Ideal Customer Profile for Contractors With a 100-Point Scoring Sheet

Chasing every roof is lousy prospecting. It sends your estimator across town to inspect work your crew does not want, for someone who cannot approve it. A full calendar can hide a thin pipeline.

I would put a six-row scoring sheet in front of the sales team before adding another territory, with enough detail that a rep can explain why a building deserves a call and why the estimator deserves the drive. Give points for the characteristics your profitable customers share. Write down the reasons to decline a visit.

Ground Control by PorchRocket supplies the property side of that process. Its commercial building filters let you select business types, size bands and visible features before your team begins researching the buyer.

What is an ideal customer profile for a contractor?

A contractor’s ideal customer profile is a written description of the buildings and buying relationships the company can serve profitably, expressed as criteria a salesperson can check.

Make it one page. Put the offer at the top, followed by the territory and the kind of building you want, so a new rep can decide where an account belongs without asking the owner to review every address. A recurring HVAC maintenance profile will differ from one for large RTU swaps, even inside the same company.

Start with a purchasing outcome: an annual service agreement, a roof maintenance account, a scheduled cleaning contract or an approved paving project. Revenue alone leaves out the hours needed to get and keep that account.

The SBA’s market research guidance asks businesses to examine demand, market size, location and pricing. Apply those questions to a service route: how many suitable properties exist, can you reach them affordably, and does the work support your costs?

Penn State Extension’s customer segmentation guidance also connects customer profiles with geography and buying behavior. For a contractor, I would translate that into where the truck goes, what the crew services and how the account purchases repeat work.

Put the buyer’s job title beside the property criteria. Until the rep finds who controls maintenance spending and how to contact that person, leave even a warehouse that matches every physical filter in the research queue rather than assigning an estimator to chase access. No buyer, no booked survey.

Six attributes worth scoring before a site visit

Score business type, building size, the feature your trade services, roof or equipment age, distance and buyer access, using evidence recorded beside each of the six scores.

Business type

Pick building uses where your proposed service makes sense. For an HVAC maintenance campaign, I would start with offices and warehouses your technicians can support. For cleaning, write separate profiles for office work and medical work if they require different staffing or procedures.

Use the building’s activity, rather than a broad commercial label. The EIA’s 2018 commercial building survey estimated 5.9 million buildings and about 96 billion square feet. The survey covers buildings larger than 1,000 square feet with more than half their floorspace used for activities other than residential, manufacturing, industrial or agricultural work. Use that 2018 national benchmark for 2026 planning within its scope.

Building size

Set a floor that supports the trip and a ceiling your crew can handle. A 25,000-square-foot minimum can be a starting test for a commercial campaign; your job records should decide whether that threshold earns its place.

EIA found that 71% of the commercial buildings in its survey scope were 10,000 square feet or smaller in 2018. An unfiltered address search can therefore contain many buildings below your minimum scope. Check size before spending estimating time, and confirm the area your trade will service during the survey.

The feature your trade services

Name what must be present: rooftop units, loading docks, a paved parking area, lawns, a pool or a roof material your crew handles. This row gets the largest weight in the sample sheet because it identifies the work the crew can perform.

A photograph earns a closer look. Before quoting, inspect the equipment or measure the service area with permission, and save the findings where the estimator can see what changed between the initial property selection and the scope the buyer wants priced. Ask who pays for that work.

Roof or equipment age

Treat age as a reason to ask a better question. For roof work, start with a roof age band and ask about replacement history. For HVAC, request equipment installation or service records and verify details during an authorized visit.

Record the source of the age. Building construction year, roof installation year and equipment installation year belong in separate columns. I would leave an equipment age blank until someone supplies evidence, even when the building looks old.

Distance

Choose distance bands from dispatch and the economics of the first agreement. In the sample below, the preferred band is within 15 road miles. The next band reaches 30 miles; anything beyond 45 requires an approved exception.

