You have to get in touch with the right person when making IT sales calls.  Often-times getting in touch with the key contact in a company during sales calls means exercising a great deal of creativity, but most importantly being respected and known in your community for a successful IT sales person.  

Getting past gatekeepers within companies is not easy, but certain techniques can help make it more possible.

Cold IT Sales Calls

Most gatekeepers will only take your name and number and probably will express a lack of interest in your services.  This happens most often during cold calling, so you should probably implement some new IT sales techniques to improve your chances of getting new clients.  If you’re going to use cold IT sales calls to build demand generation activities, you have to get past the gatekeeper to get to the next step.

Methods for Getting Past the Gatekeeper

1.    Call before or after the gatekeeper leaves.  You can expect them to be on a nine-to-five, eight-to-six or eight-to-four schedule.

2.    Send an e-mail.

3.    Send a fax.

4.    Send a letter.

5.    Send a postcard.

6.    Send a Fed-Ex marked “personal and confidential.”

Unfortunately many of these IT sales call strategies have been used by many people for years, so you may not have success with them.

The Ultimate IT Sales Strategy

The best way to get past gatekeepers is to become a known expert within your community.  Get to know power brokers like local accountants and solution providers in deep niches, speak at events, hold seminars, volunteer and invest quality time in network-building activities.  When you get a reputation within your community for being an expert and someone known, liked and trusted you will have better luck with IT sales.  

Blogged By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit