The key to hitting the target is to aim at the right spot!  Target the Decision-Maker.  This is true no matter who may have started the process.  If you get a call from someone other than the Decision-Maker, be sure you find out who makes the decision.  You will receive far more information when you ask for it prior to providing any information.  Be courteous and polite but find out as much detail as possible!  If you received a message or voice-mail, call the Decision-Maker before you call the lower level person.

The Gate-Keeper

The good news about calling at the highest levels is that they often have an assistant or someone to help callers rather than voice-mail.  It’s the Gate-Keeper's job to divert as many calls as possible to the appropriate person in the organization.

Start the conversation by giving them your name and the name of your company.  If you happen to work for a bank, the IRS, or the FBI, getting through to the person you wanted isn't usually very difficult.  People don't block those calls and they usually don't want to know too much about the purpose of the call anyway!  For most of us, that isn't the case, so be pleasant, courteous, and polite.  After you give your name, there's nothing wrong with asking for theirs.  Make it personable.  Don't act like it's a life or death situation.

Ask for the Decision-Maker by name.  Ninety percent (95%) of the time, the Gate-Keeper is going to ask you the purpose of the call before you even get to ask for the Decision-Maker.  The other five percent (5%) of the time, when they don't ask, they'll come back on the phone to ask you before you get connected.  If your experience has been that you get through to the Decision-Maker when you tell them the reason or purpose of the call, keep doing it!  But if you're not getting through, or you're just not satisfied with the number of times it happens, you may want an alternative strategy.  Keep in mind that you don't have to answer the question about the purpose of the call.  Simply ask if the Decision-Maker is available.  If they're not available, there’s no reason to go any further.  Unless you have an existing relationship with the Decision-Maker, don't leave messages!  It's our job to call them… not the other way around!

Instead, say something like… "I’m rarely at my desk… when would you recommend I call back to reach them?"  If they’re reluctant to give you a time, ask what time the decision-maker starts work or when they leave for the day.  Be sure to call back at that time.  Even if they're not available when you call, you now have an IOU since you did what the gate-Keeper suggested you do! 

Don't try to sell the Gate-Keeper!  They don't make the decision to use your products.  That's what the Decision-Maker does.  But don't alienate them either.  They are a good person to have on your side.

Fishing or Catching

I went deep-sea fishing in Hawaii several years ago and as the boat was leaving the harbor, the captain asked us "Did you sign up to go fishing?"  I thought it was a silly question at first as we responded "of course!"  Then he told us we'd spend some time fishing but he hoped we would spend most of the time "catching!"  It turned out to be my lucky day.  Most of the day was spent "catching."

Our goal is to get past the Gate-Keeper and reach the Decision-Maker… the sales professional’s equivalent of "catching."  When you get through to the Decision-Maker, keep in mind that your call, no matter how important it is to you, is an interruption to them.  No one, including the Gate-Keeper, is just sitting around waiting for their telephone to ring.  Everyone has work to do.  You have to first break their preoccupation and get their attention.   This is "fishing."

Introduce yourself and your company.  Don't launch into a product presentation.  This is one of the places to use your value proposition, which is simply a sentence that states the type of problems you help people resolve and the type of solution you provide.  It gives people an idea of what we do and how we may be able to help them.  Ask if they have a few minutes to talk now or would it be more convenient if you called back at a later time.

If this isn't the time to talk, don't push.  Tell them you don't want to bother them if they're in the middle of something.  Ask them for a convenient time for you to call again.  Set up the time before you get off the telephone.  Don't cave-in to "What's this about?"  Get an IOU for a later conversation.  If this is a good time to talk, this is where we separate the professionals from the amateurs.  What you do and say in the next 2 - 3 minutes is crucial.

The Power of Choice

When you're trying to catch fish, as dumb as those fish may be, you still have to put some kind of bait on the hook if you want to get them to bite it.  Professional fishermen are never sure what the fish may want to eat or what they may be thinking on a particular day so they usually set out a whole array of lures or different baits.  Some of these are on lines close to the boat to wake up the fish as they go by, followed by others further back to get the fish's attention, and then a final set to get the fish to bite.  The power of choice!

The sales professional also uses the power of choice.  We use several value propositions in much the same way.  Just like an array of different baits or lures, it’s the starting point for our conversation.  Our goal is to get them talking.  We draw them to us using value propositions as a fisherman uses "lures."  These lures are scenarios that briefly describe a problem our customers have experienced (the bait) followed by a brief description of the result our solution provided (the hook).

Once we throw out the value proposition, we ask if that's ever happened to them.  If their answer is "no," don’t sound disappointed.  Say something like “That’s good” and move on to another scenario or value proposition.  We want to give them several choices or examples of the problems we help our customers solve.

A nibble or strike on the "lure" occurs whenever the Decision-Maker starts to tell us about their experience with the problem we just described.  At this point, our outcome or goal changes to whatever we want next – either continuing to move through our sales process or getting an appointment to meet with them, face-to-face.  Your choice!