now have two kinds of customers and a pile of notes that live mostly in your head. Next time we fix that. - Previous lesson: [Finding people for customer interviews](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/finding-conversations.md) - Next lesson: [Notes, affinity mapping and working as a team](https://productovi.com/courses/customer-interviews/notes-and-synthesis.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.