Check the drive at dispatch time. Also record the nearest existing stop, because a property that a technician can visit after an established account may fit the day better than a slightly nearer property that requires driving back across town for a separate appointment.

Reachable decision maker

Give full points when you have a confirmed role and a working contact route to the person responsible for the proposed purchase. A recorded owner provides a research lead. Ask who handles service and who can approve the agreement.

Save the answer and its date. When a reception desk routes the call to someone else, record whether that person purchases the service or is introducing you to the buyer, so the next rep can pick up the conversation without asking everyone the same questions again.

A filled-in 100-point scoring sheet

Give the serviceable feature 25 points, business type 20, and the remaining four attributes 55, then use the total to assign the next sales action.

For the worked examples, say you run a commercial HVAC service crew from Knoxville. Your campaign seeks offices and warehouses of at least 25,000 square feet, preferably with five or more visible RTUs. Your initial agreement must fit the current service territory. The point bands below are your starting rules.

The filled account is a 38,400-square-foot warehouse, 19 road miles from the shop, with six visible RTUs. The manager has confirmed maintenance authority and supplied a service record showing an eight-year equipment age.

Attribute	Maximum points	Point bands for this campaign	Filled account	Points earned
Business type	20	Office or warehouse: 20; another business type the crew supports: 10; unsupported use: 0	Warehouse	20
Building size	15	25,000+ square feet: 15; 10,000 to 24,999: 8; below 10,000 or unknown: 0	38,400 square feet	15
Serviceable feature	25	5+ visible RTUs: 25; 2 to 4: 12; 1, none visible or unknown: 0	Six visible RTUs	25
Equipment age	10	Documented 12+ years: 10; 6 to 11 years: 5; under 6 or unknown: 0	Eight years, from service record	5
Distance	15	Within 15 road miles: 15; over 15 through 30: 8; over 30: 0	19 road miles	8
Buyer access	15	Responsible buyer and contact route confirmed: 15; owner or likely role identified: 7; unknown: 0	Manager and service authority confirmed	15
Total	100	Add earned points after checking disqualifiers	20 + 15 + 25 + 5 + 8 + 15	88

Apply the most specific business-type band, then give each row one score. The warehouse earns 88 points. That puts it in the first outreach group, where the rep’s next job is to agree on the proposed scope and access arrangements before a technician leaves the shop for the survey.

Use 80 to 100 for priority outreach. Assign 60 to 79 to research, and put anything below 60 aside for later review. Write the action beside the score. An 88 does not mean an 88% chance of winning.

Unknown and unsuitable can both earn zero, so add a separate evidence-status column in your working sheet. If missing information could move a 72-point building above 80, research it. If confirmed characteristics cap it at 52, move on.

Run disqualifiers first. For this campaign, treat the 25,000-square-foot minimum as a hard exclusion; the lower size bands remain available for a later campaign with a smaller scope. A building beyond the approved territory cannot buy its way back into the queue with points for roof area. For an exception, require the sales manager to record why the economics work and who approved the trip.

How to qualify commercial prospects without wasting a visit

Use two passes: screen the property before outreach, then confirm responsibility, service scope and an agreed next step before assigning an estimator to visit.

On the property pass, collect the address and business type. Check building size and the feature your trade serves, then record the available age information so the rep has a property-specific reason to make contact and can explain what still needs checking. Leave a task for each unknown.

On the buyer pass, ask who handles the work at that address. Confirm whether the business, owner or property manager purchases the service. Ask about the present arrangement and what would justify a conversation with a new vendor. Write down the answer without upgrading it into a sale.

I would use this call opener as a template: We service commercial rooftop equipment in this area. Who handles the maintenance agreement for the building at this address? If you review outside vendors, what information would you want before arranging a walkthrough?

Then ask four questions:

• What equipment or area would the agreement cover?
• Who approves this type of work, and who should join the survey?
• When do you review the agreement or the next maintenance budget?
• Can we agree on access and a time to review the findings?

