How To Get Past Gatekeepers

The Gatekeeper: the secretary, receptionist or personal assistant, whose job it is to “screen” your call and stop you from talking to the decision maker. If you are in B2B sales then you have come face to face with gatekeepers and a “screen” and learning to get past these guardians of the gold, is a mission-critical objective in your sales career.

Understand that gatekeepers are important and powerful and play a pivotal role in business. Also, realise that while some gatekeeper screens may frustrate and anger you, the best screens are invisible. A high-level gatekeeper’s screen is so sophisticated that most sales people never realise it is there, usually attributing their failure to reach the decision maker to bad timing or misfortune. Also, you will find that at the high corporate level, many gatekeepers have gatekeepers of their own. You may have to go through one or two screens just to get to the main gatekeeper!

A vital clue in recognising a Gatekeeper (GK) screen

Watch the timing of the GK’s questions: If you listen carefully, often you can tell if the GK is screening you or not by the way he or she asks questions.

Example #1

Sales Person:
“Is Mr. Decision Maker available?”

GK:
“No, he is not in at the moment. Who’s calling?

Sales Person:
“This is Jo Salesperson”

GK:
“I’m sorry, Jo, Mr. Decision Maker is out, can I take a message?”

Example #2

Sales Person:
“Is Mr. Decision Maker available?”

GK:
“Who’s calling please?”

Sales Person:
“This is Jo Salesperson”

GK:
“I’m sorry Jo, Mr. Decision Maker is out, can I take a message?”

Note that in the first example the GK answers the question as to the whereabouts of the DM before asking who was calling. In the second example however, the GK first asks the sales person to identify herself, before telling her anything. It is very likely that number two is a screen.

Determining the TYPE of Screen

Once you know that you are facing a GK screen, you must immediately identify the type of screen. The reason it is so important to be able to recognise a screen, then the type of screen, is that getting past them requires the exact opposite technique.

There are two types of screens:

A. The Investigative Screen
The investigative screen is the screen in which the GK investigates and asks you a lot of questions.

B. The Blind Screen.
With a blind screen, the GK wants to stop anyone from getting through without asking any questions. If he or she does not recognise your name, that’s it, you’re done.

The Investigative Screen
With the investigative screen, the GK’s primary asset is time and he or she will usually ask you lots of questions. This GK will usually have a pleasant personality and will often seem to be a very nice, innocent person who will often engage you in small talk.

The key to getting through is that you need to force the GK to make a decision quickly without having time to think or ask the usual questions. You need to come across as a VIP who does not have a lot of time. Who are you? You sound like a very important person. Could you be the BIG BOSS? Could you be a very important customer? This GK has to either connect you to the DM or risk offending someone who might be a VIP.

The Blind Screen
The Blind screen GK is just the opposite. This GK has no time and does not want to ask you any questions. This GK just wants to get you off the telephone because you are not on a preferred list of callers.

With the blind screen you want to be someone who talks extremely slow; someone who has to think for a few seconds before each sentence. The blind screen GK is expecting the high-level sales person who is smooth, polished and perfect. So you do not want to be smooth, polished and perfect. This GK has no time, so you want to take up his or her time. Once again, you force the GK to make a quick decision. You don’t sound like a sales person, in fact you sound harmless. So the GK has to let you take up his or her time or put you through. And since they feel that you are harmless—they will put you through.

To get past the gatekeeper and screens you need to do the opposite of what the gatekeeper expects and is trained for. If the GK is looking to stop the fast talking smooth sales person, then you want to be a slow talking, confused person. On the other hand, if the GK wants to talk and ask questions, be a fast talking person who has no time to talk and answer questions. Force the gatekeeper to make a quick decision and they will connect you rather than risk making a big mistake.

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Want to improve your sales performance?

Make a no obligation enquiry today and we will get back to you with some options.

Is it the Price or the Cost?

How to Overcome the Price Objection

I’m surprised so many sales people still have problems with objections on price. The reason is that when you hear, “Your price is too high…” it is really not about Price; it is about “Value.”

When the prospect objects to your price, they feel that the value of the product or service is LESS than the amount of money you are asking. So, how do you handle this objection at the close? Well, if you’ve done your job properly - you don’t! This is something you have to do throughout your entire presentation.

The sale will take place when the prospect feels the value of the product is equal to or higher than the cost. Here are three quick ideas on building more value. Don’t try to overcome the price objection: avoid it!

1. Be proud of your higher price.
2. Is it the Price or the Cost?
3. Build the value of processes and people

Be proud of your higher price - Your prices are higher because the value of your product is higher. If you have higher prices than your competition, don’t hide it; boast about it. Then back it up with better quality and service.

Help the customer understand the difference between the Price and the Cost.

Example:
Prospect: “That’s high! It’s too much.”

Salesperson: “Are you referring to the PRICE or the COST?”

Prospect: “What?”

Salesperson: “If you are referring to the price; the amount you pay me right now, then yes; it is about 12% higher than our
competitors. However, if you are referring to the cost, that’s a different story.

Prospect: “What do you mean?”
Salesperson “The cost is the Total Value of doing business with me and ABC Software. The cost is that our programs prevent
intrusions from beyond the firewall, saving our clients hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. The cost is that our
system has NEVER been breached; while our nearest competitor’s systems are compromised once a month. The cost is
the money your business loses when you have to shut down all of your overseas operations for two days due to failed
security. Yes, our price is a little higher, but when it comes to cost—they have us beat!”

