How To Get Past Gatekeepers

There are a lot of articles about getting past gatekeepers on sites like SalesBuzz.com, InsideSales.com, and others. Sometimes, though, these articles start by saying that cold-calling is dead and if you're even getting to gatekeepers instead of direct dials, you're doing something wrong. 

While inbound marketing and sales enablement is the best way to get warm, qualified leads with decision-maker name and number, if you're not having people raise their hand, you still have to go find sales somehow, and in order to do that, you'll need to pull a list, write a script, and make some phone calls.

Cold-calling isn't dead when it's the only way you have to get in front of potential buyers quickly, and in order to help you do that, here are some hacks to get around gatekeepers, or at least to leverage your conversation with them to help with future marketing. 

The Cordial Ask

"Hi, my name's Timothy, calling with Incept. May I please speak with Jim Smith?" 

(This doesn't work - keep reading) 

The "I'm an old friend" Play

"Hey, it's Timothy, is Jim in?" 

The No-Nonsense Ask 

"Yes, Jim, please." 

If you don't have a name, you may be able to find one using some internet hacks. If nothing else, you may be able to swap out the name for the title in the examples above (Example, "Yes, head of sales, please."). However, if that's the case, you should be trying to capture as much information as you can from the gatekeeper before you're transferred. Here are some examples of how to do that: 

Asking for the name first

"Hi, I was looking for the head of your sales department. Do you know who that'd be?" 

Asking for the name last

"Hi, I was looking for the head of your sales department." 

"One moment and I'll transfer you." 

"Thanks, and before you transfer me, who are you connecting me with?" 

Push for the email address

*Continued from examples 1 & 2* 

GK: "That's Jim." 

"Perfect, and what's Jim's email address?" -OR- "Great, and is Jim's email address [made.up@emailaddress.com]?" 

"Yep, that's it." -OR- "No, it's [correct@emailaddress.com]" 

"Thanks, I'll wait to be transferred." 

Now, those are ideal situations, and we all know that more often, gatekeepers are less enthusiastic about transferring you to their higher-ups or giving out their information. Here are some examples of ways that top-performing sales reps navigate around a gatekeeper who says something like, "And is he expecting your call?" Or "And what's this call regarding?": 

Be urgent

Come up with a one-liner that sounds critical enough that you'll get transferred: 

"I need to talk to him about his sales goals for the year and didn't want him to miss them because of something crazy happening." 

- OR - 

"I wanted to see if he had heard about what happened over at [Competitor Company]. It's pretty crazy." (Just be ready to talk about this briefly if Jim calls you out on it.) "Yeah, I had mentioned that [Competitor Company] is using an outsourcer to set appointments for their outside sales team and it's boosting their sales numbers.") 

Be vague

Have a one-liner ready that is unspecific enough, but honest, that will sound relevant enough to get your transferred. 

"I had a sales question for him." 

- OR - 

"I wanted to touch base about a sales project." 

Redirect and collaborate

A gatekeeper's primary job is to not transfer calls to their higher-ups. If you are able to shift their mindset from gatekeeping to problem-solving, suddenly you're on the same team working together. 

"I was told Jim was the right person to talk to about a sales project, but I could be wrong. Would he be the best person to talk to about boosting sales, or is there someone else in your office that would be better to touch base with?" 

- OR - 

"At my office here, even though Timothy is the Business Development Manager, Sam would be the better person to talk to about a sales related project. Who's the "Sam" at your office?" 

Whatever you do, be honest. It's never okay to be untruthful when navigating around a gatekeeper - it creates a bad impression and starts the relationship off on a poor note, and in the business of sales, relationships matter. 

How To Boost Sales At A Manufacturing Company

The story of the rust belt in Ohio is resonant of the manufacturing industry across the country these days: Succession plans have happened, are happening, or will happen soon, and with that comes a flux in sales and marketing that could make or break the company. 

As you plan out your growth goals, here are some steps we recommend to make sure you exceed those goals in the most efficient, strategic manner. 

Stabilize and Grow Current Customers 

Segment the customer base for your core product

Even if you boast a vast range of capabilities, you probably have one or two applications that you do best, are most profitable, or you just prefer to focus on. This first step is where you document and analyze buying trends for those customers who fit within this application.

A customer segmentation campaign, generally in the form of a phone or electronic survey, is designed to help you see what your best buyers look like, why they buy from you and not your competitors, why they switch suppliers, etc. Customer segmentation usually results in between 2 and 10 (or more) segments of your current customer base that allows you to craft sales tactics specific to each type of buyer. 