The last question earns the visit. Put a survey on the calendar when the scope fits and the buyer agrees to a next step. A request to send information stays with the rep until someone agrees to review it.

Timing needs its own field. For a strong account with a renewal nine months away, set a follow-up date early enough to discuss the next agreement before the buyer makes the decision, and give the rep a reason to call on that date. Leave the fit score alone.

For city, county and school work, use a separate buying process. Bid Control by PorchRocket finds opportunities by trade and area, with bid papers and deadlines together, including addenda. Score crew and territory fit, then check the solicitation before spending time on the estimate.

Starting customer profiles for nine commercial trades

Choose a separate starting profile for each trade and offer, then adjust its building criteria using the accounts that produce margin and repeat work for your crew.

These are campaign choices to test. They describe what to look for and what to ask before quoting. Allow enough variation to find accounts in your territory, while giving the rep a reason to contact each address.

Trade	Starting building profile	Property feature or age to screen	What to confirm before quoting
Roofing	Warehouses or retail, starting at 25,000+ square feet	Membrane or metal roof, with a 10+ roof age band when replacement planning is the offer	Roof sections, current condition, repair history and person approving roof work
Roof coatings	Warehouses in the crew’s service area	Roof material the crew handles; visible patches or rust can guide questions	Substrate, moisture findings, adhesion checks and the proposed coating scope
HVAC	Offices or warehouses, starting at 25,000+ square feet	5+ visible rooftop units for the sample service campaign	Equipment records, service scope, access and maintenance purchasing authority
Paving and sealcoating	Retail or industrial properties on an affordable route	Visible paved parking area	Measured asphalt area, repair scope, access and scheduling requirements
Loading docks	Warehouses and industrial buildings	Visible loading docks	Dock equipment, service responsibility and an authorized inspection time
Commercial cleaning	Offices or medical properties the crew is equipped to support	Building size band and business type	Occupied cleaning area, tasks, frequency, access and agreement holder
Landscaping	Offices, hotels or medical properties near existing stops	Visible lawns and planting beds	Measured service area, required tasks, water access and buying contact
Pools	Hotels or multifamily properties	Visible pool	Service scope, equipment, access schedule and purchasing responsibility
Propane	Supported commercial uses within delivery territory	Visible storage tanks	Fuel, tank capacity, ownership, access and current supply arrangement

An ICP for a roofing company should specify the offer. Maintenance and replacement planning can share a building list while needing different first conversations. Write the offer at the top of the score sheet so the rep knows what the call is for.

To identify the best customers for an HVAC company, I would first examine service contribution by route and equipment group. Six units can earn a call. Before assigning a visit, have the service manager review equipment outside the crew’s usual work so a large unit count does not send a technician to an account the department cannot support.

The target customer for commercial cleaning also needs a service schedule. Record whether the crew can staff that schedule before treating building size as a positive. During the walkthrough, measure the area included in the agreement and identify excluded spaces.

Reduce the size weight when the feature drives your trade’s economics more directly. For paving, move those points to the measured opportunity and route after the first survey. For landscaping, compare the serviceable grounds with the building-size proxy you used to select the account.

If the first territory has few suitable properties, widen one criterion at a time. Expanding geography while also changing the building types and size floor makes the next campaign harder to interpret. Date the change beside the list name.

Learn the weights from your best 20 customers

Export customer and job records, select the 20 accounts strongest on contribution and repeat work, then compare their six attributes with the rest of your customer base.

Start with the last 24 months, or enough history to include your trade’s seasonal cycle. Keep service lines separate when their economics differ. Merge repeat jobs under the same buying account, while preserving the property address for route analysis.

