The Gatekeeper isn't Evil, You're Just Doing a Terrible Job Explaining Yourself

I wrote a piece last week and had several people bring up the topic of the gatekeeper and how to "get by" them or how to "make them your best friend." I am here to tell you that the answer is quite simple. If you don't get by the person who answers the phone then you are doing a poor job of presenting who you are and why you are calling. It's ALL YOUR FAULT! So lets go over some of the things you need to do for effective calling. I want to be very clear that these are not magic bullets and no concept works 100% of the time but these concepts will get you a 1000 times farther than what you currently do.

First: be honest. Simple, I know, but often overlooked. When the receptionist asks who you are, tell them. I am "name" with " company name" and then be quiet. Listen to their next question. "What is the purpose of your call?" Here is where most people fail. They try to bully the receptionist or they come up with some crazy story. All bad ideas. Now I know many of you are saying "but Mike, if I tell them that I am a salesperson, they will hang up on me." Then don't tell them that. I said be honest not stupid. "But Mike what do I tell them when they ask why I'm calling?" That depends on why you called them and leads to my next step.
Second: target your calls. Opening the yellow pages or buying a calling list does you almost no good if you don't research who you are calling to determine how you are connected. If you look long enough you can find some common ground. I use LinkedIn for this research all the time. Do we have a mutual contact? Did we go to the same school? Are we from the same town? Are we members of the same social or professional groups? If you can't find some common ground with this person, then find out if they have a pending event. They are moving. They just opened a new office. They are planning to hire 10 new employee's.  They just let go of 25% of their work force. All of these actions are cause for doing business.
If you cant target your calls because you can't find any common ground at least identify that you have the right contact name for your product or service. So when the receptionist asks "what is the nature of your call" your response should be " Actually I need your help. I was given "name" as the person to speak with regarding "your product or service" is that correct?" they will either say yes and transfer you or they will ask you "is this a sales call?" You should respond by saying " I actually wanted to introduce myself and see what projects are coming up in the next 6 months that we could help with." you'd be amazed how effective this can be.

Here's the summary: Be honest, know who your calling, ask for help.

Thanks for reading today


BTW, please check out my fundraising blog www.40milesforautism.blogspot.com