{"id":151,"date":"2010-03-15T17:22:16","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wensmedia.com\/\/salesarchive\/permalink\/2010\/3\/15\/132216.html"},"modified":"2010-03-15T17:22:16","modified_gmt":"2010-03-15T17:22:16","slug":"gatekeepers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/uncategorized\/gatekeepers\/","title":{"rendered":"Gatekeepers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><span style=\"font-size: 20pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">How to By-pass the <span style=\"color: black\">Gatekeeper<\/span><\/font><\/span><\/b><\/p>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have all seen them. Those <span style=\"color: black\">steadfast<\/span> front office <span style=\"color: black\">gatekeepers<\/span> who are trained to &lsquo;protect&rsquo; the decision maker from you.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You have three strategic alternatives to getting past these sales preventers;<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"color: black\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">1.) Go around them.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"color: black\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">2.) Wait until they die or leave the company.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><span style=\"color: black\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">3.) Win them over.<\/font><\/span><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; In reality, option three<span style=\"color: maroon\">,<\/span> <i>winning them over<\/i>, is your only viable option.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The process of winning over the<span style=\"color: black\"> gatekeeper begins with respect. They are doing their job.&nbsp;Heck, some of them might be the spouse or son or daughter of the owner!<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><span style=\"color: black\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Your job is to sell the gatekeeper <i>first<\/i><\/span><i>.<\/i><\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">The process begins by showing respect for their position and determining what is in it for them to introduce you to the decision maker.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Perhaps it&rsquo;s job security as a result of the increased business your advertising will attract. Perhaps it&rsquo;s discussing an ad idea they told you about and giving them credit for that idea when you meet the decision maker. It may be simply doing a <span style=\"color: black\">favor<\/span> for their friend who referred you to them.<\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; It&rsquo;s your job as a professional communicator to uncover what&rsquo;s in it from the gatekeeper&rsquo;s perspective to give you the key to the decision maker&rsquo;s office. The respect you show the <span style=\"color: black\">gatekeeper<\/span> when you open dialogue to uncover their needs<span style=\"color: black\">, pays off in more ways than one.<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n<div style=\"margin: 0in 0in 0pt\"><font face=\"Tahoma\"><span style=\"color: black\">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Very often it is that very gatekeeper<\/span> who is assigned to conduct a customer survey or is asked their opinion of which media is driving customers to the business. Somehow, I don&rsquo;t think the media rep who trampled over the <span style=\"color: black\">gatekeeper will get the same fair shake as you when the gatekeeper<\/span> conducts their customer survey. <\/font><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to By-pass the Gatekeeper &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; We have all seen them. Those steadfast front office gatekeepers who are trained to &lsquo;protect&rsquo; the decision maker from you. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; You have three strategic alternatives to getting past these sales preventers; 1.) Go around them. 2.) Wait until they die or leave the company. 3.) Win them over. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ensmediausa.com\/ens-on-sales\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}