How Do I Get Past the Gatekeeper?

Taken from a Reddit thread

Question

How do I get past the Gatekeeper as a Recruiter?

I mean I did it a lot of times, but I need a technique that works all the time and not just on days when my intuition and flow sparks.

Good input anyone?

Answer

The key to dealing with gatekeepers in a productive way is MUTUAL respect, which means you have to respect them FIRST.  No matter how convincing it may seem, DO NOT lie or try to sneak past a gatekeeper.  Gatekeepers are continually trained up by our competition on every clever, logical, trick or tactic out there and they have every right to shoot it down or block it.  Tactics are inherently disrespectful.  If you can work WITH them instead, you will be the only one who is never blocked.

And, in my experience, they often know more about what your target company is doing and buying than the executives for whom they are gatekeepers.  Without further ado, here is a link to a blog post that contains a script that works 99 percent of the time:  https://highprobabilityselling.blog/2009/01/16/prospecting-and-the-gatekeeper/

If you notice the date, this process was created many years ago.  However, I heard it used multiple times as recently as yesterday on live B2B calls with real gatekeepers, and it still works wonders.  We would change it if needed, but haven’t found a reason.

PS. A lot of salespeople we have coached feel it’s too direct an approach and try to “tweak” it to make it more comfortable (for them).  The reality is that gatekeepers work for and with very direct communicators, and they respond amazingly well to the script as it is.

Author

Author: Paul Bunn

Practitioner, student, and trainer and coach in High Probability Selling for over a quarter century.

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