Identifying the Right Decision Makers: A Tactical Guide

When polling BDRs and Sales Executives, one of the biggest challenges when prospecting is identifying decision-makers. Each customer poses a unique challenge on how to find out who is making the decisions with different titles, operating units, and other variables making this one of the toughest aspects of a BDR or Account Executives job. This article will delve into the process and provide some tactical ways to accomplish this, including leveraging software and other sources of information.

Tactical Ways to Identify Decision Makers

Because every organization’s organizational structure is nuanced, this process can be cumbersome to find who is ultimately evaluating different solutions and making technology decisions. Here are some of the tried at true methods we use to identify decision-makers as fast as possible.

LinkedIn:

By far, LinkedIn is the most powerful tool for identifying the decision-makers for your specific product or service. LinkedIn is a great resource, but if you are lucky enough to have access to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you are even at more of an advantage.

LinkedIn:

For those of you with access to only LinkedIn, the easiest way to identify the decision maker for your product or service is to go to your prospect’s homepage (See below). From there you will click on the “People” tab.

From the “People” Tab you can start to do some basic filtering. In the below example, we are looking for prospects who have some sort of mention of “Data Strategy” in their profile. This would be perfect for someone who sells a Master Data Management solution. We filtered an organization with Tens of Thousands of people down to 290 just by using this tactic.

Linkedin Sales Navigator:

If your organization provides you with a Sales Navigator license, then you are set up for success in finding the perfect prospects and decision-makers for your solution every time. Simply go to “Lead” Filters and click on Seniority Level “CXO”. This will provide you a list of their executive leadership team.

With the advanced filtering available within LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can filter down from thousands to just a handful of people who you know will be the perfect people to reach out to with your value proposition.

The first thing I do when trying to find who would ultimately own the decision is to go to the company page, and then filter on “Function”. In the below example, I filter by the function of “Marketing”, and then do further filtering by typing in “Digital Marketing” in the “Search Keywords” section.

In most occasions, an easy conversation to get to mine information within the account is to leverage prospects who follow your company. If someone follows your company, they probably know what you do and are more likely to take a meeting, which could potentially provide you with all the amazing nuggets of information. (See below on how to filter within Sales Navigator)

Another tactic is to find the C-Level Executive leader who is over a certain job function (CIO, CMO, CXO), and then search the connections that work with them. In the below screenshot, you will see that we have filtered those who are connections to the CMO and work in the Marketing department. This filtering got us down to 13 results: These results will provide you with a very targeted list of folks who work in the Marketing department at your prospect.

Social Media/News/Press Releases:

YouTube: As the second largest search engine in the world, YouTube is a great resource for finding information nuggets. You can search current C-Suite Executives and “Company Name” on YouTube and you will see all kinds of interviews and speeches from conferences.

Twitter: Follow all your prospect company pages and C-Suite on Twitter as you will be surprised at the gold that is posted.

Annual Presentations/Press Releases: If you are prospecting into a Publicly traded company, then each year they will release their annual report. Within this report, there will be a mention of the top strategic initiatives. Most times the top-level decision-makers will be in the press around their initiatives and what they are trying to deliver to the company.

Partners:

Many SaaS organizations have a partner network that they will co-sell with. Whether they are an Implementation partner or a technology partner that provides a symbiotic relationship, you can leverage each other’s knowledge of the account to refine your outreach strategy.

Conclusion

Identifying the right decision-makers is a crucial step in the sales process. By leveraging the right strategies and tools, BDRs can effectively identify these individuals and build meaningful relationships that drive growth and increase conversion rates. Remember, each company and decision-maker is unique, so it’s important to tailor your approach based on your understanding of the individual and their organization.