Evading Gatekeepers: How to Get Straight to the Business Owner

August 23, 2019 by izynadmin in Business

Many entrepreneurs will soon discover that getting business from business owners – even if you are offering something they really need like UX/UI design, digital marketing, etc. – you may not get that opportunity because you can’t get past the “gatekeepers”. Who are these so-called “gatekeepers”?

A gatekeeper is anyone who gets between you and the business owner or decision-maker you need to speak with to offer your service. Gatekeepers can be secretaries, assistants, or any other employee. Often these employees are trained to weed out telemarketers, spam, and anything unimportant because obviously, they do not want to waste the time of their boss. They may even get in trouble for that. On top of that, these gatekeepers have no incentive to help you out – in fact, they usually have better incentives to hang up or delete your email.

In fact, I have worked in a call center and daily people call offering services to the company, and almost always they are shut down – especially if they do not have a name of who you are looking for.

STEP 1: INVESTIGATE & DO YOUR HOMEWORK

You have to know the name of the person you are trying to contact – whether that is the business owner or head of marketing or sales. Know your target. This way when you call and a gate keep answers you can confidently begin with “Mr, Clarkson, please”, or even better, use his/her first name which implies you are friends at the least, “I was calling for Doug, could you transfer me to him?”. If said confidently, you should get past that gatekeeper fairly easily on a good day.

How do you find the business owner’s name? If it is not on their website or Linkedin page then the company is probably small enough that you could walk in and ask any employee, or it’s too large that it should not be your first, second, or tenth client.

STEP 2: EVADE GATEKEEPERS ALL TOGETHER

Spies never go through the front door… unless they have masks like in Mission Impossible and stuff.

Rather than finding a way to slip past gatekeepers, how about eliminating variables and risk and going past them all together?! Sound great right? You probably think this is difficult and guess what – it’s not. In fact, it is sometimes easier.

Gatekeepers are primarily on guard when calling cold calling businesses, cold emailing, or walking in the front door. However, technology has connected people so much more today in 2019 that getting ahold of business owners has actually never been easier – BUT this means it is easier for your competition as well!

So here are a few ways to get in direct contact with the business owner:

1. Find them on Linkedin and send a direct message to them – or better yet send a well-planned selfie-video explaining who you are and how your service can help their company (maybe add in a short demo clip)

2. Find them on Facebook – send a friend request and then message or send the same selfie video as mentioned in the previous point. So what you don’t know them. Business owners on Facebook constantly get friend requests from other business owners – because business owners never stop networking!

3. Google https://hunter.io/ and you may be able to find a direct personal email for a business owner and send him a message or loom video through that email.

STEP 3: CRUSH THE MEETING & CLOSE THE CLIENT

Are you ready to close your client?

Stay tuned for our upcoming posts where we discuss closing clients!

Izzy Nowick
CEO & Co-founder
www.matryxmedia.com
matryxxmedia@gmail.com
Follow us on instagram: @matryxmedia