Knowing how to get past the gatekeeper is crucial in B2B sales if your job involves cold calling, but good sales training and the right mindset can help.
Whether you’re doing cold prospecting or following up after a discovery call, your ability to get past the gatekeeper can be the difference between a missed opportunity and a closed deal.
If you’re selling into the UK, US, Australia and quite a few of the larger markets, you can expect to deal with gatekeepers frequently.
But even if you’re not in a market where gatekeepers are common, you should be trained to handle them, especially if you work on large target accounts.
In this article, I’ll teach you the sales techniques I used in over 100,000 outbound sales calls to get past the gatekeeper and reach more decision-makers.
Jump to a section:
- What is a Gatekeeper?
- Befriending Gatekeepers
- The 3 Types of Gatekeepers
- Your Gatekeeper Mindset
- The ‘Three-Question Thank-You Technique’
- How to Detect Their Lies
- 7 Ways to Avoid Them
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Gatekeeper?
In sales, a Gatekeeper is used to describe a receptionist, switchboard operator, or personal secretary because they control access to people.
A gatekeeper’s responsibility is to protect the time of the company’s employees by filtering sales calls.
When you dial the main switchboard number and ask to speak to your contact by their name or job title, you can expect to be interrogated by a gatekeeper.
I had the pleasure of dealing with gatekeepers during my first business-to-business sales role in an extremely competitive telecommunications industry.
My role was to book meetings for the regional business development managers, and my days consisted of hard-core cold-calling, so I became well acquainted with gatekeepers.
They blocked my cold calls and follow-up calls, screened my emails, and did everything else in their power to stop me from doing my job and reaching my contact.
It was a never-ending battle.
After making more than 8,000 cold calls during my first three months in that role, the gatekeepers started to get the better of me.
I was frustrated, negative and going into every cold call with my battle axe ready for the fight.
A short time after, I quit my job, declared bankruptcy, and walked away from the sales profession altogether.
Thankfully, I returned a few months later.
The gatekeepers were just as ruthless, but my experience helped me develop a tougher mental attitude.
However, it wasn’t until later in my career I realised some of the biggest mistakes I made when dealing with gatekeepers and started coming up with better strategies.
Befriending the Gatekeeper
The strategy of befriending the gatekeeper is nothing more than a reverse psychological trick designed to manipulate gatekeepers into doing something they should not do.
When I first received training in the art of dealing with gatekeepers, there was a huge focus on the importance of befriending them.
I still hear many sales trainers recommending the same approach today. They’ll tell you to be polite, get their name, and tell them the compelling reason for why you are calling because people like to buy from people they like.
But let me tell you a story about a guy named Jonny who was the master of befriending the gatekeepers.
I started on the same day as Jonny at the telecommunications company I mentioned earlier.
Jonny was a charismatic and friendly chap of Greek descent with a strong cockney accent and a classic suave Greek appearance.
Jonny was well-liked in the office and had previous industry experience.
Hopes were high for him.
If there was one thing Jonny was brilliant at, it was building rapport with the gatekeepers.
Without a word of a lie, he used to take them out on dates.
Jonny would woo the gatekeepers with his charm on the phone, take them out that same week, and really take the cold out of cold-calling.
Jonny was such a smooth talker.
He knew the name of the gatekeeper at almost every company he called and would speak to them like they were his friends about all sorts of rubbish for a few minutes every time he called.
I always remember feeling very envious, wishing I had the same ability.
Despite his extreme ability to befriend the gatekeepers, it turned out that Jonny was booking more dates than meetings, leaving him consistently at the bottom of the sales charts, which eventually cost him his job.
As awesome as Jonny was at building rapport with and befriending the gatekeepers, his efforts had been a complete waste of time.
Most sales trainers who preach the befriending strategy fail to take into consideration quite a few crucial factors.
The 3 Types of Gatekeepers
In my experience, there are three types of gatekeepers:
- Scarecrows
- Bouncers
- Parents
Scarecrows are typically switchboard operators who are merely there to direct your call. They may ask you one or two questions, but this is only to announce your call or log you into their system.
