Lesson 6: Build & tag your voice of the customer bank

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In this lesson, you’ll learn how to build and organize your Voice of Customer (VoC) bank and turn raw research into a structured ICP sheet.

You’ll discover how to clean up your research inbox, extract meaningful insights from real conversations, and tag them in a way that directly supports your messaging and targeting. We’ll also cover how to move from scattered notes to a structured ICP framework filled with pains, objections, fears, desired outcomes, and real language your prospects use, so you can write cold emails that sound like they came from the market itself.

Hi, welcome to Lesson 6.

This lesson is about organizing your research, and building your ICP sheet.

By now you probably collected a lot of useful insights in your research inbox. 

Today we clean that up. The goal is simple, inbox zero.

You do not have to keep everything you found. 

Some items you will toss. Some you will keep as inspiration. 

Just a quick reminder from earlier lessons.

The most accurate and recent data always comes from real conversations.

Start with existing customers if you have them.

If not, talk to potential prospects.

Then talk to people close to the niche, partners, operators, experts.

Only after that, use communities and online research.

In my example I used only online research on purpose.

Even with zero customer calls, you can still find enough material to launch your first campaigns.

And you will have enough inspiration for a few different value propositions and angles.

Alright, let us start. Open the research inbox sheet.

You can see I collected research for the Seed to Series A SaaS niche. 

All of my examples here come from Reddit.

For each item, I saved the post title or a key quote. 

Then I added a short snippet and a quick note on what I find useful here.

Further, I added the source so I can find it again. 

I also added tags, so I can move the insight into the right place later.

One field matters more than people think, the search terms.

I always add search terms so I can find the same topic again, or find similar threads if I want to go deeper.

Now here is how I clean out the research inbox.

I open two tabs side by side, the research inbox and the voice of customer bank.

I go item by item. I open the thread, I read the part that looks useful, and I scan the comments.

Often the best insight is in the comments, not just in the post.

Each time I find something I can actually use, I move it into the voice of customer bank.

So, let’s jump into the voice of customer bank.

This is where I keep the raw context and one extracted insight I can reuse later.

Let’s quickly go over the columns.

Whole text is the whole thread and any relevant comments.

I copy it in so I can re-read it directly in the sheet.

Extracted insight is typically one sentence about one idea. I keep it almost verbatim at first.

Next is the “How could I use it” column where I put my thoughts on how I plan to use this later. 

For example use as a pain line, as an objection to handle, or use as a direct quote for an opener.

Tags tell me what type of insight it is. 

And most importantly these tags will map onto your ICP fields later.

So when you tag something as Fear, you know exactly where it goes in the ICP sheet.

The tags here are also the same ones you have in your research inbox. 

Source and search terms help me retrace and expand later. Notes are optional.

Sometimes one thread gives you one useful insight. 

Other times one thread gives you three. 

If there are multiple useful points, split them into multiple rows. Each row should hold one clear idea.

Once you do this, your research inbox is empty. Inbox zero, well done!

I suggest doing this regularly. 

If you let the inbox grow for weeks, it becomes annoying to process, and you start avoiding it.

Okay, once I have the voice of customer bank, I move the extracted insights into the ICP niches sheet.

This is where your tags pay off, because your tags map to the ICP fields.

Open the ICP niches sheet.

This sheet is your structured view of the niche, built for writing later. 

I made it a table so you can easily add new niches or expand on an existing niche.

For instance, I could now add a niche focused on SaaS companies targeting the recruitment sector.

Some of the pains, fears, objections will be similar. Great, so I can copy the whole row.

At the same time I can easily update and refine the information for this new niche.

This way my message will be even more relevant and I stay organized as my niche database grows. 

Let’s go through each section and what it means.

Job titles are the roles you want to target. 

Outreach triggers are company level moments, also called sales triggers.

For example they raised a round, they are hiring, they changed their pricing, etc.

Relevant events are related to what is happening in the market or niche as a whole.

Desired outcomes are the future results they want.

Often tied to metrics, pipeline, meetings, reply rate, revenue.

Pains are the day to day problems they complain about and you can solve.

Failed outcomes are what they already tried and it did not work.

Capture what they tried, what they expected, and what went wrong.

Fears are the bigger consequences they want to avoid, often related to emotions.

Beliefs or misconceptions are opinions they hold, sometimes true, sometimes wrong. 

For example, cold email is dead, or it ruins my main domain.

Objections are the reasons they will say no. Too busy, tried it already, bad experience, etc.

Next, awareness and sophistication. We covered these in the previous lesson.

For relevant unique mechanisms list the ones you think are relevant and fit the market’s sophistication. 

World view or values are what they care about, speed, control, focus, quality, etc. 

Proof / Benchmarks contain your case studies, testimonials, and other relevant statistics.

Language quotes are the words they use. 

Keep these close to verbatim. Your emails will sound like their thoughts rather than generic.

Treat this as a living document. You don’t have to force yourself to fill out each column.

As you learn more or speak to some of the prospects, refine the insights in this sheet. 

Now, when you move data from the voice of customer bank into the ICP sheet, do it in two passes.

First pass, move it over as is. Do not edit the insight snippets. Just get everything into the right fields.

Second pass, once everything is in one place, merge duplicates, condense, and paraphrase.

Okay, I got one more tab to show you, the Overview sheet.

This sheet pulls the ICP niches data into an “one-sheet” overview. 

You pick your niche at the top, and all the data loads. This is view only, do not edit this sheet.

Once you start brainstorming your value propositions and angles this view will come in handy.

It’s also possible to print it as a cheatsheet if you prefer working analog.

Alright, let’s get to your homework.

First, get to inbox zero. Review your research inbox, keep what matters, delete the rest.

Second, move the useful items into the voice of customer bank, copy the whole text.

Then extract one clear insight, tag it, keep the source and search terms.

Third, move the voice of the customer insights into the ICP sheet using the tags.

Finally, if you want, merge duplicates, condense, paraphrase, and keep the best language quotes.

That is it.

In the next lesson I will show you a few value proposition frameworks.

And most importantly, how to use this research to write value propositions that speak to your niche.

See you there.