I would work through the export in this order:

1. Add revenue and direct job costs for each account. Include burdened field labor, travel, materials and callback costs you can assign.
2. Calculate contribution dollars and contribution as a share of revenue. Flag accounts that look large only because they pass through expensive materials.
3. Mark repeat work, agreement renewals and the time spent keeping the account. Review payment history alongside the contribution figure.
4. Choose the best 20 using both contribution and repeat work. Ask the service manager to review the selection for missing costs.
5. Fill in the six profile attributes for those 20. Leave unsupported fields unknown and assign someone to research them.
6. Compare the pattern with lost accounts, low-margin jobs and the remaining customers. Count how often each characteristic appears in both groups.
7. Assign starting weights, rescore known accounts and check which ones rise to the top. Save the sheet with its date and offer.

Count before choosing a story. If offices and warehouses account for 14 of the best 20 customers but only 24 of the other 80, the comparison is 70% against 30%. That difference earns attention when assigning the business-type weight.

Do the same for the serviceable feature. If 5+ units appear at 16 of the best 20 accounts and 28 of the other 80, compare 80% with 35%. I would give that feature 25 points and business type 20 as starting weights, then test whether the ranking holds on new accounts.

Repeat the review for distance. Record contribution per visit as well as total annual contribution. An account with many visits can look attractive in annual revenue while consuming a large share of the service calendar.

With 20 customers, I would adjust weights in five-point steps, taking the same points from another row to keep the maximum at 100. Rescale that row’s partial-credit bands too. Test each revision against accounts the sheet did not help you select. Save the reason for each change, then freeze the weights during outreach.

For a territory check, Census County Business Patterns provides employer-establishment counts by industry and geography, with employment-size information. Use those counts to compare industry concentrations between areas. An establishment count answers a different question from the number of roofs or buyer accounts you can pursue.

Our market intelligence guide for contractors explains how to combine that market context with property research. Start your weights with the customer export.

What a good-fit account is worth over five years

Estimate an account’s value from annual contribution and renewal probability, then subtract the cost of acquiring it before deciding how much prospecting effort the profile deserves.

For the Knoxville service account, use annual agreement revenue of $6,480 and contribution of 38% after direct service costs. Assume an 82% renewal probability each year, unchanged pricing and scope, and no repair or replacement upsells. Calculate five years without discounting future cash flows.

Annual contribution is $6,480 × 0.38 = $2,462.40. Each later year’s expected contribution includes the chance that the account remains with you.

Service year	Probability account remains	Expected contribution	Calculation
1	100%	$2,462.40	$2,462.40 × 1
2	82%	$2,019.17	$2,462.40 × 0.82
3	67.24%	$1,655.72	$2,462.40 × 0.82²
4	55.1368%	$1,357.69	$2,462.40 × 0.82³
5	45.212176%	$1,113.30	$2,462.40 × 0.82⁴
Five-year total		$8,608.28	Sum of expected annual contribution

Fixed overhead still needs paying. That $8,608.28 must also cover acquisition, so put the additional travel from a separate route into direct service costs before using the 38% contribution assumption to decide how much the account can support. Charge extra administration to the account too.

For labor budgeting, the BLS June 2026 compensation table reports private-industry employer compensation of $46.89 per hour, including $14.07 in benefits. Build your campaign’s hourly cost from your own payroll and benefits records.

Use $47 per staff hour in this campaign model, with vehicle costs listed separately. A wasted two-hour visit then consumes $94 of labor. Add $18 in vehicle expense and the cost reaches $112 before any materials or paid research.

Eight such visits cost $896. Three cost $336. Spend the $560 difference on five more visits at the same $112 cost when the rep has suitable accounts ready, with the buyer and scope checked before the technician gets back in the truck.

Disqualifiers to write down before the campaign

Set hard exclusions for work your crew cannot support, uneconomic travel, unacceptable buying terms and absent purchasing responsibility before a high score can trigger a site visit.

Write each exclusion as a decision someone can check. Replace a vague instruction to avoid small jobs with a minimum scope or contribution requirement. Name who can approve an exception, and require the reason to stay with the account.