You will typically find scarecrows inside larger organisations, and with the right mindset, they will cause you no problems.
Bouncers, frequently called receptionists, are semi-protective gatekeepers typically found in small- to medium-sized businesses.
A bouncer’s role includes a variety of administrative tasks, including taking calls and messages for people.
Some bouncers are easy to bypass, while others can be hardcore. I often find it depends on how competitive their industry is and how well their day has gone.
Friday afternoons tend to be an easy ride, whereas Monday mornings can be a nightmare.
Parents I describe as the personal assistant or secretaries.
You’ll typically deal with parents if you are trying to reach senior decision-makers inside large organisations.
I would also describe the parents as the real gatekeepers and probably the only ones worth befriending.
If you’re not on good terms with them, or if you don’t follow their procedures, you’re going to find it hard to reach your desired contact person.
A parent will often have a personal relationship with your contact person, so find out what calls your contact will take and what calls they won’t.
Some parents will also control your contact person’s diary and know where they are every minute of every day.
If you’re calling larger organisations, you will likely be dealing with scarecrows or parents, whereas if you are calling small- to medium-sized businesses, you will likely be spending most of your time dealing with bouncers.
My recommendation is to avoid wasting your time befriending scarecrows and bouncers. They often have little or no influence on your contact person, and as Jonny found out, befriending them can have the opposite effect.
Jonny’s approachable nature enabled gatekeepers to take advantage of what he offered.
They reversed the reverse psychology on him and made him feel bad about asking them to put him through to his desired contacts – and for that, he lost his job.
Your Gatekeeper Mindset
“These are not the droids you are looking for.” -Obi-Wan Kenobi – Star Wars
If you’re unfamiliar with the above quote, it’s spoken by Obi-Wan Kenobi, a character in the 1977 movie Star Wars.
He says it after being stopped by stormtroopers looking for the droids he is transporting.
Obi-Wan uses his mind tricks to convince the stormtroopers they do not need to ask further questions about his droids so he can move along.
I recommend watching the film clip on YouTube for the full effect.
If you can apply the same strategy with gatekeepers when trying to reach your contacts, you’ll be amazed by your hidden Jedi powers.
The term ‘gatekeeper’ is often so hyped up that you can easily find yourself locked in a constant battle with your mindset.
The worst thing you can do when calling out is always to expect the gatekeeper to block you.
This assumption will put you in a negative frame of mind and come across in your communication. You’ll either sound insecure, edgy or a bit of both.
A well-trained gatekeeper can sniff a vulnerable salesperson out in a heartbeat, and you’ll be sending an email to the info@ address before you’ve had the chance to give the reason for your call.
Even if you know the likelihood of getting through is small, you need to believe you should be put through and that your call is important.
But most of all, you need to come across like you expect to be put through.
It wasn’t until later in my career I realised I had developed a powerful unconscious strategy to bypass gatekeepers which had been working flawlessly.
The ‘Three-Question Thank-You Technique’
The ‘Three-Question Thank You-Technique’ is my secret weapon for disarming gatekeepers.
If mastered, this technique will instantly improve your connection rates.
After making thousands of cold calls, I began to get a little sick and tired of repeating myself, so I decided to investigate why.
The first thing I noticed was that the gatekeeper often made me repeat everything I said when they answered the call.
The conversation would typically start something like this:
Me: “Hello my name is David White, and I’m calling from the company On Air Telecom. Can I speak to Lee Lomas, please?”
Gatekeeper: “Yes, can I ask who’s calling?”
Me: “Yes, my name is David White.”
Gatekeeper: “And which company are you calling from?”
Me: “On Air Telecom.”
Gatekeeper: “And what is the call regarding?”
Me: “It’s regarding your mobile phone contracts.”
Gatekeeper: “No thanks, we’re not interested.”
Within 30 seconds, I repeated my name, my company name, and quite often, the name of my contact person.
I realised I had delivered my information far too quickly, making it almost impossible for the gatekeeper to process it all at once, so I decided to try the strategy of giving it in slower, smaller chunks.
