How do Sales People Get my Information? Part 11 of 13

This is part 11 of the blog series, “How do Sales People get my Information?”  This blog series is designed to educate companies on the most common and newest techniques sales people use to infiltrate their organization to find a person who they can sell to.

Technique #11

“The Authoritative Technique”

This technique is derived directly from Chet Holmes, The Art of Getting to Any Decision Maker

Stop talking like a salesperson and start talking with authority.

There are two ideas the sales person focuses on to make this technique work:

1. Sound very commanding on the phone.  The sales person intentionally tries not to sound friendly to the executive assistant because this is a dead giveaway of a sales person on the phone.

2. The other focus of the sales person is to give as little information to the office assistant as possible.  The goal is to send the office assistant back to the decision maker as many times as possible without giving any real information as to who the caller is. 

Eventually this will annoy the target prospect and the decision maker will eventually tell the assistant to put the call through.

Chet Holmes describes this conversation in the reference article link above but I will give you the excerpt here.  The excerpt is in italics.

Here's how to send the gatekeeper back so many times that the CEO finally gets fed up and tells her to put the call through.  You might even considering having a contest to see how many times you can send the gatekeeper back to the CEO you're trying to reach.

You: Hi.  This is Bill Johnston.  I'm calling for Carl.  Is he in?

[Notice that the assistant can't ask my name, I've given it.  Important people give their names.  And I didn't ask, "How are you today?"]

Assistant: Can I ask what this call is in reference to?

You: Just tell him it's Bill Johnston.

[The assistant goes to Carl and tells him it's Bill Johnston.  The boss says, "What's it about?"  The assistant says: "He didn't say.  It sounded like he knew you."  The boss tells the assistant to get more information.]

Assistant: I'm sorry.  Can you tell me what this is in reference to?

You: Did you tell him it's Bill Johnston?

Assistant: Yes.  He didn't seem to know you.

You: Hmm.  Just tell him I'm from XYZ Company.  That might jog his memory.

[Remember to keep the tone of authority.  That keeps assistants off-guard.  They don't know if they have any power over you yet.  The minute you start sounding like a salesperson, you give them that power and they will wield it well.  You must keep them off-balance.]

The assistant goes to the boss again, expecting that he might know you.  You didn't say he would.  You said the name of your company might jog his memory.  Ideally, you will have sent a letter in advance with very little information.  Even if it gets thrown out, it still gives you the liberty to act like he might remember you, your company name, or the purpose of your call.

The boss says he doesn't know the name and sends the assistant back to you once again.

Assistant: I'm sorry.  Mr. Johnston, but the company name didn't ring any bells.  Can you please tell me what this is in reference to?

You: Who am I speaking to?

[You take control of the conversation.]

Assistant: This is his assistant.

You: Are you his regular assistant?

Assistant: Yes.

You: What's your name?

Assistant: Shirley.

[We want to get as much info as possible from every call.  Not only are you taking control, but you're taking impeccable records and gain more information from every call you make.]

You: Shirley, if you tell Carl that I'm following up on some correspondence sent to him, that should be enough.

Be clear that a top executive is not afraid to take your call.  And most are rescuers.  They will just say: "Put him through.  I'll handle this."

Often by this point the CEO comes to the phone just to have the assistant stop coming back to him.  He will be gruff, a little impatient.  That means that the first words out of your mouth have to be sharp and to the point and sound important.

Whatever you do, don't turn into a salesperson and ask him, "How are you today?" That screams, "Salesperson!"

Part 10

Part 12

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