Craft and execute sales tactics for each segment

For each segment it's important to develop a unique tactic that not only guarantees your customers continue to buy from you, but also provides opportunities to upsell and cross-sell existing customers.

For example, for your most loyal customers, we'll call them segment 1 out of 4, you may only need to send them a thank you note to cement the relationship. For your hit and miss or low volume customers (segment 4 of 4), you need to work on stabilizing them. This could take the form of a series of phone calls targeted specifically at educating them on your other capabilities or applications in effort to upsell or cross-sell them. The goal here is to get 1-product customers to buy another product. 

Reactivate Lapsed Customers 

Retrieve old customer data 

Whether it means breaking into that old filing cabinet that you've lost the key to, or pulling a report from your ERP, compile data for lapsed customers. The definition of 'lapsed' varies. For simplicity, let's go with customers who haven't made a purchase in over a year.  

Execute sales tactics planned from customer segmentation 

Chances are, the majority of your lapsed customers will fall into one of the buckets you created using your current customer segmentation exercise. Using the same or similar sales tactics, reach out to these lapsed customers and tell them thanks, say you miss them, and maybe offer them something special if they place an order. From here, make sure you stay in front of them and take advantage of any upsell opportunities that come along. 

Acquire New Customers Using a Look-Alike Campaign 

Build an ideal customer profile 

Using your learnings from Customer Segmentation, identify trends in Segment 1 (best customers) companies and use these to build a profile for ideal customers. Look for things like employee count, annual revenue, industry, and geography. All of this information is available in a national database like Hoover's or ReferenceUSA. 

Create a list of ideal prospective customers using this profile 

By creating an ideal customer profile, it allows you to have all the criteria you need in order to acquire a list of 'Look-Alike' companies.

Use a multi-channel, multi-touch prospecting approach 

Put together a smart cadence of touchpoints across several channels to start targeting these companies. Recommended approaches include phone calls, personal email, LinkedIn interactions, and ongoing email blasts with relevant content and updates from your company. 

Develop an Inbound Marketing Strategy 

Create relevant digital content 

Whether it's videos highlighting your company, how-to's that overview your capabilities, or simple blog posts like this, start generating great content that is relevant to your current and prospective customers.  

Position yourself as thought-leaders in the industry 

Companies that are doing this successfully are maintaining a steady drip of smart, relevant content, not only through email campaigns or newsletters, but in contributions to industry publications, speaking engagements, and webinar curation. Become the guru that people enjoy reading, listening to, or seeing speak about the applications of your capabilities or the implications on the industry. 

Develop a web-presence that makes it easy for your buyers to find you 

If you haven't already, go centralize and align your social media and web presence. This includes your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. The most successful companies are also leveraging Instagram and YouTube, as well as SnapChat. Make sure you have them all synced and updated with congruent messaging and branding across all platforms. These should all serve as a funnel, driving followers back to your company web site.  

Keep your following engaged with ongoing content 

Now that you've started, don't stop. Keep creating content, generating brand awareness, educating your prospect universe, and making it easy for them to get ahold of you when they need you.

What To Expect In Your Daily Feedback Email

When you sign up for InceptGrows, you subscribe to a fractional inside sales representative or, Account Growth Specialist (AGS), as we call them here. This means we dedicated one high-caliber sales rep to your account who is responsible for conducting sales-related tasks for you every day for a specified portion of their day.  

At the end of every day, you will receive an email summarizing the day's results. Here's what to expect in that email: 

Key-Performance Indicators

The first thing you'll see are totals of whatever KPI's we agreed were most important for your program. Generally, these include Dials, Right-Party Contacts, and Leads. It will look like this: 

The first number is the total number of calls that were placed that day. If your AGS placed multiple calls to the same company in an attempt to navigate a phone tree or reach a different decision-maker, this number will reflect the number of individual dials. 

The second number is Right-Party Contacts, or RPCs. This is the number of how many conversations your AGS had with the person they were trying to reach, most likely a decision maker. Possible outcomes for these conversations include Lead, Not Interested, Not now, or Requested Information. 

The third number is the number of Leads generated that day. This is defined during your set-up and onboarding process prior to making calls. For more information, please see this article on how to define a lead. 

Feedback from the Market

The second section in your daily feedback email is a summary of the day's conversations and feedback from the market. This includes a summary of any leads scheduled, as well as any qualitative feedback discovered during conversations with prospective customers. 

