Most people don't buy things for their businesses on impulse. A bad buying decision can be career-limiting.

Given that a B2B sale takes time and often includes multiple decision-makers, I find that good second step in the sales process is an viral email "advertorial". This short, informative note gets right to the point of the value proposition, provides relevant links for more information, provides permission to forward and provides my complete contact information.

I'll get to some examples of what I mean by a viral email advertorial another day because the focus of this post is simply identifying the correct email address to send the message to.

What's an Email Address?

This may sound like a dumb question, but knowing how an email address is structured is key for what will follow. You can get all of the detailed information on this on Wikipedia, but here's the executive summary:

• The local-part is before the @ sign is of the address. It is often the username of the recipient
• The domain-part is after the @ sign. It may be a host name or domain name

Local Address

Most business users have an email that includes elements of their first and last names. Here are some examples for John B. Smith:

• jsmith@ (first initial, last name)
• jbsmith@ (first and second initials, last name)
• johns@ (first name, last initial)
• johnsmith@ (first name, last name). This may also include separators such as "." and "_" so you get john.smith@ or john_smith@

Some businesses have generic functional names, such as sales@ or service@. As a salesperson, I don't like generic addresses as much because I have no way of knowing if the message actually goes the person I want to communicate with.

A handful of people use their personal email addresses for business (e.g. redhotmama@, bigjohn@, etc.) For obvious reasons, this is not very professional and a red flag to me. Is the person who would use a personal email like this really the decision-maker?

Domain Address

A domain has 2 parts:

• domain (yahoo, google, ford, etc.)
• extension (.com, .net, .uk, .de, etc.)

Most businesses now have their own domain names. This domain is most commonly used for the company website and for company email.

Very small businesses may not have a domain, so they use a generic domain such as yahoo.com, google.com or something similar. I red flag any businesses that use generic domains as it usually means they are business of 1 person and therefore not often a great prospect for what I selling.

Many international businesses have regional domains. (Ebay, for example, has ebay.com (US and international), ebay.ca (Canada), ebay.de (Germany), ebay.fr (France) and so on.)

Confirmed Email Address

You have the contact's business card? Congratulations... your mission is accomplished. Fill in the to: field and press send!

No Confirmed Email Address

This is where the fun begins! The following are hints and tips on how to find a person's email address.

Since we are discussing B2B (business to business sales), let's assume that the person who will decide on whether the company will do business with us or not is the President.

Call the Person

This sounds like an obvious step, but there are times you may want to send the advertorial before you call.

Call the Company

If you know the name of the person but don't know their email address, try calling the main posted number for the company and explain your dilemma to the receptionist. Given the scourge that is SPAM, most companies have policies in place that discourage handing out the private email addresses of their executives without good reason. Make sure you have a good business reason to offer the "gatekeeper" and you will likely get the information you seek.

Go to the Website

Let's say you know the name of the company, but not the name of the person you need to contact. Go the the company's website. (That's easy if you have the www.companyname.com domain. If not, use Google, MSN or Yahoo to find it.) The names of key executives can be found in the following pages:

• about us
• management
• in the news (quotations and other references in company media releases)
• annual reports

Checking the prospect's website is always a good idea. If the company's website isn't working, then your prospect is either out of business, has been acquired or merged or they have changed domains. It also means that the email address you have most likely won't work, so you'll have to move on to the next step.

Search the Web

No reference to the name of the President anywhere on the company's website? It happens, but that's a red flag to me. It likely means that the company is very small. In any case, this is where you put on your detective hat and start sleuthing using a search engine.

While each search is different, the following searches generally get you the information you are looking for. In this example, I want to know the name of the President of ABC Manufacturing (www.abc.com) and I am using the Google search engine (www.google.com):

• president @abc.com
• president "ABC Manufacturing" (note the quotation marks)
• CEO @abc.com

Let's say that our search turns up a recent news release that announces the appointment of John Smith as President of ABC Manufacturing.

Guessing the Email Address

Armed with this information, we call ABC and ask the receptonist for John Smith's email address. The pleasant, but firm representative of ABC informs us that it is company policy to give out email addresses and most certainly not John Smith's! Furthermore, it is not possible to call or leave a voice mail message for Mr. Smith. Sorry. Click.

I now go back and do a web search (as above) to determine how the local address (name part) is structured. All I need to find is a reference to someone who works for the company, as I already know the domain and the name of the executive I am trying to contact. Here are some searches that work well for me:

• sales @abc.com
• support "ABC Manufacturing" (note the quotation marks)
• @abc.com

There are lots of other ways to get someone's email address, but at some point the sleuthing work becomes more trouble than it is worth. Here are some thoughts when you get frustrated:

• try a shotgun blast! To reach John Smith, blind cc: all of the probable combinations to his name: jsmith@, jdsmith@, john@, johns@, johnsmith@, john_smith@, john.smith@
• try calling someone other than the receptionist and ask them

Good luck and happy hunting!