Category: Chapter 3: Avoiding Gatekeepers, Intermediaries, and Goblins

The best way to traverse gate keeper land is to treat gatekeepers with respect but at arm’s-length distance. The last thing in the world you need is to be seen as a peer of the intermediary. That will doom you no less than the Death Star from Star Wars in terms of habitable life in that prospect. 

Consequently, you must learn to accept rejection and reject acceptance. We all know about the former. This is the marketing business and many people say no. (The best hitters in baseball, even on steroids, only hit about three out of every 10 times at bat. That’s a 70 percent failure rate.) So we inure ourselves to this or we drink heavily. 

However, we don’t fully appreciate rejecting acceptance. Low-level people can feel important by interacting with outsiders directly, and so in that context you are raw meat for the relationship predators. Keep your distance. Work with gatekeepers to the extent that they can help you with the express lane to the buyer. 

I call this “mutual, enlightened self-interest” because everyone wins. 

If the gatekeeper chooses to accompany you to the buyer—introducing you and vouching for you—that’s wonderful, because he or she will get credit for your brilliance and you will probably wind up collaborating on parts of the project implementation. 

But if the gatekeeper prefers to send you along by yourself, staying out of the line of fire, that is also fine. Your retirement plan, merit increases, coveted parking space, and daily affiliation needs are not vested in that prospect. You can afford to take the flak where the gatekeeper may be gun-shy, and understandably so. 

What you can’t allow, however, is the gatekeeper to block you by not raising the gate. So trying to create a mutually beneficial advantage is the first avenue to explore. 

When I first began working with Merck as a client, Art Strohmer was a human re- sources manager. He saw his job as connecting appropriate and top-quality external resources with internal areas of relevant need. Any services he purchased from me were minor, but he consistently set up six-figure projects for me with line people who had the need and the budget—the true economic buyers. (Art is retired today for many years, but we still exchange holiday cards and the occasional e-mail.) 

Here are best and worst practices in terms of trying to build mutual self-interest so that a gatekeeper leads you to a buyer: 

TABLE 3.1 Mutual Self-Interest Best and Worst Pracitces 

Best Practices	Worst Practices
Focus on the process of the buying decision	Focus on content of the project
Brief meetings with clear agendas	Brainstorming and meals
Clarify your need to meet person with budget	Be vague about your next steps
Never offer a proposal or agreement	Provide proposal for review
Never allow to market for you internally	Assign as intermediary with buyer
Never rely on their views or interpretations	Assume they are accurate
Do not wait, create your own time frames	Rely on their “right time”

Size up your gatekeepers quickly. If they are confident and assertive, they should be ready, willing, and able to lead you to the land of the buyers. But if you find that’s not the case, then move on to the techniques in the following parts of this chapter.

Remember that enlightened self-interest doesn’t involve anything unethical or illegal. You don’t bribe gatekeepers to be introduced to the buyer. But you can find common ground where the gatekeeper sees your introduction to the buyer as a huge personal gain: 

• You represent a key resource that the gatekeeper found.
• The gatekeeper gets the credit for taking the initiative.
• A favorite priority of the buyer will be addressed.

Case Study: International Paper 

Many years ago, two of us were assigned the client-service role by our consulting firm for a major client, International Paper, in Georgia. This was the kind of plant at the time that you could smell for miles down wind, and where the vegetation for three miles had a chemical coating, and cars in the parking lot were rusting in front of your eyes. 

My partner, Ronnie, and I were never able to expand the sale past the gate-keeper we had inherited, a training guy named Don. But Don was superb at getting us to buy him free meals during our visits. 

One day, just to break the tedium, Ronnie and I bet on how many free meals Don would mooch from us over two days on-site. The bet was $50, and Ron had nine meals while I had eight. 

As Don drove us back to the airport at the end of the second day, we had had eight meals, so at least I had won $50. But suddenly Don said, “You two have at least 90 minutes to spare, and there’s a McDonald’s with a drive-through over there, why don’t we give it a try?” 

