This is the next in an ongoing series of articles presenting sales advice. Suitable for everyone who has to make a sales call!
Recruitment and Sales
is an Art Form
An important point to remember with all recruitment or sales advice is that both activies are art forms. As such there are lots of ways to do them.
I only offer advice that I have either used myself or presented to others and seen work well. Consider how you can adapt the advice here for your market place and your style of recruitment or sales and I truly expect it to help you be a success.
Four Tips for Dealing with Gatekeepers
A gatekeeper is anyone who is not the specific person you wanted to speak to. Very often they are a receptionist, or the secretary but they could also be a senior director who is simply not the senior director whom you wanted!
Becoming an expert at dealing with gatekeepers is a necessary task for anyone seeking to become brilliantly successful at sales. It takes effort, practice and thought.
I outline below four tips that will help but they aren’t the whole picture. If getting to the decision maker you wanted was like crossing a raging river then consider the tips that follow as stepping stones rather than a complete bridge. They sure will help but you’d be advised to add some more stones of your own!
1) Be polite - Bang! There you go. The first rule – Be polite. Note I didn’t say be weak or accepting I said be polite. There is nothing to be gained, and everything to be lost, by being rude to the gatekeepers. First of all you should respect everyone in business regardless of their position and second not being polite will close more doors than it will open.
I have met sales people who have happily told me about the receptionists they have bullied into submission. I also know that in the cases where I have witnessed such sales people in action I have always witnessed more negatives resulting from their approach than positives.
2) Be assumptive - This is both a mind set and a verbal tip. In your head you should be expecting to reach the person you are after and if they are genuinely not available you should be expecting help regarding how to get hold of them later.
So for example when someone is not available try asking:
“When is the best time to call?” – assumes there is best time (People usually say “Is there a best time?” which is weaker
“When will he be back?” – assumes the person will return at some time
“What’s his mobile number?” – assumes he has a mobile phone rather than “Does he have a mobile number?”
Having an assumptive mind set makes it much easier to get results when dealing with gatekeepers. It’s all about expecting them to help, provide you with information and put you through.
3) Switch target - So the person you really want isn’t available – “Who else could you speak to?” – you can ask that of the gatekeeper “Who else could I speak to about…?” – again this is an assumptive question assuming that there will be someone else.
A stronger way of thing this is by having another person in mind when you make the call and then smoothly switch to the other person – e.g. if you can’t reach the sales director then ask for the managing director etc
4) Get their names - You should always get the name of the receptionist, pa and frankly all the gatekeepers you speak to. It makes the next call that you make to that company so much easier when you are able to use their name. You can also use their name on the call in a couple of different ways.
First you can use it when speaking to them which has a positive psychological impact and secondly when forwarded through to a person you can reference the person you were just speaking to by name.
This can be especially useful when pure cold calling and you have had to ask for the right person to speak to.When you get the suggested decision maker on the phone, let’s imagine the gatekeeper had been called Sarah, you are able to mention that
“Sarah said you were the right person to speak to regarding…”
This can be a warm way into the call.
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Further sales and recruitment advice will be given later this week and over future weeks.
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Edenchanges Recruitment Training services are outlined on this page and the Sales Training details are available here – do have a look and consider how it might benefit you or your company
Additionally a unique recruitment coaching program is available at www.recruitmentwithoutborders.com and is suitable for all recruitment professionals of any level, anywhere in the world.
I truly hope the above helps.
Until next time; be successful!
Stephen Hart
Trainer, Coach, Public Speaker