Be sure to read this section carefully, as there may be questions in here from that your sales rep asks in order to improve their output. 

Plan for Tomorrow

The final section is the overview of tomorrow's plan. This is where your sales rep will tell you what they'll do differently tomorrow based on their learnings today. 

This may also include decisions that your AGS makes, depending on the level of autonomy you've agreed they have. Be on the lookout in this section for language like, "Unless I hear otherwise from you…" as that indicates that they've made an adjustment and will proceed without confirmation.  

Frequently Asked Questions About Daily Feedback Emails

"Do I need to respond every day?" 

Absolutely not. We know you're busy, which is why we designed the email how we did. We do ask that you peruse it in its entirety each day in case there are direct questions from your sales rep. This process is designed to be a real-time progress check, and we can only improve if you provide the feedback necessary to do so. 

"Who are all of these people copied?" 

The people in the "To:" field are you and your team, which you probably figured out already. The other names in the "CC:" field InceptGrows management team, as well as Incept's executive leadership team. We include everyone so that you know just how important it is to us that your program is successful. Our whole team is invested in making our partnership a win for everyone. 

"Do I need to Reply All when I respond?" 

It depends. If you are replying to your sales rep with a personal message like, "Thanks, Suzy. Have a great weekend!" we're okay with you replying just to your Account Growth Specialist. If, however, you have responses to questions, feedback on the day's results, or other input relevant to the partnership, we ask that you click Reply All so that everyone here has visibility and can respond accordingly.

What The Best Inside Sales Representatives Do Differently

In his book The Challenger Sale, Matthew Dixon does a great job of describing the personality of the all-star sales representative and providing tips on how to scale that out to the entire team. It's a good read for building a strong overall sales cadence, but what about strictly phone-based sales? On a team of 10 inside sales representatives, what does the top performer consistently do differently than the rest of the team?  

Adapting the approach

The top performers on our team don't let themselves get stuck in a rut of reading scripts off a screen or constantly asking the same questions in the same order using the same tone of voice. They adapt their approach based on the nuances of each conversation they get in. Here's an example of two conversations with decision-makers: 

Sample 1

"Hello this is Jim" 

"Hi Jim, my name's Timothy, calling with Incept. How you doin' today?" 

"Good, Timothy, how are you?"  

"I'm doing just fine for a Tuesday afternoon - thanks for asking. Listen I was told that you're the person in charge of sales for the company, is that right?" 

"Yep." 

"Perfect. I wanted to reach out today to introduce myself. I was hoping to share with you how we are working with other companies here in your industry to increase sales activity and boost revenue. You got 3 minutes?" [Proceed with needs assessment] 

Sample 2

"This is Rob" 

"Hi Rob, Timothy with Incept, How you doing today?" 

"Good." 

"Glad to hear it. Listen I don't want to keep you long - Just wanted to reach out and introduce myself. We at Incept have been working with folks like you for over two decades to help increase sales activity and boost revenue." [Proceed with needs assessment] 

In sample 1, Jim is amicable and open to at least having a conversation, so the caller smiles and takes his time easing into the needs assessment, while being respectful of Jim's time.  

In sample 2, the caller takes a shorter, more direct approach. Why? Because Rob didn't start with "Hello" and didn't reciprocate in asking, "How are you?" Your all-stars intuitively hear these nuanced differences and adapt on the fly. Other mid- to low-performers may need to hear examples of this multiple times and be coached on how to handle each one before they start to pick up them more naturally. 

Knowing when to call back and when to let a lead rest

In many cases for complex solution sales, there are multiple stakeholders at your prospect customer companies. This means that in order to land the initial appointment of sales call, you may be able to (or have to) navigate the organizational chart and make multiple phone calls before getting through to a live decision-maker.  

If you're prospecting into an IVR system or 'phone tree,' you can likely get away with an unlimited amount of calls until you get to a live person. Your all-stars knows this, and do whatever it takes to get to the right person. Sometimes it's easy to use the directory to try multiple stakeholders in a row if you keep getting sent to voicemail. The especially savvy one will use any extension to get to any department and play it off with a simple, "Hi Suzy, I apologize - I may not have gotten to the right place. I was looking for the head of the sales department."*  Sure, they may get a little laugh or an annoyance, but chances are that Suzy wants to prove that she's smarter than the person calling who couldn't figure out the phone tree and will transfer you to the right place. 

