The 2026 outreach data shows founders and owners replying at meaningfully higher rates than C-suite executives at larger firms. Owners read their own inbox and feel their own problems; executives sit behind assistants, filters, and forty competing sequences a day.
The tactical translation: for small-business outreach, aim at the owner directly and write like their day actually looks ('the 8pm invoice pile') rather than corporate-speak. For bigger targets, expect lower rates and earn the reply with genuine specificity about their company. Or start lower in the org where your message lands with the person who owns the pain.
And weight your list accordingly: a hundred owner-operated prospects often out-produce five hundred enterprise contacts at identical effort.