Musings Of A Marketer » gatekeeper http://www.nastaev.com Blog By Zalim Nastaev Tue, 07 Feb 2012 11:36:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 Gatekeepers At Guard http://www.nastaev.com/2008/02/21/gatekeepers-at-guard/ http://www.nastaev.com/2008/02/21/gatekeepers-at-guard/#comments Thu, 21 Feb 2008 20:00:09 +0000 Zalim http://www.nastaev.com/index.php/2008/02/21/gatekeepers-at-guard/ Be it salespeople, jobhunters or whoever else, people have to first face a gatekeeper when trying to contact a person of interest at a company. How frequently do you succeed in actually passing through, especially if you are first-time caller?

I understand that people too busy taking calls, and having a gatekeeper is an inevitable solution in majority of cases. But what are the objectives of having one? Is it that you need them to do a thorough screening and decide on whether the caller is worth talking to, or do an initial screening to pass further on to the necessary person? I would opt for the latter.

One of our partners (prospective, of course) were very close to losing us – just because their secretary deemed our service absolutely stupid and irrelevant (she needed 5 seconds to make that decision). Thank to me being stubborn enough, and to Internet community sites, I could find a contact of a decision maker at that company. Naturally, he found the service very interesting and timely. I didn’t tell him the story of a gatekeeper at that time :)

Another role of a gatekeeper here in Russia is helping the manager avoid the partners. It’s so comfy – you make smb else answer the phone and say you are out of office.

What is the role of your gatekeeper?

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