Qualification Gatekeepers, aka: Receptionist Dragons
My new boiler room guys in London have been having fun today. They’re going through the building-a-funnel phase from scratch. To do so, they need to i.d. suitable companies that could well be our customers of tomorrow. What they’re occasionally encountering is the British disease of gatekeeping, masquerading usually as “why do you need to know that” and “we don’t give out that kind of information” and “send me a mail and we’ll see if we can tell you”. All nonsense.
As I told my guys, we’re only doing precisely what they expect their sales people to do, so to give it the old ‘high and mighty’ is a bit rich, and hypocritical. Every now and then of course, some clown will be all jobsworth. The general rules to follow, I’d suggest are fourfold:
- Remind them you’re not after anything confidential, the crown jewels and coca-cola’s ingredient ‘x’ are safe.
- You’re not trying to sell something, merely give someone relevant the opportunity to see/hear some info.
- You’d like to make contact with someone relevant, provided certain criteria apply…. and does that criteria apply again, please?
- If this fails, ask to be put through to someone else, preferrably an admin person from the department concerned, to speak to direct, and ask required qualification questions to them personally.