How to Find and Connect with Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry

Are you a sales rep tasked with reaching out to the great and the good of the manufacturing industry? 

How’s that going for you? 

Perhaps you’re drowning in leads – in which case, good for you! – or does it feel more like getting blood out of a stone? 

If you’ve landed on this blog post, we’ll take a guess that it’s likely the latter. And don’t worry: we get it. Last year, the private sector manufacturing industry employed nearly 15 million people in the US – and it’s your job to weed through all of these people to find the top executives your business needs to sell to. That’s not easy. 

Luckily for you, we want to help! This blog post covers exactly how you can turn prospecting from a drag into a joy. Here’s what we’re going to cover:  

• Understanding the Target Audience of Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry
• The Old Way of Finding Manufacturing Industry Executives 
• Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Identify Top Executives in Manufacturing: the Newer, Faster Way
• How to Find the Email Addresses (and Phone Numbers) of Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry

Once you’ve finished reading, you’ll know exactly how to find the right people to speak to. What’s more, you’ll be a pro at hunting down their contact details too. All that’s left for you to do after that is work some outreach magic – you’ll be selling in no time at all.

Time to say goodbye to painful prospecting. Let’s get started.

Understanding the Target Audience of Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry

First things first, let’s take a look at who a top executive in the manufacturing industry actually is. 

Broadly speaking, it’s likely they first got a bachelor’s degree in engineering, business or another related field. While working up the ranks, they might have specialized in a specific area of manufacturing, such as supply chain, production, or quality control, and then moved into a C-level or VP-level role.

Let’s dig a little deeper into what these roles look like. 

The Chief Executive Officer in the Manufacturing Industry

There’s not much wriggle room up from a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) – unless you’re sitting on the Board of Directors. It’s the CEO’s job to set out where a company is going – and then get it there through making high-level strategic decisions and making sure each department is on the same page. They’ll often have extensive industry experience and possibly an engineering background themselves. 

The Chief Operating Officer in the Manufacturing Industry

The Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a manufacturing business will often have experience in operations management within the manufacturing sector. They’re responsible for making sure the company is running smoothly, and making sure that production, quality control and supply chains are all as efficient as they can be. 

The Chief Technology Officer in the Manufacturing Industry

A Chief Technology Officer (CTO) oversees a business’s product development and innovation. They’ll be responsible for research and development, and making sure that the product direction is in line with the business goals. A background in engineering or technology is essential here, as well as a strong understanding of the manufacturing industry and its processes. 

The Chief Supply Chain Officer in the Manufacturing Industry

The Chief Supply Chain Officer (CSCO) manages the supply chain from start to finish, including procurement, logistics, inventory management and distribution. Their role is focused on making the supply chain as efficient as possible, and that everything’s delivered on time. 

The Vice President in the Manufacturing Industry

A Vice President is often just below a C-level executive in an org chart. Generally speaking, they’ll oversee a specific department within the company and will be solely focussed on making sure their department is performing to the standard the business needs. 

In manufacturing, these departments could be Engineering, Supply Chain, Quality Assurance or Operations, to name a few. 

Getting to Know Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry 

Now we’ve run through the titles you’re looking to find, let’s find out a bit more about the actual people themselves and the traits they might have. After all, you need to make sure you’re speaking their language from the get-go – otherwise your entire process is going to be an uphill battle. 

Decision-making authority: these executives have the power to make quick and informed decisions – which they often have to do to solve production issues or answer to market demands without putting strain on the rest of the business. They’ll also have the power to introduce new tools and tech if they think something’s going to help improve the current way of working. 

Risk Management Focus: manufacturing is a risky business. Equipment could fail or supply chains could be disrupted – and by nature it’s riskier safety-wise for employees, too. Top executives in the industry have to be focused on mitigating business risks to avoid project delays or accidents. 

Strategic vision: top executives in the industry have to constantly be focussed on the future, making sure the business is driving towards the right goal while keeping in line with industry changes and trends, and staying competitive.  

How Can I Decide Which Top Executives to Target in the Pharmaceutical Industry? 

We can’t do this bit for you (as much as we’d like to!). Why? Well, if you think about it, your product is (hopefully) pretty unique. And its uniqueness means you’re going to be selling to different businesses – and only you know who these businesses should be. 

Hopefully your company has a well-documented ICP with traits that make them easy to identify? If not, we’d recommend looking at your historical data. Start with the type of business: is there a size of business you always manage to sell to? Where are they based? What’s the headcount? Revenue? 

Which roles did you previously have conversations with before making a sale? Who was your buying champion? Who made the final decision, and who had influence? 

Answer all these questions and you’ll pull together a picture of who your unique customer is. From there, you’ll know exactly which titles in the manufacturing industry to go after. 

Note: building an ICP is more about just identifying titles. The more you can find out about the people you’re selling to the better: what are their pain points? What are their goals for next year? What do they dream about at night? Ok – maybe not that last one, but you get our point. When you’re involved in a complicated sales process, it’s important to focus on building genuine relationships. If you neglect this step, you’re not going to get very far.

The Old Way of Finding Manufacturing Industry Executives 

Now you’ve got the types of title and types of business you want to reach out to, it’s time to actually find the people that fit the bill. 

If we can take you back to the olden days (by which we mean: a couple of years ago), you’d have to check out a company website, try and locate a team page or a contact us page…it was all a bit hit and miss. 

If you didn’t even have a company name, you’d probably be stuck Googling things like ‘top manufacturing companies usa’ and getting totally generic results in response. 

Now, back to the present day (praise be). Time to find out about the new, fast way of finding manufacturing industry executives. 

Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator to Identify Top Executives in Manufacturing 

If we had to, we’d guess that you’ve probably heard of LinkedIn Sales Navigator at this stage in your career. If you haven’t: you should get it! It’s a tool built by LinkedIn specifically to help people like you with prospecting, and it’s (spoiler alert) really, really good. 

Yes, it does have a fee attached to it – but we promise it’s well worth the price in terms of the time and effort it’s going to save you. 

Once you’ve made the investment, you’ll want to start experimenting with LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s Advanced Search feature. That means setting the industry filter to manufacturing and then including the target position in the same search. 

Those are the basics. Now it’s time to get even more accurate. What extra information do you have about your ICP? Where is the business based? How much revenue does it make? How many people does it employ? 

Add in as many relevant filters as you can find, and that’s it: you’ve got a list of relevant people in the manufacturing industry to reach out to. Simple! 

You can also categorize the people you find using Sales Navigator’s lead lists feature. This is really helpful as you start to build out a richer, more complete picture of your ICP and all the profiles within it. 

Tips for Manufacturing Industry Sales Reps Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator

Just in case you’re not persuaded about LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s brilliance yet, we’ve got a few more tips and tricks for you. 

Saved searches: this does what it says on the tin. Once you’ve perfected your combination of filters, save the search. You’ll be able to come back at a later date and see what new profiles fit the bill. 

Boolean search: here’s a helpful one. if there’s a specific attribute you don’t want to exclude, for example, use the NOT operator to leave these profiles out. 

Recommended lead lists: we’ve saved the best until last. LinkedIn Sales Navigator will take a look at your activity and use it to build you a brand new list of contacts you haven’t come across before. It’s basically like having an assistant to do your prospecting for you (we can all dream, hey). 

Now we’ve found the people in the manufacturing industry you need to speak to – next up, how do you connect with them? 

How to Find the Email Addresses (and Phone Numbers) of Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry

Ever heard of a little tool called Surfe? We’d assume so, seeing as you’re sitting on our website – but if you haven’t checked us out yet, let us explain exactly how we help you get the contact details you need. 

Using a LinkedIn profile 

If you’re lucky enough to already know exactly who you want to reach out to, here’s what to do: 

1. Download the Surfe Chrome extension, and sync it up with your LinkedIn 
2. Visit the profile of the person you’d like the contact details for, and hit the ‘Add as contact’ button 
3. Surfe will then pull an email address and phone number out of thin air, and send it straight on through to your CRM 

Ok, we were kidding about the contact data coming from thin air. What Surfe really does is use its clever waterfall enrichment technology to aggregate contact details from the very best contact databases (think Apollo, RocketReach, Dropcontact, Hunter and People Data Labs). It even goes one step further and validates emails through ZeroBounce just to make sure they’re accurate. By using multiple databases, Surfe gives itself the best chance possible of finding what you need – and will do it quickly, to boot. 

Using LinkedIn Sales Navigator Lists

Got a big, chunky list of top executives in the manufacturing industry that you’re ready to reach out to? Lucky you – Surfe can help with that too. 

Once you’ve made an advanced search or added contacts to a lead list, you’ll be able to choose the people you want contact details for (or select all) and then click ‘Export to CRM’. Surfe uses its waterfall enrichment technology to whizz through the list and find an email address and phone number for each one – and then send it over to your CRM so you don’t have to deal with any pesky manual data transfer, either. 

Using the Surfe App 

Not into LinkedIn? Got a big CSV file of contacts to work your way through? Surfe is for you too. Just plug the CSV file into the Surfe App, and it will provide an email address and phone number for each one. Your list can be hundreds or even thousands of people long – and with a 93% find rate, Surfe won’t have a problem getting it nice and enriched. Easy peasy! 

And if you don’t have a list, you can even use Surfe as a Sales Navigator Alternative to find new prospects to enrich!

Let’s Wrap It Up!

It really is as simple as that! Hopefully, you’re coming away from this blog post feeling 1) much more hopeful about your prospecting, well, prospects and 2) ready and raring to go. 

Call us when you’re a manufacturing industry sales superstar, yeah?

FAQs About Finding and Connecting with Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry

Who Are the Key Persons in the Manufacturing Industry?

In manufacturing, the key players are the top execs: CEOs, COOs, CTOs, and CSCOs. These profiles set the strategy and the vision for the business.  VPs will oversee different departments, and be responsible for making sure they’re performing in line with the strategy. 

Are There Manufacturing Executives on LinkedIn? 

You’re in luck. LinkedIn has over 1.3 million manufacturing executives, all ready for you to find them. With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, you can easily track down the right people and start building connections.

How Do You Make Connections with Manufacturing Executives? 

Connecting with manufacturing execs is all about personalization – and making sure that they’ll actually want to hear from you in the first place. Do your research, reach out with a tailored message, and let Surfe find their contact details and feed them through to your CRM of choice. From there, you’re ready to start outreach. 

How to Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator for the Manufacturing Industry? 

Use LinkedIn Sales Navigator’s filtering capabilities to find and locate the top executives you want to sell to. Set the industry filter to Manufacturing and the relevant titles. From there, personalize further using your own ICP data. 

How to Find Email Addresses of Top Executives in the Manufacturing Industry? 

Download the Surfe Chrome extension, connect it to your LinkedIn, and you’re halfway there. Next, head to the profile you want contact details for and click ‘Add as contact’. Surfe will automatically find email addresses and phone numbers using waterfall enrichment technology, and then send them to your CRM. You can also find contacts for LinkedIn Sales Navigator lists in bulk – neat!