I figured if I called and started by asking for the contact person I wanted to speak to, the questions about my name and company would naturally come afterwards.
The results were instant.
I no longer had to repeat myself on every call, and immediately, I felt less frustrated.
But this change in strategy also highlighted something even better.
I had realised a strange sense of hesitance or lack of confidence from the gatekeepers when I entered my calls in this new way.
It was almost like they feared me a little.
I was no longer trying to explain what my company did, and I was getting through to my contacts at a much higher rate.
I realised the gatekeepers seemed to have an unconscious psychological rule that asking two questions was okay, three were borderline nosey, and anything over that was close to being rude.
And then I put two and two together.
The gatekeeper’s primary role is often to be at the professional forefront of their company.
They take calls from everyone, including customers, business partners, board directors, and other people.
So, when I was calling without any introduction and just asking for the name of the person I wanted to speak to, the gatekeeper had no clue if I was a salesperson or a board member; hence, the hesitancy and lack of confidence I had noticed.
There were also a couple of other subconscious elements to this new winning strategy too:
1. I’m British, so I often use my manners.
Saying good morning or good afternoon and using please and thank you are natural to me. I discovered these manners were having a magic effect with gatekeepers.
The use of ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’ at the beginning of the call ensured I did not sound rude, especially considering I had stopped introducing myself by name right away.
And saying ‘thank you’ at the end of each response also acted as a psychological message that I now expected to be connected.
2. I’m naturally confident and straight-talking.
As I already mentioned, confidence is one of the qualities that makes a good salesperson.
By sounding a little authoritative when asking to speak to your contact person, you’ll make yourself sound like someone of importance and increase the likelihood of being connected.
Just be sure to remember your manners – confidence can easily be mistaken for arrogance.
So, with this new approach, my cold calls were beginning to sound more like this:
Me: “Good morning. Can I speak to Lee Lomas, please? Thank you.”
Gatekeeper: “Yes, can I ask who’s calling, please?”
Me: “Yes, my name is David White. Thank you.”
Gatekeeper: “And which company are you calling from?”
Me: “On Air Telecom, thank you.”
Most gatekeepers will put you through at this point, especially if they’re just busy switchboard operators (scarecrows) who want to direct your call with speed so they can take the next call or carry on with their other tasks.
With bouncers and parents, the conversation may continue to the defining question, “And what is the call regarding?”.
Here, you need to come up with a short and vague response.
I often found if you come up with a technical or confusing answer, you get connected immediately.
So, rather than saying my call was about their mobile phone contracts, I would just say, “It’s about the renewal of your subscription, thank you”, or, “It’s regarding a new batch of 5210s, thanks”.
Below is a list of examples of alternative responses for different types of businesses.
Example A: “The call is regarding your Google AdWords spend.”
Replace with: “It’s regarding your CTR, thank you.”
Example B: “The call is regarding your website SEO.”
Replace with: “It’s regarding your Metadata, thank you.”
Example C: “The call is regarding recruitment services.”
Replace with: “It’s regarding an employee matter, thank you.”
Example D: “The call is regarding website hosting.”
Replace with: “It’s regarding your VPS servers, thank you.”
I recommend you put time aside to come up with a variety of potential responses based on your own business.
You should then spend a day or two putting them to the test.
Your toughest challenge when applying this new strategy will be breaking the habit of introducing yourself at the beginning of every call.
You have likely been doing this for a long time, so it’s an unconscious habit.
The only way to truly break a habit is to replace it with a new one and practise it until it sticks.
So, with the combination of this ‘Three-Question-Thank-You Technique’ and your new Jedi mind powers, you should see a substantial difference in your connection rates, resulting in more conversations with your contacts and fewer headaches due to the gatekeepers.
How to Detect Gatekeeper Lies
Regardless of how well you master how to get past the gatekeeper, you’ll still have to accept that you won’t get through to your contacts every time.
There will be times when your contacts are unavailable, on another call, in a meeting, away from their desk, or out at lunch.
