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When you come across an exciting, relevant new business opportunity you want to grab it with both hands. The problem is, a lot of leads don’t come with immediate or direct access to the people with the power to make a decision over who gets a pitch and who doesn’t. If you do all of the hard work in the background in identifying an opportunity and researching the prospect, you want to make sure that you aren’t held back by gatekeepers or passed from pillar to post by people inside the company who show an interest in your proposition but have little or no power of persuasion when it comes to the decision to invest. So what do you do about it? ‍Clarity Stack has been designed to help you find not only prospects, their location and the sectors they work in; but the decision makers who control the pursestrings and can influence who gets a position in the boardroom and who doesn’t. All data contained within the Clarity Stack platform, which consists of more than nine million contacts, is GDPR compliant meaning you can reach out with confidence and start your relationship on the right foot.

How to engage business decision makers

Once you’re equipped with these details it’s down to you and your ability to engage those contacts in conversation, building up a relationship and discussing exactly what it is that they’re looking for and how your business can help solve their current problems. 

The first thing to remember is that the people in decision making roles are often the busiest so their time is valuable - make every second count! Engaging them in a conversation is a great way to learn more about them individually so that you can build up to a discussion about a working relationship and an opportunity to pitch for business, but keep those initial conversations work-related until a relationship has been established. 

There are a number of ways in which you can reach out to them, of course. These days decision makers tend to be accessible through a multitude of different methods and platforms, and each requires a slightly different approach:

• Social Media. A great place to start following decision makers, social media enables you to learn a bit more about each person including their interests and some of their views on the industry they work in. 
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The best place to operate in this respect is on LinkedIn, which is a professional social network where people tend to share posts relating to their company and the industry they work in. This is an opportunity to see what they have posted previously in relation to pain points and opportunities, as well as articles and content they have shared which you might be able to comment on and strike up a conversation which can lead to a more direct discussion in the future.

• Phone. The oldest, or should we say tried and tested, method of initial outreach. Picking up the phone and arranging a meeting with someone to discuss an opportunity is great as you can pick up on tones and have an open conversation about potential projects and how you might be able to help. 

It’s every bit as important to listen on the phone as it is to talk, as you can allow them to speak and establish an opportunity for you to chip in with an accurate, thought-out response relating to how your service or business might be able to assist them. It’s all about selling, without being too pushy and over-selling to a point where the relationship breaks down before it’s even started. 

• Email. Of course, email is always a great way of striking up a conversation and reaching out to people because everyone is accessible via email on their phone, laptop or tablet. 

While a very easy form of communication to simply delete or mark as spam, email enables you to reach out to people and share useful links and information that would enable them to learn more about you as you attempt to learn about them, too. You can open a door for a more detailed conversation or even a meeting (face-to-face or via a digital conference on Zoom or Teams), and exchange a full chat detailing current problems and your solutions. 

At the end of the day, engaging a decision maker in a conversation is all about making a great first impression and opening the door for a meeting or pitch opportunity. Listening to what they have to say and offering a solution without being overly “salesy” can really help you to keep the conversation going and then you can learn more about what they need.