I would start with these exclusions:

• The proposed work requires equipment, training or capacity the crew does not have.
• The property lies outside the approved territory and has no approved route exception.
• The expected scope falls below the minimum contribution needed to cover the visit and service.
• The buyer’s required schedule cannot be staffed at the proposed price.
• The contact confirms they do not purchase the service and provides no path to the responsible buyer.
• The requested payment terms fall outside the company’s written credit policy.

Use a separate not-yet status. Give a renewal next July a dated follow-up; give a missing equipment list a research task. Leave both in the account file, with someone responsible for the next action before either reaches an estimator’s calendar.

Apply marketing suppression at the contact stage as well. When someone asks to stop receiving marketing email, record it where the next rep will see it. Store that outreach status separately from the fit score used for account analysis.

Map the customer profile to property filters

Use Ground Control to screen business type, building size, roof criteria and visible features, then assign buyer research and field verification to the remaining parts of the profile.

Translate each row into a selection or a task. This keeps a campaign request specific enough to run and gives your rep a reason for contacting each building. The table below maps the Knoxville sheet and the other trade profiles to available property criteria.

Profile criterion	Ground Control selection or add-on	What your team does next
Business type	Warehouse, industrial, retail, restaurant, office, church, school, medical, hotel or multifamily	Check that the offer suits the business at the address
Building size	Available size bands, including 25,000+ and 50,000+ square feet	Confirm the area included in the proposed service
Roof work	Roof material and a commercial 10+ roof age band	Review roof records and conduct an authorized survey
HVAC	Rooftop HVAC present, 2+ or 5+ visible units	Confirm equipment details and age from records or a visit
Other trade features	Loading docks, storage tanks, paved parking areas, lawns, planting beds or pools	Measure or inspect the feature and agree on the service scope
Territory	The areas you select	Check road distance and drive time against the dispatch plan
Buyer access	Owner information and decision-maker research add-ons	Confirm role, responsibility and authority for this purchase

For the Knoxville list, select warehouses or offices with 5+ visible rooftop units. Set a 25,000-square-foot floor in the chosen area. Ask the buyer for equipment age during qualification, then store the answer in the scoring sheet with its source and date.

Every supplied property includes why it matched. Preserve that field in your CRM so the caller can connect the outreach to a building characteristic. Add the fit score, and assign a next action for each unknown.

When researching commercial buildings in your area, group the first campaign around a territory your crew already covers. Expand after the account economics support the additional travel. Save the dispatch check beside the property score.

Test two small lists over 30 days

Compare two groups of 40 buildings using the same offer, outreach schedule and rep, then review qualified surveys, signed accounts and acquisition cost after 30 days.

For the Knoxville test, compare offices with warehouses. Give both groups the same 25,000-square-foot floor and 5+ visible RTU criterion, within the same territory, so you can examine the building-type choice without also changing the equipment count or asking the rep to cover a longer route. Freeze the weights for 30 days.

Forty buildings cost $400 to $800 in base Ground Control property data, so the two groups total $800 to $1,600. Add any selected owner or decision-maker research at its quoted price. Include those charges in campaign cost.

Days	Action	Record before moving on
1 to 3	Check records, remove duplicates and existing customers, assign initial scores	Starting list, exclusions and reasons
4 to 12	Alternate between groups using the same outreach offer	Attempts, staff time, buyer reached and qualification answers
13 to 23	Follow up and conduct agreed surveys	Travel, survey hours, qualified scope and next decision
24 to 30	Review outcomes and costs together	Quotes, signed accounts, contribution and follow-up dates

Count every visit in campaign cost. For this test, count a survey as qualified only when the scope fits and the responsible buyer agrees to a next decision, with enough information in the account record for the estimator to price the work. Log failed visits too.

Three surveys cannot settle the profile. If one group produces two qualified surveys and the other three, review the conversations and continue the test. For a roofing replacement campaign with no signed account by day 30, record the budget date and follow the opportunity through the decision before using the campaign to judge acquisition cost.