Based on experience from over 100,000 sales calls during my career, there’s a high chance the gatekeeper will lie to you about the availability of your contact.
This is why it’s important to learn how to detect gatekeeper lies.
I’ve witnessed plenty of comical moments where the gatekeeper has failed to adequately mute their phone while quietly asking my contact person if they wanted to take the call.
It’s infuriating when the gatekeeper says your contact is out, and you know the person you want is there.
But you must not let this get to you.
Instead, have some fun with the gatekeeper and see how good you can get at lie detecting.
I will reiterate to you, your mindset is crucial when it comes to handling gatekeepers. If you believe they’re lying to you every time, you’ll frustrate yourself and make mistakes.
Mistaking a lie with an honest answer is easy.
The truthful reasons for your contact’s unavailability are usually the same reasons used by gatekeepers when lying to you.
People are also very convincing liars when they do it often enough.
6 Signs the Gatekeeper is Lying
The following signs give a good indication of when a gatekeeper was lying.
- The gatekeeper takes all your information and immediately confirms your contact is unavailable without checking.
- The gatekeeper insists on taking a message multiple times in the same conversation, despite you having said you would call back.
- The gatekeeper will pause, say “Ermmm”, or clear their throat before answering.
- The gatekeeper asks you to repeat your question and is still slow to respond.
- The gatekeeper contradicts themselves by telling you various reasons for the unavailability of your contact.
- The gatekeeper tries to connect you to your contact but then comes back and asks what the call is regarding.
All of the above signs may indicate you have blown your cover, and the gatekeeper knows it’s a sales call.
These signs are not bulletproof, so don’t jump to conclusions too quickly.
The most efficient way of detecting if the gatekeeper is lying to you is to master some immediate questions in response to their reasons for your contact’s availability.
So, if the gatekeeper tells you that your contact is unavailable and asks if you can call back later, you could respond by asking any one of the following questions:
“Are they in a meeting?”
“What time are they free again?”
“Is there a better number to reach them on?”
Alternatively, if the gatekeeper tells you that your contact is in a meeting and constantly asks what the call is regarding, you could respond by saying:
“What time does the meeting end?”
“Do you know what the meeting is about?”
“Don’t worry about it. I will call back later.”
You may feel like some of the above questions are rude and intrusive, and indeed they can be.
But if you can adjust your tone of voice, select the right questions, and use your manners, you can ask almost anything without it coming across in the wrong way.
My favourite is always to ask if I can be transferred through to the contact’s voicemail, especially if I get told they are on the phone.
This one always catches the gatekeeper off guard if they’re lying.
What you should be listening out for is the gatekeeper’s response to your questions.
Some liars react angrily when challenged, while others will be more nervous and start to show some of the signs I mentioned earlier.
I recommend logging every call you make in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system along with call notes, no matter how short.
If your role includes making hundreds of cold calls and handling gatekeepers all day, you should be making a quick note to remind yourself of the reason given for why you did not reach your contact, such as ‘Contact in a meeting, asked to call back tomorrow’.
This task may seem tedious, but it’s smarter than calling the same company daily and listening to the same lie about your contact’s unavailability.
Once it becomes apparent you’re not going to get through a gatekeeper, you have two options.
- Give in and move on.
- Get creative with ways to reach your contact.
If you’re working in a role where call volumes are high, and deal sizes are small, I highly recommend moving on.
It’s easy to get stuck calling the same carousel of low-quality leads if you don’t learn how to let go.
Alternatively, if you make less than 50 calls per day and work with bigger deal sizes, it’s time to master some creative ways to bypass the gatekeepers.
7 Ways to Avoid Gatekeepers
The strategy of calling the same company every day in the hope a tough gatekeeper will connect your call is like banging your head against a brick wall.
If it’s blatantly obvious you’re dealing with a highly skilled gatekeeper, then change your approach.
I’ve tried, tested, and witnessed some crazy techniques for beating the gatekeeper during my time, but it’s often the simple or creative ones that work best.
Below I will share some of these with you.
