How to Find Decision Makers: A Founder’s Guide

Finding a decision maker is not about finding the person with the biggest title. Start with the problem you solve, identify who owns it, map the people involved in the purchase, and verify who can actually move the decision forward.

If you are searching for how to find decision makers, the first thing to change is the question.

Do not start with:

• Who is the CEO?
• Who has the highest title?
• Who should I email?

Start with:

Who owns the problem my product solves, who controls the budget, and who else has to agree before the purchase can happen?

That distinction matters because the person who feels the problem may not control the budget. The person who evaluates the product may not sign the agreement. Someone in finance, IT, procurement, security, or leadership may still be able to stop the purchase.

Current B2B sales guidance increasingly treats the buying decision as a group rather than a single person, while also warning that job titles alone are weak evidence of authority. citeturn1search2turn1search8

This is the Cusicon decision-maker process.

What is a decision maker?

A decision maker is a person who can materially influence whether a purchase moves forward, changes, or stops.

In a very small company, one person may own the problem, control the budget, evaluate the product, and approve the purchase.

In a larger company, those responsibilities can be spread across several people.

You do not always need to identify every role before starting a conversation. But you should understand that the first person who responds is not automatically the person who can approve the purchase.

Start with the problem, not the title

The easiest way to find the right person is to work backward from what your product changes.

Imagine you sell software that helps a sales team reduce the amount of time spent building prospect lists.

A weak search is:

A better search is:

That could lead you toward a founder at a small startup, a Head of Sales at a growing company, a Sales Operations leader at a larger company, or several people inside the same buying group.

Your ideal customer profile gives you the company-level filter. The decision-maker research identifies the people inside those companies who are relevant to the purchase.

How to find decision makers at a company

1. Define the buying problem

Write down the business problem your product solves in one sentence.

Then ask which function is responsible for that problem.

For example:

• More qualified pipeline → Sales or Revenue
• Lower customer churn → Customer Success or Product
• Faster hiring → People or Recruiting
• Lower infrastructure cost → Engineering or Finance
• More qualified leads → Marketing or Sales
• Fewer manual finance tasks → Finance or Operations

This gives you a department before you ever search for a person's name.

2. Translate the function into likely roles

Once you know the function, list several possible titles.

Do not assume one title is universal.

A revenue problem could belong to a Founder, CEO, Head of Sales, VP Sales, CRO, Revenue Operations leader, Sales Operations leader, or another role depending on company size and structure.

Recent B2B decision-maker research makes the same point: titles vary by company, so role, function, seniority, and actual authority need to be considered together. citeturn1search0turn1search4

3. Start with the company, then find the people

Once you have a target account, research the company before searching for contacts.

Look at:

• Company website and team pages
• LinkedIn company page
• Leadership pages
• Recent hiring activity
• Press releases and company announcements
• Public job descriptions
• Annual reports or regulatory filings for public companies
• Customer stories and public product information

The goal is to understand how the company is organized and which function owns the problem.

4. Build a small buying-group map

Instead of producing one name, build a short map.

For a small business, several of these boxes may contain the same person. For a larger company, they may be different people.

5. Use buying signals to find the right moment

Finding the right person is only half the job. Timing matters too.

Look for evidence that the problem has become active:

• A company hires into the function affected by your product.
• A new leader joins the relevant department.
• The company launches a new product or enters a new market.
• The company is growing rapidly and the existing workflow may not scale.
• A leader publicly discusses the problem you solve.
• The company is evaluating alternatives or changing vendors.
• A new initiative creates a need for the capability you provide.

These are not proof that someone wants to buy. They are reasons to investigate further. Your buying signal framework is useful here because the signal should connect the person, problem, trigger, and observable action.

6. Verify the person before outreach

Do not build an outreach list from one database field and assume it is correct.

Verify:

• Does the person still work at the company?
• Is the role current?
• Does the function match the problem?
• Does the company match your ICP?
• Is there evidence that this person is connected to the relevant business area?
• Is there a current reason for contacting them?

Public research can identify likely people, but authority is often contextual. Treat your result as a hypothesis until company evidence or a real conversation confirms it. citeturn1search0turn1search2

Where to find decision makers

You do not need one magical database. You need enough evidence to identify the right role and verify it.

Company websites

Leadership pages, team pages, press releases, case studies, and contact pages can reveal who owns a function.

LinkedIn

Use company, function, seniority, role, and recent activity to narrow the people inside a target account. Search for variations of the role rather than one exact title.

Job postings

Hiring can reveal both the function and the person or department responsible for it. A company hiring heavily in a function may also be undergoing a change that affects how it buys tools and services.

Public company documents

For public companies, filings and official announcements can help map executives, departments, and strategic priorities.

Existing conversations

If you already know someone inside the company, ask where the decision sits instead of asking for a random introduction.

For example:

That question can be more useful than “Who is the decision maker?” because it starts with the business function instead of forcing the person to name an individual.

How to find the decision maker when you have no name

You can still start with a company and work toward the right person.

This process is slower than buying a giant list, but the output is different. You are not collecting names. You are building a reasoned prospect list.

How to know if you found the right person

Ask five questions:

1. Fit: Is this person inside the type of company I serve?
2. Ownership: Is their function connected to the problem?
3. Authority: Can they influence, approve, or block the purchase?
4. Trigger: Is there a current reason the problem matters?
5. Evidence: What makes me believe this is true?

If you cannot answer these, you may have found a person with a relevant title rather than a relevant buyer.

What to say when you reach the decision maker

Do not make the first message about your company history.

Make it about the reason the conversation is relevant.

A simple structure is:

For example, instead of:

you could make the reason more specific:

The point is not to force a sale in the first message. It is to establish whether the problem and ownership assumptions are correct.

Common mistakes founders make

Searching for the biggest title

The CEO may be the buyer in a ten-person company and one stakeholder among many in a large company. Company size and purchase context change the answer.

Searching for one exact title

Titles vary. Build a role map instead of relying on one keyword.

Confusing the user with the buyer

The person who uses the product every day may be the strongest champion but not the person who approves the budget.

Ignoring the problem owner

A senior executive may have authority but little day-to-day connection to the problem. A functional owner can often give you better information about the situation.

Skipping verification

People change jobs. Teams change. Responsibilities move. A six-month-old contact record can create a completely wrong assumption.

Contacting people without a reason

A correct name is not a buying signal. You still need a relevant problem, trigger, or reason for the conversation.

Decision maker vs buyer vs champion

These terms are often used as if they mean the same thing. They do not always describe the same person.

In a small company, one person can occupy every role. In a larger company, the roles may be distributed across several people.

That is why the useful question is not simply “Who is the decision maker?” It is “How does this company make this particular buying decision?”

The Cusicon decision-maker loop

The last step matters. Every conversation should improve your understanding of who actually buys.

If you repeatedly find that the person you first contact is not involved in the purchase, that is not just a sales problem. It is market information. Your ICP, buyer map, messaging, or prospecting process may need to change.

Finding the right person is only the beginning

A decision maker is not valuable because they have a senior title. They are valuable because they are connected to a real business decision.

The strongest prospect usually sits at the intersection of:

That is the difference between building a contact list and finding people who can actually move a purchase forward.