HOW TO REACH ALMOST ANY CEO…
I wrote the orginal version of this article almost a decade ago. I now teach a version of this to my intro to sales class at Virginia Tech. Most of this still holds up. I’ve added a couple of pandemic specific notes.
After I quit teaching high school the GOAT and I started a boutique private equity fund. While it sounded awesome to say my job title at dinner parties my job at the time was pretty simple -Find good companies. Reach out to their owners and make offers to buy them. That’s it.
Now unfortunately (or fortunately) CEO’s of businesses don’t put their
email or phone number out because people like me would bombard them
all day. To reach people I developed a 10 step system to find almost anyone.
10. Find an email address
If their company has a website my first move is to take the web
address such as mastermind.com then input it into Whois.com. Whois
will tell you who has registered a website. For a surprising number of
small businesses the person who registered their website is also the
owner.
Sometimes it is their technical contact. Still write their email down,
the structure will be important later.
9. Use email structure to find the owner’s email. Lets say you
discover that the Vice President of the company is named Bob Smith and
his email address is BSmith@awesome.com. You can assume then that the
CEO named Ryan Jordan will have an email at RJordan@awesome.com. This
is not a hard and fast rule, but it helps. Sometimes if all you have
is the first and last name of a person you can try variations of their
email to see what works. Here are some frequent combinations:
Derrick Thomas
Derrick@awesome.com
DThomas@awesome.com
Derrick.thomas@awesome.com
d.thomas@awesome.com
Derrrick_thomas@awesome.com
You can then use google or a tool like NeverBounce, or ZeroBounce, or verify email.org, or hunter.io to verify their email address.
2021 Update: When I started this company from our kitchen, I was on a shoestring budget, so I never considered simply paying for email addresses. But, it is possible to shortcut some of this email finding by paying to play. ZoomInfo is one of the best. These servicves are not cheap though. I think it’s 15K a year for access to one of these services. If you got that laying around, it might be worth it.
8. When you send an email…keep it short. No more than 3 lines. Get
to the damn point.
Here’s an example of a real email
Subject: Question…
Have you thought about selling your business?
My company is looking to purchase a business in your industry and
yours is one of the best?
Can we have a brief phone call this Thursday?
Best,
Me
Also use a service like https://www.marketo.com/software/marketo-sales-connect/to track your emails.
7. Social engineer your way to the phone number. A super busy person
almost always has a gate keeper whose job it is to keep toads like you
away from their masters. They take their jobs very seriously. Here are
ways that I have used to get around gate keepers.
A. Call at the following times, 7:30am-8:30am, 12pm-1pm, and 5pm-6pm.
Why? Because these are the times when the gatekeeper is least likely to
be at her desk, and the CEO is most likely to answer the phone
themselves
B. if you reach a gate keeper be direct, tell them who you need to
reach, and then pose the request that is too big for him or her to
handle without putting you through, here are some examples
Me: Hi, I need to speak to Bob ASAP
GK: May I ask who is speaking
Me: Broderick
GK: What is this in reference to?
(there are a million ways to respond to this question, whether you
choose humor, rudeness, or confession the key is confidence. Whatever
you say here, mean it)
Me: He’ll know. (Don’t say anything else)
Or
Me: I have a bag of cash sitting on my desk with his name in it
Or
Me: We were discussing an 8 million dollar deal and got cut off
Or
Me: I have his name written on the back of this business card and it
says call me (stolen from Jim Cramer)
Or
Me: I’m taking over the world, I need Karen to be my 2nd in command
You get the point. Ooze confidence.
Now this is important always say this, as nicely as possible.
Me: please put through direct and not to voicemail hell. Or (fake
threaten) I’ll have to call back again.
Ok, you’ve sent an email (and tracked it). You called and left a
voicemail. And still no response? Now it’s time to get craftier…
6. Super Secret Alpha. Use twitter. Find the CEO of a company. Google:
CEO of awesome company twitter. If they have a twitter account, great,
you’re going to tweet bomb them. Start friendly, but I find that you
have a 50/50 shot of getting a response when using twitter.
Here’s an example: @CEO I love your company and I have 10 ideas that
could make you more money tomorrow … DM me
5. Super Secret B. Call their lawyer. Again, you google : name of the
business and law firm. A lot of companies will get sued or have some
public action and 9/10 they will use the same firm for everything.
Call their lawyer. Explain what you are doing. Be succinct. Remember,
be confident. And ask them to connect you. This works surprisingly
well.
Still nothing…wow, they really don’t want to talk to you. Normal
people, would stop here. But normal people don’t get stinky rich. So,
what follows is definitely outside the norm.
Be careful here, because you now walk a very thin line between
persistent and crazy.
4. Show up at their office. This is an all or nothing play. You do not
have an invite. You are not wanted. You have no reason to be there. So
you are putting the other person on edge. I’ve only tried this a
couple of times. Once I got offered a job on the spot, another time
the police were called and I was escorted out of the building by
security. If you show up at the office have your elevator pitch
perfect. Like Eminem says, you only get one shot
(http://rapgenius.com/Eminem-lose-yourself-lyrics)
4A. Eh. I wrote this almost 10 years ago when I was younger and dumber. Don’t show up to anyone’s office during a pandemic. Maybe, don’t show up at anyone’s office. (But I wanted to share…shrug emojii).
3. Now a lower risk move is to be in the same place. One of the best
ways to do this is conferences. In most industries there are only one
or two major conferences a year. You can get to a ton of CEO’s this
way.
3A. Again. Pandemic rules are different. But eventually (hopefully) we get to be in-person again. Going to conferences works well. Pro-tip. Find a bar. Sit at the bar. Buy people drinks. But don’t drink anything stronger than cranberry juice.
2. Find a river guide. In every industry there is someone (usually an
older person) who has been around forever. They have worked with
everybody. They are loved by everyone. Get this person on your side.
Now how do you do that. Heck, how do you find them. It’s pretty
simple:
A. Ask anybody you talk to in the industry, who else should I
talk to and why. The same names will start to come up.
B. When you contact this person ask them for help.
That’s it. It’s my belief that as naturally social creatures human
beings are built to help each other. We just have to ask.
1. Get them to contact you i.e. be the most interesting person in the room.
If you have something irresistible to offer (and you tell everyone) word will spread. Be someone of value, with somethint of value, communicate that value (to everyone) and the world will come to you.
That’s it for today boys and girls. Good luck.