CHAPTER 4Getting Gatekeepers to Work for You

PHONE SALES CHALLENGE – Jake, a longtime salesman in commercial banking, complains: “I could close twice as much business if it weren’t so hard to get the actual decision maker on the phone!”

If you define a gatekeeper as the person or system that stands between you and your sale, you will encounter a number of different types as you work through your daily sales calls. These may include actual people (PBX or company operators, administrative assistants, and receivers of forwarded calls), voice mail systems, and automated company menus. Bypassing these different gatekeepers requires slightly different strategies, but each type is a barrier you must move beyond in order to get to the real decision makers. ...

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