Getting around the gatekeeper can be one of the most difficult things a salesperson has to do when B2B cold calling. Given that’s such a large percentage, if you improve your knowledge and skills in how best to deal with the gatekeeper, you can immediately boost your sales effectiveness.
Four Types of Gatekeepers
One thing to keep in mind when talking to gatekeepers is that there are several types, and their differences can affect how you approach them.
- Front-desk receptionist: The person in the lobby who answers phones, checks in guests, signs for deliveries, etc.
- Switchboard Operators: Their only job is to answer the phone and route calls.
- Executive Assistants: Administrative resources who often answer the phone for executives.
- Auto-Attendants: Automated phone tree that routes and directs calls.
Gatekeeper Sales Tactics
Here are some quick sales tactics to incorporate to get around gatekeepers when B2B cold calling.
Understand the Gatekeeper
A vital step when B2B cold calling is to stop and try to understand the gatekeeper. This can help you gain a deeper perspective on why they are being difficult with you, and become a little more patient and less sensitive when you butt heads with them every day.
One reason getting around the gatekeeper can be difficult and unpleasant is that they are sometimes instructed to keep salespeople out. Gatekeepers are often trained to identify when calls are from salespeople trying to sell something and to keep them from reaching prospects. In many situations, the gatekeeper can actually get in trouble or look bad when salespeople slip past them.
Educate the Gatekeeper
One way to get around the gatekeeper is to educate them on who you are and why the prospect would want to talk with you. When gatekeepers block you out, they are either blocking all salespeople regardless of what they sell or say, or they are blocking you out because they think the people they work for do not need what you sell and that you will waste their time.
If it is the latter, if you can educate the gatekeeper on who you are, how you can help, and why it would be worth the prospect’s time for them to talk with you, there is a chance that you can decrease the gatekeeper’s guard and persuade them to let you through.
Remember that the product you sell has value for prospects with the pain points you can help alleviate. With that, you use your value points, pain points, and customer example building blocks to educate the gatekeeper.
Treat the Gatekeeper Like a Prospect
When you sense the gatekeeper is starting to be difficult and block you out, take a step back and start to treat the gatekeeper like the target prospect you are trying to reach. You can go in this direction by saying something like:
Actually, let me take a step back and tell you who I am and why I am calling.
From there, you can share your elevator pitch or value proposition, which should communicate how you can help and why the person you are trying to reach might want to talk with you. If that alone does not work, treat the gatekeeper like a prospect by asking some pre-qualifying questions.
Name Dropping
Another way to disarm gatekeepers is to name-drop other people you have spoken to in the organization, so you don’t look like an outsider calling to work your way in. The way to do that is to say something like this:
I spoke with Tom Jones in accounting, and now I am trying to reach someone in HR. Do you know who the best person for me to connect with is?
By mentioning this, not only will the gatekeeper feel like you must be OK to let in because you are already somewhat on the inside, but he or she will feel like it will not be good to be rude or completely block you out because you appear to already have some existing relationships or business going on with the company.
If you like the logic of this tactic but feel that you cannot use it because you have not spoken to anyone in the organization yet, you can modify your name-drop to use the names of people you are planning to meet with by saying something like this:
We are planning on meeting with Mary Smith next month, but we need to connect with an operations manager prior to that. Can you help point me in the right direction for who I should reach out to?
You can use this even if you don’t have meetings on the schedule because you are saying that you are planning to meet and not that you have a meeting scheduled.
Try to Not Sound Like a Salesperson
Since many gatekeepers will be instructed to keep salespeople out, you can decrease the level of difficulty that you face by trying not to sound like a salesperson who is trying to sell something. One example of how you can do this is to try to avoid asking the gatekeeper to connect you with someone who makes a particular type of decision with this type of question:
Can you connect me with the person that makes decisions regarding your website?
This basically tells the gatekeeper that you want to try to sell something related to the website, and it lets them know they need to be very cautious about letting you in. Try to perform research to find the actual names of people you should talk to or ask for the title of the person with something like this:
Can you connect me with the director of marketing?
Try to Enlist Their Help
Sometimes, you can try to recruit the gatekeeper to help you in your effort to figure out who to talk to. This is not necessarily an option when your gatekeeper is in full “get rid of you” mode, as he or she will have no interest in helping you. But when you first start a call with a gatekeeper and have not triggered guardedness, you can try to get the gatekeeper to take more of a helpful role by starting out with one of the statements below:
Maybe you can help me with this.
Maybe you can point me in the right direction.
I am not really sure who I need to speak with.
I might need your help with this one.
