You have a list of companies you'd love to work with. The hard part is knowing who at each one can say yes. Email the wrong person and you get silence, or worse, a polite forward into a shared inbox where things go to die.
Here is how we map it.
Three people, not one
In most B2B purchases there are three roles, sometimes held by the same person:
- The decision maker owns the problem and chooses the fix.
- The budget holder approves the money. In small firms this is the founder. In bigger ones, finance or a department head.
- The user lives with the product every day and can kill a deal by saying "this won't work for us".
Your first email goes to the decision maker. The user is often the easiest way in if the decision maker ignores you.
Titles change with company size
| Company size | Who usually decides |
|---|---|
| 1 to 20 staff | Founder, CEO, managing director or owner |
| 20 to 200 staff | Head of the function (Head of Marketing, Operations Manager, Finance Director), with the founder signing larger spends |
| 200 to 2,000 staff | Director or VP of the function; a manager runs the evaluation |
| 2,000+ staff | VP or senior director, with procurement involved; start with a manager or senior manager who owns the day-to-day problem |
A common mistake is aiming too high at big companies. A VP at a 10,000-person business gets hundreds of pitches a week. The senior manager who owns the problem is more likely to reply, and will bring you up the chain if it is good.
How to find them, step by step
- Start from the problem you solve. Write down which team feels it. Payroll software: finance or HR. Office IT support: operations or the office manager.
- Search the company on LinkedIn and filter people by that function. Note titles and seniority.
- Check the company website: team pages, press releases and job ads. A job ad for "Marketing Operations Manager, reporting to the CMO" hands you the reporting line.
- Look for the recent hire. Someone new in a leadership role (last six months) is often reviewing suppliers.
- Pick two or three names and find work emails. Verify them before sending.
What to say to each one
The decision maker wants the outcome and the risk: what changes, how fast, what could go wrong. The user wants to know it won't make their day harder. The budget holder wants the cost against what it saves or earns. Same product, three different first sentences.
A worked example
A company that sells warehouse scheduling software targets a 150-person logistics firm. Decision maker: the Operations Director. User: the warehouse shift manager. Budget: the Finance Director, but only above a certain spend. First email goes to the Operations Director about overtime costs. Five days later, a separate note to the shift manager about rota changes eating their Sunday. The shift manager replies first and forwards it up. That happens a lot.
Doing this for 200 companies
By hand, this takes 10 to 15 minutes per company. Fine for your top 20 accounts. For 200 it's most of a month. That's where a mapped list helps: send the company names or websites and the job you sell into, get back the named people with titles and verified emails.
For writing the emails themselves, the cold email playbook and free ICP builder are good next steps.
Questions people ask
How many people should I contact at one company?
Two or three: the likely decision maker, the day-to-day user, and one level up if the deal is large.
Is the CEO always the decision maker?
Under about 20 people, often yes. Above that, the head of the relevant function usually decides and the CEO approves big spends.
Should I email several people at once?
Stagger them by a few days and never copy them on the same email.
Send us your target list
Decision Makers at Your Target Companies: send the companies and the job you sell into, and we return the named decision makers with titles and verified work emails. Three companies mapped free first, then from $99 for 25.
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