Most outbound lists are full of "Marketing Manager at Acme," people who can't sign a contract. The reason: bad filter logic in Sales Navigator and lazy Boolean searches.
Here's how we surface real decision-makers (the people who own the budget, not the people who fill the SDR's spreadsheet) in under 5 minutes per account.
The filter stack we use every time
Sales Navigator has 30+ filters. You only need 5 to get clean results. The combination is what matters: each filter narrows the funnel and removes a class of bad fit.
- Geography: narrow to your target region (USA only, or DACH, etc.)
- Company headcount: match your ICP band (e.g. 50–500)
- Seniority level: VP and CXO only (drop "Manager" and below)
- Function: Sales, Marketing, Revenue Ops, Finance, etc.
- Years at company: 1+ years (filters out new hires who don't own anything yet)
Boolean search beats title filters
Sales Navigator's title filter is noisy. "VP Sales" matches "VP of Sales," "VP, Sales," "Vice President Sales," but misses "Head of Sales," "Chief Revenue Officer," "Sales Director."
Boolean keyword search captures the full universe. Use the keyword field, not the title filter, with this structure:
("VP" OR "Head" OR "Director" OR "Chief")
AND
("Sales" OR "Revenue" OR "Growth" OR "Pipeline")
NOT ("Operations" OR "Enablement")Verifying it's a REAL decision-maker
A title doesn't always mean budget authority. At companies under 100 people, "VP Marketing" might be a team of one. At 5,000-person companies, "Director" can mean 200 reports.
Three quick verification checks before you add someone to a campaign:
- Their LinkedIn activity: are they posting about strategy or execution?
- Team size: Sales Navigator shows employees in their function. If their team is 3 people, they're probably hands-on, not strategic.
- Tenure: VP with 6 months at the company won't have buying power yet. VP with 3+ years can sign.
Common traps
Counting "Founder" and "CEO" as decision-makers for tactical buying. At growth-stage companies, the CEO has delegated 80% of buying. Going over the VP's head usually backfires.
Trusting the title field literally. Self-reported titles drift. "Head of Growth" sometimes means "first marketing hire." Cross-check with team size and post content.
- Use 5 filters max: Geography, Headcount, Seniority, Function, Tenure
- Boolean keyword search beats the title filter every time
- Verify with LinkedIn activity + team size + tenure before adding to campaign
- Don't over-shoot to CEO unless the deal is enterprise-level
