Any B2B sales professional that has spent anytime cold calling will have been confronted with the dreaded gate keeper. Usually, it’s the switchboard attendant or the target prospect’s assistant, and inevitably, they pose an impenetrable wall of resistance, curtness, and often just plain rude behaviour. As the sales person, all we are trying to do is our job, which is to introduce ideas or concepts that potentially could be of value to those we seek to talk with.
In previous blogs, I have addressed the B2B sales person’s “right to call”, which is based on the simple premise that if you have confirmed that someone is responsible for the use of your product or service, then that someone should or ought to be willing to talk with you.
Of course, this matters not, because the majority of prospects, particularly if they’re high value prospects, hide behind an army of gate-keepers. Who are these gate keepers?
They are all part of the target companies’ gate keeping conspiracy. They are administrative assistants, they are those who answer the phone on the switch board and, there are others too, all of which are “in the loop” about this silent policy of denying access to the very people who we have a right to contact.
Just as there are members of the conspiracy, there are others that have no knowledge that it even exists. The easiest way to identify who are, and who are not participants, is to ask the question, who or what departments get the most cold calls?
The answer is simple, those who spend money with outside vendors. Usually, the biggest spending departments are marketing (advertising), purchasing or IT. Each of these departments spend considerable funds with outside suppliers and thusly, are the targets of non-stop solicitations and cold calls. Now, think in the opposite direction.
Accounts receivable, shipping, or sales are three examples of divisions within most companies that seldom receive cold calls, ergo they are rarely complicit in the gate keeping conspiracy, and in fact, usually have no idea it even exists.
These are departments and people who can provide a wealth of information. These are people who can tell you the names of people who head up other departments, the very same people whom you wish to contact. They too will often willingly share extensions or direct phone numbers for these same people, allowing you to call outside normal business hours, and therefore avoiding gate keepers all together increasing your chances of reaching your target prospect directly.
Prospecting is an energy sapping task, but no less an absolute necessity if one is to grow their business. Prospecting will probably never be fun, but you can make it a whole bunch less un-fun if you remove as many of the displeasurable aspects that you think are required.
Engaging with gate keepers is right up there within the top five of the most disliked tasks most sales people believe necessary to contact their prospect. It doesn’t need to be.
You can choose whether to engage or not to engage in most anything, and you can choose to stop engaging with gate keepers. Gate keepers will never be your friend. They are there for a purpose and generally speaking, they are good at what they do.
Want to dread prospecting less? Then stop engaging gate keepers. Reach out to the people within a target company that will give you the information you need to make direct contact with those you need to contact, and then call before nine in the morning, or after five, even lunch hour is a good time because gate keepers usually are not “keeping gate”, which significantly increases your chances of reaching your prospect directly.