Gatekeepers vs Enablers

[Sally McKenzie]

Responding to the recent post on "Gatekeepers vs Enablers", I wanted to share my two cents worth of strategies to deal with gatekeepers.  

 

In fact, they are not even my two cents, they are ideas I picked up from Alan Weiss.  

 

Alan talks a lot about "getting to the economic buyer", that is, getting to the person who can write the cheque or give the order to commence a consulting project without needing to get sign-off or approval from other people.  Gatekeepers are the people who stand between the consultant and the economic buyer. 

 

In this context, Alan provides three ideas to get around the gatekeeper:

1. Appeal to the gatekeeper's rational self interest - Explain how the project will be a success and make or save the company lots of money and so arranging an introduction with the economic buyer is a win-win situation;
2. If rational self interest fails, try guile - Explain that "ethically" you need to hear about the project requirements from the ultimate decision maker in order to avoid miscommunication etc.; 
3. If rational self interest and guile both fail, then blow up the gatekeeper - Find a way to get to the economic buyer independently.  Don't bad mouth the gatekeeper in the process, but don't let them stand in your way. 

I'm not sure that these three points are particularly relevant in the context of reaching out to students with career resources, but they will be relevant for independent consultants wanting to sell consulting projects to potential clients. 

[Tom Spencer]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Sally.  

 

I think the first one is definitely helpful for getting around a gatekeeper in any context.  

 

The second one is more relevant to selling consulting projects, but is still interesting.  

 

I like the third one the most, yet it's often the most difficult to implement.