How to cold-email someone who may or may not own the company?

February 04, 2021

by a searcher from Harvard University in Boulder, CO, USA

I've started building a pipeline of companies to cold-call/cold-email and realized quickly how difficult it is to confirm that a person is truly the owner of a company. E..g. maybe the closest I can find by google sleuthing is the "president" - this could be the owner, but not guaranteed. Or, I found a company where LinkedIn lists an individual as "VP of Engineering" .... but they've been around since###-###-#### the year the company was founded) and a scraping site site lists them as President.

In such cases do you:
a) just assume you are emailing the owner and assume they'll ignore if not
b) start off by asking "are you the right person to talk to? if not, who is?" (could be awkward if they aren't the right person?)
c) dig deeper than I've been able to dig to get the right person's info

Related: if you can only find a public contact phone # or email address that likely goes to customer service or sales... do you just ask "can I be connected to the owner?"

Reply by a searcher
from Harvard University in MG9V+6H2, Guatemala City, Guatemala

I go with A. I have also a different email template that I use when I am truly not sure whether the person is the owner, that is much more vague and designed just to get the foot in the door.

In general, if the company seems really attractive/great fit with what I am looking for, I tend to be a bit vague in my email communication so as to be able to back pedal if it turns out that the person is not the owner (I have several times ended up connecting with a hired CEO who would be the person I'd be directly replacing, so high conflict of interest there on their behalf in helping connect with owner). However, I am in a different country so some tactics might work differently than in the US.

Reply by a searcher
from University at Albany, State University of New York in Poughkeepsie, NY, USA

I've made the "mistake" several times in 2020 and early this year. Some even came after extensive research only to find it just wasn't current info.
a/b I assume I am going to make a new acquaintance in every phone cal/e,mail Partially so I do not have to ask "if this is the right person," they tend to volunteer it If I am not the "pushy sales person."

c. Research has gotten me far but is imperfect. So I just pick up the phone, and also with email I try and make my intentions mostly clear but am really just trying to create a reply or something I can follow up on a call and mention

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