By Teresa Torres · producttalk.org · @ttorres on X · LinkedIn
Teresa Torres argues that defining the ideal customer profile should not belong to one function but be shared across product, design, engineering, sales, marketing, customer success, and finance. Cross-functional collaboration is slow and hard, which is why teams often work in silos, yet it pays off. Drawing on two CDH Benchmark Surveys (2022 with about 2,000 respondents, 2024 with 680), she finds that people in product trios report higher satisfaction with their team and company, especially when they spend more time with their trio and feel they have an equal say in decisions. She cautions that the sample skews toward her blog and social audience, and that the survey could not reliably measure business or product outcomes, so no such claims are made.
01Key takeaways
- Align the whole company, not one function, on who the ideal customer is, since product, sales, marketing, and customer success all depend on it.
- Accept that cross-functional collaboration feels slower but tends to raise team and company satisfaction.
- Spend regular time with your product trio and make sure everyone has a real say in team decisions.
- Be skeptical of self-reported outcome data, especially when respondents lack access to the analytics needed to judge it.
- Treat survey-based team findings as directional, given sampling bias toward people already familiar with product trios.
02Key sections
- Shared ownership of the ICP
- A LinkedIn debate over who owns the ideal customer profile leads Torres to conclude that every go-to-market and product function needs to be aligned on it. Each role depends on knowing whom they serve.
- Why cross-functional collaboration is rare
- Working together is difficult, time-consuming, and feels slow under pressure, so teams default to individual work and get little feedback. Teams that invest the effort tend to be more satisfied.
- What the 2022 and 2024 surveys found
- Respondents in product trios reported higher satisfaction with their team and company, and satisfaction rose with time spent together and with a perceived equal voice in decisions. Most trios were made up of a PM, designer, and engineer.
- Caveats about sampling and measurement
- The sample is biased toward people familiar with the product trio concept, and self-reported business outcomes proved unreliable, with many respondents lacking behavioral analytics access. Torres therefore avoids claiming any link to business results.
03From the post
“I was scrolling through my LinkedIn feed and a post caught my eye. It read: “Marketing owns defining the ideal customer profile.” And then went into details on why. A quick scan through the comments showed that not everyone agreed with this statement. Some people argued a different role owned”
04Frameworks mentioned
Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.