If the number on the record is answered by a receptionist, your top performers know how to make multiple calls to the same receptionist without being a bother. "I'm so sorry Jake, I just called a minute ago and you transferred me to Jim in Sales. I got his voicemail - would Rob available?"* This tactic works two or three times before it wears out, and even then, chances are the all-star reps are going to rest the record for an hour and then call it back again. Jake probably won't remember the voice. 

Pushing for the ask

In some cases, all you have to go on is a phone number and a company name. Your mid- to low-performers may skip this record, or try once or twice to capture more information. But the top-performer knows to ask the right questions today in order to have a stronger lead tomorrow. 

In the section above, I starred both examples. Here's why: If your all-star doesn't have a good lead, with a name and email address, these types of conversations are the places to grab that information.  

Suzy answers. 

"Hi Suzy, I apologize - I may not have gotten to the right place. I was looking for the head of the sales department. Do you know who that would be?" 

"Yeah, that's Jim. Not sure why you got transferred to me." 

"Yeah, I’m not sure, I must have pushed a wrong button on the phone menu. What's Jim's last name?" 

"Jim Smith. He's the Director of Sales." 

"Perfect - are you able to connect me over to him?" 

"Sure just a second." 

The caller just used a simple IVR hack to build a stronger lead in order to have a stronger second call. Top-performers do this sort of thing naturally, whereas mid- to low-performers may just ask to be transferred, meaning they'll be in the same position tomorrow. 

Next example from above: Jake the gatekeeper answers. 

"I'm so sorry Jake, I just called a minute ago and you transferred me to Jim in Sales. I got his voicemail - would Rob available?" 

"Sure I can connect you." 

"Perfect, and before you do, is Rob's email address still Rob.Jones@prospect1.com?"

"Nope, not sure how you got that one. All of ours are just first initial last name, so rjones@prospect1.com" 

"Gotcha - my mistake. Thanks for your help." 

In this example, the all-star caller pushed to ask one more question before being transferred. There isn't always a ton of time to do this, but the best performers grab every second they can to capture as much info as possible in order to build a strong lead for future follow-up.  

(Side note - in the example above, the caller just threw out a made-up email address. Jake was either going to say, "Yep, that's it!" or provide the correct one.) 

These three habits are things that your all-star sales representatives probably do naturally. If you spend time listening to them, you'll probably start to see these things coming out, and from there can start to identify ways to coach the rest of the team into these practices and scale out this level of success to the whole team. 

5 Traits To Look For In Sales Development Representatives When Hiring

After spending a combined 40+ years in the call center, telemarketing, and sales development space, our team got together to discuss ways to increase productivity and results while reducing employee churn. The solution clearly comes down to one simple thing: You have to hire the right people to begin with. 

Here's a breakdown of the 5 most important things to look for when hiring for an inside sales position, especially one that revolves primarily around phone-based sales: 

Resilience

More than anything, an employee has to be willing and able to not only hear "No' over and over again on a daily basis, but to do so without losing the smile in their voice on the next call. It's easy to make 10 calls with a smile on your face, even if you're hearing a lot of objection on the other end of the phone. New day, fresh coffee, new leads; anyone can have a strong first hour. The real all-stars are the ones who can be just as strong in the late-afternoon. 

Coachability

The best sales teams focus heavily on coaching. When hiring a new class of Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), look for individuals who actively and intentionally seek out ways to improve and then implement the feedback they're given. The ones who succeed and stand out are the ones who take suggestions on how to get better and do them. 

Competitiveness

Go hire athletes. This goes right along with the first two, but adds a bit of an edge. Those who know how to compete, to sprint when the other guy wants to coast, to want it more than the other team, can make all the difference between whether your team achieves your weekly sales goals or misses them. 

Aggressiveness

Gatekeepers don't keep their jobs by letting everyone who calls through to the boss. If you want your team to reach the right decision-makers, they need to be assertive, aggressive, and ask for what they want. If they want to talk to the VP, they have to ask for it. If they want to capture the email address, they have to ask for it. If they want to schedule an appointment, they have to ask for it. If they want to close the sale… you get it.

Creative Problem-Solving

Sales teams vary in their level of process and complexity. Your future rockstars are the ones who have a track record of improving processes, creatively overcoming obstacles, and navigating complex situations in order to achieve the desired outcome. This could be anything from new tactics to get around gatekeepers, to how to aggregate and report the team's sales numbers at the end of the day.