A note before the story starts. I’m writing my next book in this newsletter, one chapter every Sunday, as each one is finished. It’s called Stop Selling Cold, and it teaches my Cold 2 Warm system the way I’d want to learn it … through a story.

The story follows a Division I mid-major athletics department in a rust-belt town that lost its factories, trying to sell sponsorships to the businesses still standing. It’s fiction. The university, the people, and the numbers are invented. The problem is not. If you have ever carried a new-business number in a market everybody else wrote off, you’ll recognize the room.

Last Sunday, in Chapter 3, Kasey pulled the list. A library card, a free database, and one hundred twenty-five companies taped to the wall between two desks. If you missed it, it’s in the archive, free: [CH3 URL]. This chapter picks up the following Monday.

The Sovereign Seller #44: Don’t Get in Trouble

November 2026

7:11 AM

Indianapolis, IN

Stop Selling Cold

Chapter 4: Step 3 … Verify Your List

Why Every Dollar You Spend on a Prospect Goes to a Name, and Why Most of the Names Are Wrong

Scene 1: The Hole in the Wall

Monday morning, Gabe Clevenger stood in front of the page on the wall, not happy about it.

One hundred twenty-five companies. The map for the next twelve months, Kasey Browne had called it, and the names were good. Credit unions, health networks, the dealerships on the bypass, the trucking and industrial accounts nobody at ECI had ever called.

Then he sat down and opened the export.

“Kasey. Come look at this.”

Kasey came over with two mugs.

“Data Axle gave us the company,” Gabe said. “Revenue. Employee count. The street address. The main switchboard number. All good. Now look at the people.”

He scrolled. Almost half the records listed the owner’s name and nothing else. The rest listed a marketing director or a general manager, with no way to tell if that person had started last spring or left two years ago.

“Half of these give me no one to write to. The other half, how do I know they’re still there?”

“You just found the hardest part of the whole system,” Kasey said. “And the part almost everybody skips.”

“Skips how?”

“They buy a list. ZoomInfo, Apollo, a broker, doesn’t matter. Load it into an email tool or hand it to a mail house, hit send. Nobody calls anybody first.”

“And?”

Kasey pulled a chair over. “Three things, all at once. The mail comes back addressee unknown, or lands on the desk of a man who retired eighteen months ago, and the postage is gone. The emails bounce, and enough bounces get your domain flagged, so the good ones stop landing too. And the ones that get through go to the wrong name, with the wrong title, spelled wrong. Which tells the prospect exactly how carefully you’ll handle their account.”

Gabe looked back at the page on the wall. “So before a single letter goes out, every name, every title, every address, by hand.”

“Not one name per company,” Kasey said. “Two. Three if we can get them. A list with one name per company stalls every time somebody changes jobs.”

Scene 2: Breakfast at Cafe 37

Seven the next morning, the corner booth. Mike McDaniels watched Gabe flip through a stack of index cards, one company per card, most with a name crossed out and a question mark beside it.

“You look like a man who just learned business data goes bad faster than milk,” Mike said.

“It’s brutal. People change jobs faster than anybody updates a record.” Gabe set the cards down. “So I call the front desk and ask who handles marketing, and the receptionist’s voice changes. She can hear a salesman. I’m blocked before I finish the sentence.”

“That’s because you’re calling like a salesman.”

“I am a salesman.”

“Not on that call.” Mike pulled a blue pen out of his flannel jacket and turned the placemat over. “When you call to verify a name, you are not selling. You are not pitching. You are not after a meeting. You are a person with a clerical problem, asking for help.”

He wrote on the back of the placemat, then slid it across.

Hi Denise, my name is Gabe, with ECI Athletics. I need a little help. We’re preparing to send an executive briefing out in the mail next week, and I want to make sure I send it to the exact right person so I don’t get in trouble for wasting postage. Could you tell me who currently oversees your marketing and community partnerships? Is that still Paul Richards, or has that moved to somebody else?

Gabe read it twice.

“It’s completely disarming.”

“Tell me why.”

“I’m asking for help. I’m admitting I could get in trouble. And I’m giving her a name to confirm or correct, so she isn’t asked to think, she’s asked to fix something.”

“That’s the whole thing,” Mike said. “A gatekeeper is paid to keep salesmen off her boss’s phone. She is not paid to stop an administrator from updating a mailing list. Most will give you the spelling, the title, and the suite number, because it costs them nothing and gets you off the line.”

“And the executive briefing? There isn’t one yet.”

“There will be, by the time you mail. We’ll build it. You’re not lying to her. You’re early.”

Mike tapped the placemat. “Three more things.”

“One. Never settle for one name. At a bigger company, get the marketing lead and the person above her. At a family company, get the owner and whoever runs the place day to day. If one of them leaves, the campaign keeps moving with the other.”

“Two. If you get voicemail, same message, shorter. This isn’t a sales call, I’m updating our mailing directory before a briefing goes out, and I want to confirm who oversees marketing. Leave your number. More of them call back than you’d think, because nobody ever asks a receptionist for help.”

“Three.” Mike leaned in. “Sometimes the owner picks up and asks what it’s about. You do not pitch him. It’s coming in the mail, you wanted to be sure it reached him, you’ll follow up when it lands. Then you let him go. You will want to sell him. Don’t. You haven’t earned the conversation yet, and you have nothing to say that would earn it. That’s two chapters from now.”