To plan a larger campaign, extend the Knoxville model to 100 buildings per group. Allow 30 desk hours for contact research, outreach, quotes and follow-up, plus 12 visits at two hours each, including travel. Both approaches consume 54 staff hours at $47, plus $18 vehicle expense per visit. Staff handles contact research; no paid contact add-ons or advertising are included in this calculation. Charge any additional estimating or follow-up hours to the campaign before calculating its final acquisition cost.

Campaign measure	Broad selection	Scored selection
Starting buildings	100	100
Base property data at $10 to $20 per building	$1,000 to $2,000	$1,000 to $2,000
Staff time: 54 hours × $47	$2,538	$2,538
Vehicle expense: 12 visits × $18	$216	$216
Total acquisition spending	$3,754 to $4,754	$3,754 to $4,754
Qualified surveys among 12 visits	4	9
Signed accounts	1	3
Cost per signed account, rounded	$3,754 to $4,754	$1,251 to $1,585

The planning assumptions put signed accounts at 1% and 3% of starting buildings. At three accounts, divide total spending by three: $3,754 ÷ 3 = $1,251.33 and $4,754 ÷ 3 = $1,584.67. The same hours support more accounts when fewer visits go to unsuitable properties.

Use your measured costs in the next review. Our contractor customer acquisition cost guide covers the spending to include. Compare that cost with expected account contribution before expanding the order.

Outreach that tests the profile

Make the first message about one property and one service, then use the response to confirm fit instead of treating every reply as a qualified opportunity.

For the Knoxville campaign, I would ask about a rooftop maintenance agreement at the building’s address. Use that offer for both groups. If the rep offers discounted repairs to one group halfway through the test while continuing to ask the other about maintenance agreements, you lose the comparison you paid for when ordering the lists.

Use a short email template: I am contacting you about commercial rooftop maintenance at [property address]. Who handles the service agreement for that building? If you review outside vendors, I can send our proposed inspection scope and service area for a first review.

Add accurate sender details and the required footer. The FTC’s CAN-SPAM business guide applies to business-to-business commercial email. Use truthful headers and subject lines, identify the message as advertising, provide a valid postal address and give a clear opt-out. Honor opt-outs within 10 business days, and keep the opt-out method working for at least 30 days after sending.

Record replies by what they establish: wrong buyer, responsible buyer identified, later budget date or agreed survey. A polite response can help route the next call without earning a site visit. A clear rejection can tell you which profile assumption needs review.

The fastest way to build a list from your customer profile

Use Ground Control by PorchRocket to select commercial buildings by business type, size, roof material, roof age bands and visible features such as rooftop HVAC, docks, paved parking areas or pools. Choose your area and receive a list explaining why each property matched. Commercial data costs $10 to $20 per building, with orders from 10 buildings and delivery within 48 hours after payment, often sooner. Owner information and decision-maker research are add-ons. Report a wrong property within 30 days for credit back. These owners have not asked for quotes; your team starts the conversation.

Turning your profile into a Ground Control list

Order from the six-row sheet so Ground Control supplies the property matches your reps need, with buyer research and next actions assigned before the first call.

Start with the profile that most closely resembles your profitable existing accounts. Choose one offer and territory. Order only as many buildings as the team can work through, with qualification answers brought back to the sheet before you decide whether the next order should be larger.

For this campaign, the team gets:

• Commercial properties selected by business type, building size and territory.
• Visible trade features, such as 5+ rooftop units for the Knoxville service profile.
• A reason each property matched, ready to stay beside the score in your account file.
• Optional owner information and researched decision-maker contacts, with no charge for contacts we do not find.
• CSV and Excel files that import into your sales workflow, with the score and follow-up fields added by your team.
• Delivery within 48 hours after payment and credit back for wrong properties reported within 30 days.

For several markets or a custom sales-team file, use the Ground Control custom request and describe the territory and criteria you need. Include your exclusions so the request reflects the work your crew wants.

Give the next sales day to buildings that earned a place on the sheet.