How Do I Find Out Who Can Say Yes before I Pitch Anyone?
To find the decision maker before outreach, trace three things. Who owns the budget your product would come out of, who is measured on the problem it fixes, and who approved tools like yours in the past. Job titles are a weak guide to all three. The answers are in public sources such as annual reports, job listings, and case studies, and a few minutes per account is enough to decide whether to pitch.
Somewhere in that company is a person who can approve the purchase, a person who will block it, and several people who will take your meetings for months. Sorting them out before the pitch decides who gets your time.
Why Isn't the Biggest Title Always the Person Who Can Say Yes?
The authority to buy is spread across people, and rank is an unreliable guide to who holds it. Force Management's guidance on the economic buyer, by Shelby Bock, describes the person who matters as the one who can move and change spending to create budget for your product.
Having a budget and being able to create or redirect one are different powers. The second one is what you're looking for, and it can sit below the title you'd guess.
Where that authority sits can also shift with risk, and industries differ in which direction. Juha Munnukka and Pentti Järvi, in a 2008 study in the Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management based on interviews with fifteen Finnish business organizations, found that when a purchase felt riskier, high-tech companies relied more on informal, decentralized decisions. Traditional manufacturers handled the same pressure by centralizing and formalizing the decision.
For a purchase the buyer sees as risky, look for the decision near the team doing the work at a technology company, and higher up, with a formal approver, at a traditional manufacturer.
How Do I Find the Decision Maker from Public Information?
Follow three traces. Each one leaves public evidence you can check before any conversation.
Trace one, the budget. For a public company, the annual report is management's own account of priorities and spending. The SEC's guide to reading a 10-K explains where to look.
The business description says what the company sells, the risk factors appear roughly in order of importance, and the management discussion covers what leadership is spending on and worried about. A private company has no annual report, so use its leadership page, funding announcements, and the customer stories other vendors have published about it.
For any company, public or private, job listings show where money is being spent. Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, and colleagues, in the Journal of Labor Economics in 2022, used online job listings at scale to show that hiring text reflects the technology a company is taking on.
A listing for someone to run the work your product does is worth reading as a sign of budget, and the hiring manager for that role is a good first guess at the budget owner.
Trace two, the metric. Someone is measured on the problem you solve. Their title varies from company to company, and their name appears wherever that metric gets discussed, such as earnings calls, conference talks, case studies with other vendors, and posts about the problem.
Trace three, the precedent. Whoever approved the last tool of your kind has shown they can approve spending in your category. Past purchases also shape the next one. TrustRadius and Pavilion's 2024 B2B Buying Disconnect report, from a large survey of technology buyers, found buyers strongly favoring products they already knew and vendors they already had a relationship with. Case studies, review sites, and vendor logos on a careers page show who has bought in your category before.
Trace three assumes a precedent exists. Daniel McQuiston, in a 1989 Journal of Marketing study of industrial purchase decisions, found that who takes part in a purchase, and how much influence each person has, depends on the purchase itself, with how new it is to the company and how important it is mattering most.
If the company has never bought in your category, the approver of a nearby tool is a weaker guide, so weight the first two traces more heavily.
How Long Should Prospect Research Take per Account?
Minutes. The goal is a decision about whether to pitch, and the research stops being worth it once it takes as long as the outreach would.
Give each account a fixed amount of time. If you can name two of the three in that time, pitch. If you can name only one, send a lighter first touch aimed at learning the others. If you can name none, move to the next account and come back when something changes there.
How Do I Find the Decision Maker in Early Conversations?
Treat early conversations as research with someone inside the company. Find out who owns the number the problem affects, who approved the last tool like yours, and who would have to agree before anything moved. Learn how the company buys, including who signs, who reviews security, and when budgets get set.
Armand Farrokh of 30 Minutes to President's Club, in a 2024 newsletter on getting to power, recommends mapping the likely champions, budget holders, and influencers before the first meeting. He also suggests testing a contact's influence by asking questions only someone with decision authority could answer.
What if the Decision Maker Won't Take My Call?
Go through the people who reach them. The contact who can forward a short summary. The manager whose team would change and who has a reason to raise it. The technical reviewer whose questions the decision maker will ask before agreeing. Each of them has an interest in the decision and a way to reach the person who makes it.
Bock's Force Management guidance on reaching decision makers comes down to three moves. Frame the request in the prospect's interest, earn it with credibility, and arrive through an introduction.
Keep the request small. Fifteen minutes on one question the decision maker already cares about is easier to forward than a request for a demo, and easier to say yes to.
Pick three target accounts this week and write three lines for each. The budget owner, the person measured on the problem, and whoever approved the last similar tool. Pitch only the accounts where you can fill in at least two.
If you want a process for choosing which companies to reach and who to call first inside them, Find Who Can Say Yes covers what to look for in a company and who to prioritize.
References & Related Reading
- How MEDDICC Helps Win with Decision-Makers, Shelby Bock, Force Management, current page.
- How to Read a 10-K, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov.
- Artificial Intelligence and Jobs: Evidence from Online Vacancies, Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, Jonathon Hazell, and Pascual Restrepo, Journal of Labor Economics, 2022.
- 2024 B2B Buying Disconnect Report: The Year of the Brand Crisis, TrustRadius with Pavilion, 2024.
- How to Multithread and Get to Power in Sales, Armand Farrokh, 30 Minutes to President's Club, 2024.
- Managing Risks in Organizational Purchasing through Adaptation of Buying Centre Structure and the Buying Process, Juha Munnukka and Pentti Järvi, Journal of Purchasing and Supply Management, 2008.
- Novelty, Complexity, and Importance as Causal Determinants of Industrial Buyer Behavior, Daniel H. McQuiston, Journal of Marketing, 1989.
