Start with kinds of business, not a list of names
The most common mistake is starting with a list. A list of 5,000 companies feels productive, but it skips the most important question: which kinds of business have a real reason to buy from you?
Write down three or four answers in plain words. A caterer might say "offices that feed their teams on Fridays," "coworking spaces that run member events" and "property managers who host tenant breakfasts." An IT firm might say "accounting firms before tax season." Each of those is an idea about who might buy, and each can be tested.
A good idea about who might buy names a kind of business, a reason they would need you, and ideally a moment when they need you most.
Look for a reason and a moment
Businesses buy when something changes or repeats. The strongest reasons usually fall into a few groups:
- Something repeats: weekly meetings, monthly menus, seasonal events, month-end books.
- Something is growing: a company that is hiring, opening a second location or adding hours.
- Something is coming: busy season, an annual event, a lease renewal, a move.
- Something is required: privacy rules, safety standards, inspections.
You can often see these from the outside. Careers pages, event pages, news posts and "about us" pages say a lot about what a business needs next.
Find the person who decides
At every business there is someone whose job your offer makes easier. It is often not the owner or the most senior title. For office catering it is usually the office manager or an executive assistant. For cleaning at a dental practice, the practice manager. For printing at a nonprofit, the development director.
Aim for the person who would decide, and when that is unclear, someone close enough to the work to care. At a larger business it can make sense to reach two or three people, spaced out, and to stop the moment one of them replies.
Write one short, specific note
A first email to a business works best when it is short and about them. One true fact about their business, a picture of what would be better, who you are and what you do, and one easy question. Our guide to writing a first email to a business walks through each part with examples.
Send one follow-up a few days later if there is no answer, then move on. Silence is information too.
Test ideas side by side, then back the winner
You will not know in advance which idea works best. So test them at the same time: a few businesses a day for each idea, over a few weeks, and compare the replies. The idea that brings back interested people is the one to put more behind. The ones that stay quiet tell you where the demand is not, which is just as useful.
This is the whole method, and it works whether you do it by hand or not. It just takes time every day: finding businesses, reading their websites, finding the right person, writing, following up and keeping track.
Or let a swarm do it
DemandSwarm does this every weekday for you. You describe who might buy from you in a sentence or two. That is a swarm: one idea, tested for real. It finds the businesses, picks the person at each one, writes to them from what their own website says, sends from a private sending network, and brings back the replies with an answer drafted. Run several swarms to compare ideas, and put more behind the one that works.
Not sure where to start? The free who-could-buy tool suggests three kinds of business for whatever you sell.