Gabe folded the placemat and put it in his shirt pocket.

Scene 3: The First Call

Nine-fifteen, back at the bullpen. The placemat on the desk, next to the first index card.

Wabash Valley Electrical Supply. One of the thirty-seven invisible ones, out in the industrial park, four million in revenue, never bought a radio spot. Data Axle listed Paul Richards, Marketing.

He dialed the switchboard.

“Wabash Valley Electrical, this is Denise.”

Gabe read it the way Mike wrote it. Help. Mail. Don’t get in trouble. Paul Richards, or somebody else.

A pause, and then the voice changed, but not the way it used to.

“Oh, Paul retired in March. That’s Carrie now. Carrie Voss. V-O-S-S. She’s our operations manager, she took over the marketing when Paul left.”

“Carrie Voss, operations manager. Thank you. Is there a suite number I should put on it?”

“We’re the back half of the building. Put Suite B or it’ll end up at the plumbing supply.”

“Suite B. One more, Denise, and I’ll let you go. Is there anyone besides Carrie who’d be involved in a decision about marketing?”

“Dale. Dale Pruitt, he’s the owner. He still signs everything.”

“Dale Pruitt. Thank you, Denise, you just saved me a stamp.”

She laughed. “Happy to help.”

Gabe hung up. On the card: Paul Richards, crossed out. Carrie Voss, Operations Manager, Suite B. Dale Pruitt, Owner. The date.

Kasey had stopped typing.

“That letter,” Gabe said, “would have gone to a man who’s been fishing since March.”

“And Carrie would have opened it, seen Paul’s name on it, and known exactly how much we’d done our homework.”

Gabe picked up the next card.

Two weeks, and the phone was only part of it. For the dealerships and bank branches in town, Gabe drove over at two in the afternoon when nobody was busy, picked up business cards off the counter, and read the names on the office doors. For the health networks and credit unions, the leadership pages and press releases, because big companies announce their own promotions. Every name checked against LinkedIn: still listed at the company, how long, and whether they’d gone to ECI. The Chamber directory for the ones whose website still said “Coming Soon.”

Every confirmed name went into a spreadsheet on Gabe’s own desktop, outside the CRM. Correct spelling. Exact title. Address, with the suite. A second name. And the column Mike insisted on: the date it was confirmed. Anyone past ninety days got called again.

When the two weeks were over, Kasey ran the numbers.

Of the names the database had listed for those one hundred twenty-five companies, more than a third were wrong. Retired. Promoted into a different job. Moved to Indianapolis. Two had passed away.

And the page on the wall had grown. One hundred twenty-five companies had become two hundred forty people, every one of them confirmed by a human being inside the last two weeks.

Kasey put a copy on Vance’s desk, as he had with the list. Vance read the first column and the last.

“What’s the last column?”

“The date somebody told us that name was real.”

Vance set it down. “Now you can spend money on them.”

Confirming a name, five ways

Nothing goes in the mail until one of these has touched it.

1. The administrative call. The “don’t get in trouble” script to the front desk. Spelling, exact title, suite number, and a second name. Never pitch. If you get voicemail, leave the short version and your number.
2. The drop-in. For local accounts, walk in during the slow hours, pick up business cards at the counter, read the names on the doors.
3. The company’s own website. Leadership pages, press releases, team directories. Companies announce their own promotions.
4. LinkedIn. Still listed at the company? How long? Anything you share … a school, a board, a town?
5. The Chamber directory and public records. For small companies with a stale website, and to sort a headquarters from a branch.

Then the spreadsheet: name, title, address, a second contact, date confirmed. Anyone past ninety days gets the call again.

Step 3, In Brief

Why it matters: Every dollar you spend to warm a prospect goes to a name. If the name is wrong, the money was gone before the envelope was sealed, and whoever does open it learns how careful you are.

The trap: Loading a raw list into a mail house or an email tool and hitting send. Or calling the front desk like a salesman and getting the gatekeeper’s guard instead of her help.

Your move: Call every account as an administrator with a mailing problem, not a seller with a pitch. Get two or three decision-makers per company. Keep your own spreadsheet with the date each name was confirmed, and re-confirm anyone over ninety days.

Bottom line: The most expensive mistake in prospecting is spending money on someone who left.

That is Chapter 4. Two hundred forty names, every one of them real, and not one letter sent yet.

Next Sunday: Chapter 5, and Step 4 … what to say to those names, once a credit union’s CMO tells Gabe to his face that a stadium sign is charity.

To your success,

Shane

P.S. New here, or catching up? The whole serial so far is in the archive, free.

The letter that started it, written to the owner, the president, the sales leader who carries the new-business number: https://the-sovereign-seller.kit.com/posts/the-competitive-advantage-sitting-in-your-blind-spot​

Chapter 1, The Dashboard Lies: https://the-sovereign-seller.kit.com/posts/stop-selling-cold-chapter-1-the-dashboard-lies​

Chapter 2, Three Hundred Names: https://the-sovereign-seller.kit.com/posts/stop-selling-cold-chapter-2-three-hundred-names​

Chapter 3, The Library Card: https://the-sovereign-seller.kit.com/posts/stop-selling-cold-chapter-3-the-library-card-sovereign-seller​