Now, this is not an off-pat answer.

It is to help you begin to think differently about the price objection. Also, remember the golden rules for selling anything: You must first uncover a problem that exposes the need, then present the solution to the problem and finally ask for action. When you uncover all the problems that you solve, they should add up to be a whole lot more than the cost of the solution.

Build the value of processes and people behind your product or service.

Sales Person: “As you can see, we make our primary gears out of titanium while others use regular metal. Of course, this costs more,
but we know that the highest quality parts, makes for the highest quality engine.”

Another example

Sales Person: “All of our service people are MCSD Certified. That costs us a lot more, but we also have the finest service record in the world.
We felt it was better to explain our higher price one time, rather than have to make excuses for poor service over and over.
Don’t you agree?”

If you build enough value in your presentation, the prospect should be thinking that the cost is significantly higher than it actually is; they should think your real price is a bargain!

The equation to eliminate the price objection: Value over Price equals sales!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Want to improve your sales performance?

Make a no obligation enquiry today and we will get back to you with some options.

Hi there,

Do you or your sales people often take the knocks to heart?

Maybe your team lack that ongoing motivation to keep on going and working through the numbers and not taking each sales opportunity as a separate event?

Well, here is a useful acronym that you and your sales people can use. Use it every time you cannot get through to that decision maker, every time someone says no or just if you feel a little down.

SWSWSWSW

“What’s that?!”

I hear ya!

Here’s what it stands for:

SOME WILL

SOMEONE’S WAITING

Let me take you through this:

SOME WILL

Some people will want to buy your product or service. The match between their wants and what you can offer will be a perfect match and a sale will be made.

SOME WON’T

Some people will just not buy your product.

Whether that is down to your approach, your product or service, timing, money, ozone layer..

SO WHAT

Appreciate that some people will and some will not! Analyse when a sale is made and see what went well. When a sale is not made do exactly the
same approach and learn from the experience.

SOMEONE’S WAITING

Someone out there is waiting for your product or service.

If you are selling phones, it’s the next person through the door. If you are selling cars it’s the next person in your showroom, if you are selling recruitment services it’s your next sales presentation - the bottom line is that there will ALWAYS be someone waiting for you to sell to them.

It’s your job to take each opportunity as a separate entity and to start again.

Remember SWSWSWSW and it will focus your mind onto the next potential sale.

Until next time, happy selling!

Sean

** IMPROVE YOUR SALES PERFORMANCE **

We can come to you to help you close more sales and overcome those objections!
Check out http://www.mtdsalestraining.com/inhouse.htm

OR

You can come to us!
Check out http://www.mtdsalestraining.com/open.htm

_______________________________

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training International

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

How to Qualify the Decision Maker on a Cold Call

One of the many challenges sales people face in setting appointments on the telephone is qualifying the prospect, which has become a major issue and causes tremendous amounts of lost income and time.

I believe the main problem for this is because most sales people still have a bit of the old Smile and Dial mentally.

It is out of fear that sales people fail to properly qualify or identify the true decision maker.

As an example:
A sales person goes through two dozen cold calls, gets hung up on a few times and finally gets a person on the telephone who sounds like he will listen and whose “title” says he or she may be the Decision Maker - that’s it! Why mess this up? The moment the “good sounding” person gets on the telephone; just set the appointment and get off as soon as possible. This type of shove your story down the throat of anyone who will listen is part of the old-school telemarketing pitch mentally.

Also, many sales people are afraid to ask to verify the Decision Maker because they do not want to introduce such a “buying” question so early in the conversation. To ask such a direct question so early in the call also exposes the true reason the sales person is calling. “Do you make the buying decisions for shipping services for your company?” That question exposes that you are calling to sell shipping services and many sales peoples are still under that outdated idea to try and hide, disguise and delay their identity and true purpose. They are still trying to bait-the-prospect along; to keep them on the telephone until they can get to the “good part” of the pitch, when the prospect can hear some benefits.

Once again, those days are over!! Be professional and you will set more quality appointments with more qualified prospects.

The best way to qualify the Decision Maker in a cold call is simple: ask the prospect if they are the person who actually makes he decision or makes the purchase of whatever it is that you sell. And do this regardless of the person’s job title or other potential things that signify the prospect may be the true Decision Maker.

In other words, let’s say you sell help desk management software, and your sales model says specifically that it is the “Help Desk Manager” who is the Decision Maker which is usually true. STILL, you should ask everyone; regardless of title if they make the decision. And the reason for this is not only to qualify the prospect technically, but to qualify the prospect psychologically as to their attitude toward you and what you do.

You must ask the prospect if they are the Decision Maker but also explain exactly what you do.

For example, if you sell security management software, you can’t just ask, “Do you make the decisions on software?”

Depending on exactly what you do, the decisions about the product or service can be made by someone else.

Be complete and direct:

Sales Person:
“Yes, Hi Mrs. Prospect, I’m Jo Bloggs from Help Desk Systems and we help companies manage help desk calls across multiple platforms. Do you purchase enterprise wide help desk management software for ABC Financial?”

Here’s another example:

Sales Person:
“I help independent business owners with inventory management. As the owner, do you also make all the decisions on your inventory management and costs?”

Explain exactly what you do and ask the prospect if they handle it and you will qualify the Decision Maker!

Happy Selling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Website:
www.mtdsalestraining.com

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