(1) Pay Attention to Detail
I’m often in disbelief at the lack of attention people pay to the resources and details available to them.
A thirty-second online search or a glance at the ‘About Us’ or ‘Contact Us’ pages on your contact’s website can sometimes give you access to the direct number of your desired contact person.
And for heaven’s sake, if you have been in an email dialogue with them, check their email signature for their direct contact details.
(2) Call When the Gatekeeper is Not There
Most gatekeepers work a standard shift such as 9am to 5pm and take their lunch at the same time every day.
You’ll find that calling early in the morning, late in the afternoon, early in the evening or during typical lunch hours can be the perfect time to avoid the gatekeeper.
(3) Always Ask for a Direct Number
If you have already had a brief conversation face-to-face or via telephone or email with your contact, don’t forget to ask them what the best direct number is to reach them.
I also recommend asking gatekeepers for the direct number of your contact person too. Most salespeople are too afraid for fear of being cheeky, but you’ll be surprised at how many times you get it if you ask.
(4) Avoid Sounding Like a Salesperson
I’ve already covered many of the basics such as not introducing yourself in full when calling and being short and vague about what your call is regarding, but you must also avoid other cliché sales habits too.
Saying such things as “Hey, how are you doing today?” when you enter the call is one that automatically triggers the suspicious ‘what are you after’ signal.
(5) Try the Wrong Number or Department
If you want to avoid the gatekeeper, don’t call the main switchboard. When you can, locate the number of specific departments such as accounts or technical support.
Next, call them, apologise, and say that you’re not sure you reached the right department and tell them who you’re trying to reach.
It’s a simple technique with a very high success rate.
I would advise you to avoid trying sales or customer service departments.
Salespeople know exactly what you’re up to, and customer service representatives are always likely to transfer you back to the switchboard.
(6) Leverage Email and Social Channels
Creating a consistent strategy for emailing and messaging your contacts across multiple platforms is eventually going to get you engaging directly with them.
Email them a quick “Just tried to call” message. Message them on or engage with their LinkedIn posts. Follow them on X.
(7) Get Referrals
Getting a personal referral from a mutual friend or acquaintance is the easiest route to direct contact.
Search your network for anyone who works at the same company as your contact person or knows someone who does.
Even if your buddy just knows the kitchen assistant, it’s an excellent way to connect directly and avoid the gatekeeper.
Conclusion
Learning how to get past the gatekeeper is a crucial skill to master in B2B sales, and can have a direct impact on your results.
Many of the sales techniques I’ve shared in this article are tried and tested, but they won’t work every time.
Some gatekeepers are simply very good at their jobs, and the smartest thing you can do is stop fighting them and find another route to the buyer.
The biggest difference comes from your mindset.
If you expect to be blocked, hesitate when you speak and sound like another salesperson trying to sneak through, you’ll make the gatekeeper’s job easy.
Be confident. Be polite. Expect to be put through.
And when that doesn’t work, get creative.
About the Author
I’m David Craig White, a British B2B sales trainer, coach and consultant with more than 20 years’ experience helping sales teams get results.
When I’m not writing B2B sales articles, I’m providing sales training, coaching and sales consulting to B2B sales teams, sales leaders and business owners.
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How to Get Past Gatekeepers FAQ
In sales, a Gatekeeper is used to describe a receptionist, switchboard operator, or personal secretary because they control access to people.
The best way to get past gatekeepers on cold calls is to sound confident, polite and direct. Ask for the person you want to speak to without giving unnecessary information, answer questions briefly and speak as though you expect to be connected.
Gatekeepers can sometimes appear rude or difficult because part of their job is to filter unwanted calls and protect other employees’ time. Salespeople should avoid taking this personally and remain polite, confident and professional.
No, gatekeepers do not necessarily hate salespeople. However, many deal with sales calls every day, so they may quickly recognise common sales techniques and try to prevent unwanted calls from getting through.
No, not every company has a gatekeeper. Gatekeepers are more common in larger companies and companies where employees receive lots of external calls, while smaller companies may allow you to contact decision-makers directly.
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