Priya sells route-tracking software to companies with vehicles. In March she emailed 40 fleet managers at mid-size distributors and got two replies, both saying "not my budget." In April she emailed 40 owners of landscaping companies with 8 to 20 trucks and got eleven. Same product, same email. The only thing that changed was who she wrote to.

The decision maker is whoever can say yes and release the money. At a company with five employees that's nearly always the owner. At a company with 500 it's a specific role that depends on what you sell, and you often need two people: the one who feels the problem and the one who approves the spend. Here's how to find both without a paid database.

Who decides depends on what you sell

Start from your product, not the org chart. Ask: when a company buys this, whose problem does it solve, and whose budget does it come out of? Cleaning services and repairs come out of the office or facilities budget. Payroll and benefits go to finance or HR. Marketing services go to the owner at a small firm, a marketing lead at a bigger one. Software that saves drivers time belongs to operations.

Write the answer as a short list of two or three titles, most likely first. Priya's: owner, operations manager, fleet manager. That list is what you search for. It's also the same idea as who to talk to first, applied to one company at a time.

Small companies: the owner

If the business has under about 20 employees, assume the owner decides, even when someone else has a manager title. Owners of small businesses sign off on nearly everything that costs more than a few hundred dollars. Find them on the company website's About page, in a state business filing, on the Google profile (owners often reply to reviews), or in the license lookup for regulated trades.

Write directly to the owner by first name. Skip "To whom it may concern" and skip the receptionist-style "info@" address. A short, plain note from one business owner to another gets answered more than a pitch addressed to a role.

Mid-size companies: the budget holder

From roughly 50 employees up, the owner has delegated, and the person you want runs the function you touch. For Priya at a distributor with 300 staff, that's the director of operations or transportation. Search "director of transportation" along with the company name and city. Company team pages, conference speaker lists, press releases, industry association rosters and professional profiles often name them.

A good rule: aim one level above the daily user, and one level below the person who signs the biggest checks. A manager can recommend but rarely buys. A vice president can buy but rarely answers a cold email. The director level answers more often than either, and can usually walk a purchase through. If you're unsure which level to try first, compare your ideal customer description with the people who have actually replied so far.

Look at job posts and team pages

Job posts tell you who's about to get a problem. A company hiring a second dispatcher is probably outgrowing its current process, and the posting often names the hiring manager or the department head. Team pages and "Meet the staff" pages list titles outright. Check the dates; a page that hasn't changed since 2021 may name someone who left. When in doubt, call the main number and ask if the person still works there, which takes ten seconds and saves a bounced email.

Titles also mislead. A "coordinator" at one company runs a department, while a "vice president" at another is a sales title with no budget. Look at what the person actually does in their posts and bios before you decide who matters. Two or three weeks of paying attention to this will teach you which titles reply to your kind of email.

Also read the company's own writing. A blog post by the head of operations, a podcast guest listing, or a quote in a local business journal all identify someone who handles the topic you care about. Don't recite it back like you've been watching them, but let it shape your first line. "I read your note about route changes in winter" lands better than "I help companies like yours."

Confirm with a short call

The most dependable way to confirm a decision maker is to call the main number and ask. Keep it short:

"Hi, I'm trying to reach whoever handles vehicle maintenance and routing for your company. Could you tell me who that is?"

Then: "Is that Daniel Okafor? Great, and is he the person who'd decide on something like that, or is there someone else involved?" People tell you more than you'd expect, because you've been polite and specific. You'll get a name, a title and often a direct line, and you've also confirmed there's a real person with that job. This takes 90 seconds. It beats a week of guessing. If you'd rather not call, the same question works on a short contact-form message.

Rocketship's AI worker can do this step for you once you describe the buyer in plain English, such as "operations directors at distributors with 100 to 500 employees in Ohio". It finds them by name with verified contact details, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting. You can still call to confirm, and the booking inside Rocketship keeps your notes with the person.

Write to two people, not twenty

It's tempting to email everyone with a relevant title at a target company. Don't. Three or four people getting the same pitch from a stranger looks like spam, and they'll compare notes. Pick the most likely decision maker and one other (the person who'd use it). Send to the first. If you hear nothing after two follow-ups, try the second with a different message: "I wrote to Daniel last week about route planning. Wanted to check if you're the right person, or if someone else owns this."

That second email gets forwarded as often as it gets answered, and a forward from inside the company carries more weight than anything you could write yourself. Keep outbound modest, around 20 to 50 emails a day per inbox, include your address and an opt-out, and honor opt-outs the same day.

Record who said what

Add three columns to your sheet or CRM: who you believe decides, who you confirmed it with, and the date. When a contact says "I'm not the one, talk to Angela," write that down and change the record. Lists that look finished often hide this problem; a pipeline that is really a list is full of names nobody has confirmed. Teams like office managers and facilities leads get their own treatment in how to find office managers and facility managers.

Once a person says yes to a conversation, ask them two things: what does the process look like on your side, and who else should see this? Their answers tell you if you found the right person, and they set up the quote. How to qualify a lead with three questions gives you the wording.

Reaching the right person is half of getting a customer, and it's tedious to do by hand at volume. Rocketship finds the buyers, emails them from your own Gmail, follows up, and books the meeting on its own. Plans that get you customers start at $24.99 a month (Launch), and every monthly plan starts with a 7-day free trial, card required. Answering your existing number is included; a dedicated line is $5 a month.