Personas: the people who buy
A persona is a buying role inside an ICP, for example "Head of Sales" or "Founder/CEO". Companies don't buy; people do. Personas describe the people you actually need to win over.
Every persona has a role type
Real deals involve more than one person, and they don't all play the same part. Each persona is one of:
| Role type | What they do |
|---|---|
| Decision-maker | Has the authority to say yes. |
| Champion | Loves your product and sells it internally for you. |
| Influencer | Shapes the opinion of others, even without the final say. |
| Gatekeeper | Controls access. You get through them to reach the rest. |
There's no rule forcing exactly one decision-maker per ICP. Model the world as it really is: some sales have two decision-makers, some have none until late. Set it up to match your reality.
How a persona matches real people
Beyond the role type, each persona has:
- Target seniority: how senior the person is (e.g. C-level, VP, manager)
- Job function: the area they work in (e.g. sales, engineering, finance)
These help the product match real people you add to your CRM against the right persona.
You can also add qualification rules to a persona: the checks the AI runs against each person, using the facts the Researcher gathered. See How Qualification Works to set them up.
What makes them tick
You can capture the human side of each persona so your AI Agent understands them:
- Goals: what they're trying to achieve
- Pains: what frustrates them today
- Objections: why they might say no
- Buying triggers: the moments that make them ready to act
The richer this picture, the better your AI Agent reasons about how to reach and convince them.
The life of a persona
A persona moves through three states:
| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Still being shaped. |
| Active | Live and in use. |
| Archived | Retired, but kept for history. |
Archiving a persona works the same way: people already matched to it keep their verdict and stay reachable, and their page shows the persona marked Archived. They're only re-judged if you re-qualify them.
Activating a persona is what lets its ICP go live. An ICP with only draft personas can't become active, so flipping that first persona to active is often the moment your targeting comes to life.
Where to find them
Personas live inside the ICP detail view, under the Personas section. Like ICPs, everyone on your team can view them, but only admins can edit them.