Book meetings with decision makers: reach the person who decides, not the one who executes
Many meetings go to the wrong person and die there. Learn how to choose the right role, write about the recipient's problem and ask for something a manager can actually say yes to.
Book meetings with decision makers: who you should actually write to
Write to the person who owns the problem you solve and has authority over the budget for it, usually a manager one level above the people who use the solution. Describe the problem in their words, and ask for something small, such as a short call or a question about whether they recognise the picture. That way you avoid being passed down the chain.
It sounds obvious. In practice it goes wrong in a predictable way. You find a driven person who understands the product immediately, replies fast and asks good questions. Three calls later you know they like you, but they can't sign anything. The matter has to be "taken forward internally", and that is where it ends.
The implementer is not a problem in themselves. Often they are the person who best understands what is needed. But an implementer can rarely say yes, and can almost always say no or "not right now" without anyone questioning it. That is why your first contact should go to someone who can change priorities.
Choose the right role before you write a single line
The role matters more than the wording. A well-written email to the wrong title usually performs worse than a mediocre email to the right person. So don't start in the email draft. Start by looking back at your own deals.
- Take the most recent deals you won. Write down who signed, who wanted the solution and who used it. These are often three different people.
- Ask yourself whose problem you were really solving. If you save a technician time but the cost sits with a finance manager, it is the finance manager who feels the problem in numbers.
- Adjust for company size. In a small company the CEO or founder often decides most things. In a mid-sized one the decision usually sits with a sales manager, marketing manager or operations manager. In a large company several people have to say yes, and you start with whoever owns the issue, not whoever owns the budget for everything.
- Pick two or three titles per segment, not twenty. The narrower the role, the easier it is to write about something that actually rings true.
A common mistake is to assume that the top is always best. A CEO at a large company rarely has opinions about your particular system and will forward the email. That can work, but then you have asked for a different kind of meeting than you thought.
Write about the decision maker's problem, not your solution
A manager decides very quickly whether an email from an unknown sender is worth reading. What makes them read on is a first sentence about something that is already on their desk. Not about you.
Compare two openings to an operations manager at a logistics company:
We are a leading warehouse automation company and help businesses make their flows more efficient.
When order volumes swing over the year, the picking area tends to be either overstaffed or too cramped. Is that something you handle in a different way than with extra staff?
The first is about the sender. The second is about a problem the recipient remembers from last week. (The example is made up, but the pattern is what you should look for.)
How do you find the problem? By talking to your best customers and asking what happened just before they contacted you. It is rarely "we needed a supplier". It is usually something concrete: a lost customer, an audit, a new target from the board. Use their words, not your sales language. And write in Swedish to Swedish companies, in Finnish to Finnish ones. Language is part of the message.
We go through how to build a whole email step by step in how to write a sales email, and B2B cold email has more examples of what separates an email that gets a reply from one that gets deleted.
Make the ask small enough for a manager to say yes
This is where many people who otherwise do everything right fall down. They find the right person, write about the right problem and end with: "Can we book a one-hour demo next week?" A busy manager has no reason to give an hour to someone they have never met.
Ask for something that costs almost nothing to say yes to. A few variations:
- A question that can be answered in one sentence: "Is this something you're working on right now, or is it further down the road?"
- A short call, described as exactly that: "twenty minutes on the phone to see if it fits at all".
- A question about who owns the area, if you are unsure of the role: "Are you the right person for this, or should I talk to someone else?"
The last one is underrated. If a decision maker replies "talk to Anna", you have an internal referral instead of a cold contact. You then write to Anna and mention that her manager sent you. That carries weight.
Don't let go after one email either. No reply often just means the email arrived on a bad day. How many reminders are reasonable, how far apart and what they should contain is covered in B2B follow-up emails.
When the answer is "send information"
Sooner or later it comes: "Feel free to send some material and we'll take a look." It sounds like interest. More often it is a polite no, or a way to make you stop getting in touch.
Reply briefly and ask a question that shows whether the interest is real. Something like: "Happy to. So that I send the right thing, what is it you want to solve first?" If the person answers concretely, there is an opening. If no answer comes, you know where you stand, and you haven't spent a week on a presentation for someone who was never going to read it.
The same applies when someone lower in the organisation replies on the manager's behalf. Thank them, answer the question, but kindly ask for a call where the person who owns the decision joins too. You don't have to go around anyone. You simply say openly who needs to be in the room.
Do it yourself or hand it over
This work is more time-consuming than it looks. Someone has to define roles, build a list where every contact is accurate, write variants, run the sending without landing in spam, read every reply and book in the ones that fit. When it is done alongside regular selling, it is often the first thing to be deprioritised, just as the pipeline starts to thin out.
If you have a salesperson who can set aside fixed hours every week, doing it in-house is perfectly reasonable. If that time is missing, handing it over may be the smarter choice, but then insist that the provider works the way described here: the right role, personal emails and meetings that suit the target group. What it means to hand over the booking is covered in B2B appointment setting. If you are weighing it against doing the job yourself, you can see how we set up the work, from target group to a meeting booked in the client's calendar with a short summary of who the person is, under how ModoLeads works.
How to measure whether you succeed in booking meetings with decision makers
A booked meeting is not just a booked meeting. Ten calls with people who can't buy are worth less than one call with the person who can. So keep track of two things in your CRM: what role the meeting contact had, and whether the decision maker was present at the first or second meeting.
After a few weeks a pattern shows. Perhaps all the good meetings come from a certain title in companies of a certain size. Then you know where the next round should go. Perhaps most come from people who then disappear. Then the role in your list should move up a step.
Start with what is closest to hand: open your five most recent won deals and write down the title of the person who signed. Then look up five new companies where that title exists, and write a single email with one small question about a problem they recognise.
Frequently asked questions
Which title should I write to in order to reach the decision maker?
It depends on the size of the company and whose problem you solve. In small companies it is often the CEO or founder, in mid-sized ones usually a sales manager, marketing manager or operations manager. Look at who signed your most recent deals and start there.
What do I do if I keep ending up with an implementer instead of the manager?
Thank them for the call and ask for a short meeting where the person who owns the decision also takes part. Ask openly who needs to be there, so you don't go around anyone. Next time you can move the role in your list up a step.
What should I ask for in the first email?
Something small: a question that can be answered in one sentence, or a short call. Don't ask for a long demo from someone who doesn't know you. If you are unsure of the role, ask whether the recipient is the right person or whether you should talk to someone else.