Adding your question after that could end up looking something like this:
Maybe you can help me with this. I usually work with directors of finance, and I am having trouble finding that person in your organization. Do you know who I should reach out to?
I am not really sure who I need to speak with. I usually work with directors of finance, and I am having trouble finding that person in your organization. Do you know who I should reach out to?
To improve the odds of this working, try to speak in a way that sounds like a mix of curious and a little lost. If you don’t know what this sounds like, try to make the face you would have if you were confused about something when you are talking to the gatekeeper.
Befriend
Easily, we perceive the gatekeeper as the enemy because they stand between us and where we want to go, as well as they appear to be attempting to stop our progress. It helps to try turning the gatekeeper from an enemy to an ally in this case. This is powerful because it helps you get around them when cold-calling for sales. Also, it’s important because the gatekeeper is more powerful than we may realize. They typically have valuable information on processes and initiatives and influence decision-making.
Mention an Initiative
In the event that you get a gatekeeper when cold calling, mention that you’re calling to schedule a meeting to speak about a particular initiative. It’ll help you gain credibility and make you appear as if you’re on the inside. When you’ve done your homework, you might know about an initiative that you can reference. In the case that you don’t know of an initiative when cold calling, there are certain initiatives that every company has at any given time that you can mention, such as cutting labor costs, driving same-store sales, etc.
Gatekeeper Objections
The third tip for getting around the gatekeeper is to have responses ready for their objections. Gatekeepers will use objections to get rid of you, and it is a fairly short list of what they will say:
What is this in regards to?
Is this a sales call?
We are not interested.
We are not making any changes.
We already use somebody for that.
We do not need that right now.
Send me your information.
Instead of trying to figure out how to respond in real-time when talking with the gatekeeper, have a game plan for what to say to them ahead of time. And you can use your value points, pain points, pain questions, and current state questions as objection responses to all of these objections.
What is this in regards to? Is this a sales call?
Gatekeepers will ask these two questions to determine whether you are a salesperson trying to sell something. If you answer with anything close to any of these, you will let them know you are a salesperson and they need to get rid of you:
I am calling to introduce myself
I am calling to introduce our company
I am calling to schedule an appointment
I am calling to see if you need our services
As a result, try to answer with something that does not clearly mark you as a salesperson, and one option you have is to answer with the benefits that you offer, with something like this:
The reason for the call is that we help small businesses to improve the conversion rate for their website.
We are not interested. We are not making any changes. We already use somebody for that. We do not need that right now.
These four gatekeeper objections can be grouped together as “not interested” sales objections. And the nice thing about these objections is that you can respond to all of these with the same responses.
Pain Questions
The first way to respond to these is by deflecting to your pain questions by saying:
I understand. If I could ask you real quick:
- How important is it to get your website generating more leads and revenue?
- How do you feel about the look and feel of your website?
- How important is it to increase website traffic and conversions?
Current State Questions
You can also respond to these by deflecting to your current state questions:
I understand. If I could ask you real quick:
- Are you working with a website design agency?
- Are you using any type of CMS platform?
- Do you have internal resources to help with your website?
- How many websites do you have?
- When was the last time you updated your website?
Pain Points
You could also respond to these by deflecting to your pain points:
I understand. A lot of businesses we work with have challenges with:
- Need to generate more revenue through the website
- Website needs to be updated and improved
- Need to increase website traffic and conversions
Do you know if [name/title] is concerned about any of those?
All of these responses are designed to keep the call going; after that, you might either get an answer from the gatekeeper or hear that they do not know. If you can extract answers and information from the gatekeeper, that is great. But if they do not know, you can then say something like:
Oh, I see. Well, that is why it might make sense for me to talk with [name/title] as they would probably know the answer to that.
What is the best way for me to connect with them?
Send me your information.
The most common gatekeeper objection is the request for an email with your information because it is highly effective at getting rid of salespeople and prevents the gatekeeper from having to be rude or appear bad.
The worst way to handle this is to let the call end and then spend your valuable time putting together an email with your information that is most likely destined for the gatekeeper’s trash can. Instead, keep the call going and get around this request by asking a question.
You can either ask a pain question or a current state question, and you respond by saying something like this:
I can certainly do that. So that I know what to send you, can I ask you real quick:
- How important is it to get your website generating more leads and revenue?
- How do you feel about the look and feel of your website?
- How important is it to increase website traffic and conversions?
What you do after that is similar to what you may do after the other objection responses, in that you use the question to deflect the objection and then either try to get information from the gatekeeper or find a reason for them to pass you through.
We hope this helps you with getting around the gatekeeper when B2B cold calling.
