Have you ever heard a gatekeeper say any of these while you were B2B cold calling?
What is this call in regards to?
We are not interested.
Just send us your information.
We already use someone for that.
It is the Gatekeeper’s Job to Block You Out
If you have done any B2B cold calling, I am confident that those sound very familiar, and you may have been shut down by them once or twice. These are the key tools that gatekeepers will use as they attempt to block you out.
The thing to remember about gatekeepers is that keeping you out is as much a part of their job as getting into the account is part of yours. Just as you can get in trouble if you can’t get meetings with any of your target accounts, a gatekeeper can get in trouble when they let salespeople through who are B2B cold calling.
It is important to keep this in mind when talking with gatekeepers and be aware that you and gatekeepers usually enter the conversation more as adversaries with conflicting interests.
You Can Face Gatekeepers More than Anybody Else
We just mentioned how you and the gatekeeper have opposing interests and objectives. To make things worse, you can end up talking to gatekeepers more than anybody else when B2B cold calling.
If you don’t have a lot of direct dial numbers where you can call your prospects directly and avoid gatekeepers, you could spend as much as 50% of your phone prospecting time dealing with gatekeepers. And even if you have direct dial phone numbers for target contacts, those can often be routed to administrative assistants who will operate as gatekeepers trying to screen and filter calls.
Improving Gatekeeper Relations Can Have a Big Impact
Since you are likely to face gatekeepers for such a large portion of your phone prospecting time, if you can make some adjustments or improvements in terms of how you deal with gatekeepers, you can likely see an immediate improvement in your results.
There are Small Things You Can Do to Improve Gatekeeper Relations
The good news is that there are some very small things that you can do to improve your ability to defuse the gatekeeper’s blocking tactics.
Are you just trying to power your way through or fake a bunch of politeness to try to squirm your way in? We recommend not trying to be difficult or fight your way in, as that will not help at all. And we are not big fans of attempts to artificially build rapport with either gatekeepers or target prospects.
There is a better way, and we outline some of those in a recent webinar that we hosted on How to Consistently Get Around Gatekeepers When B2B Cold Calling.