Out of nowhere I said, “A drive-through isn’t a meal!” 

Ronnie replied, “I guess if you chew it and digest it, it must be a meal.” 

And that’s how we never got to the economic buyer and I lost $50. 

• Someone will have to be the champion of the internal resources.
• There may be company-wide publicity and acclaim.
• A promotion could hinge on the project’s success.
• The gatekeeper can learn your methodology.
• The gatekeeper has done this before, so there is precedent.

If the intermediary decides to be part of the meeting with the buyer, acknowledge his or her help to this point but run the meeting using your agenda and intent. Remember that some buyers might not want to disclose everything in front of a subordinate, and your goal is to establish a trusting relationship with the buyer, so ultimately you’ll want to meet one-on-one. Keep the gatekeeper apprised of the general direction and issues, so that he or she feels included. 

If the intermediary decides not to participate in the initial meeting with the buyer, then make sure that he or she provides a solid introduction in person, by phone, or by e-mail (in that order or preference), and again pay that person the respect of being apprised of the progress. 

Sometimes the other party just isn’t that enlightened despite your best efforts. In this case, you need to invoke some guile, or artistry, to ease your way on down the road. 

If the first technique works about 50 percent of the time, this one works about 25 percent of the time. You need to make an unrebuttable excuse to meet the true buyer. 

My favorite is this: “Ethically, as you can imagine, in order to provide a proposal for any project I must speak to the person whose fiduciary responsibility includes evaluating the return on their budgetary investment. I must hear from his or her lips what expectations they have to ensure they are not being unreasonable or underestimating the return. Once that’s established, I’m happy to work with you on the implementation of whatever project emerges.” 

Picture a “comma” after “ethically” when you say this. The statement truly gives people cause for pause. Here are some likely follow-up statements. 

“But no other consultant has asked us to do this.” 

“Frankly, I’m shocked that you’d consider any consultant who doesn’t want to fulfill this ethical obligation, and that’s why you need me.” 

Or: 

“Sandy Jones is very busy and has tasked¹ me to evaluate resources.” 

“I’m very busy, too, and my intent is to evaluate whether Ms. Jones and I can work as partners on this project.” 

Or: 

“I can tell you everything you need to know and then take your proposal to Sandy Jones.” 

“My experience over the years is that the buyer always has objectives that others aren’t privy to and/or that we end up developing together. If this project is under- taken, and Ms. Jones feels she’s been misinformed or the direction isn’t consistent, she’s going to react poorly to you, not to me. It’s not my retirement plan that’s vested here.”

You may feel that these are strong statements and they are, but you have nothing to lose when the gatekeeper keeps sitting on the gate. You should always point out: “We have three options before us. The two of us can go to Ms. Jones as a team, which is fine with me. However, if there is the chance of any backlash, I’m happy to go alone and take the hit, after your introduction. The third option is your going alone, and that’s not on the table because it’s unfair of me to expect you to do my  marketing for me.” (Which of course they won’t do very well or passionately in any case.) 

This is useful to remember when you’re faced a few times a year with the rubric: “The committee makes the decision, and I have to present to them.” Very, very few committees decide. The members usually recommend to the person who formed it, who may be a part of it or may not be. So you’re still better off trying to find the true buyer. But the same guile can be applied: “The committee will ask you questions that you won’t be able to answer, so why don’t we simply arrange for me to appear in front of the committee with you?” 

This may all seem as if they are merely alternate appeals to self-interest, but they are “after the fact.” That is, they are used when the gatekeeper refuses original appeals to self-interest, which are positive (look good, take credit). These art forms are really based on fear (you’ll be asked questions you can’t answer, what if the buyer is unhappy with the project) and propriety (there is an ethical necessity). 

The points you make with this language are perfectly valid. I’m not talking about “guile” in the sense of trickery or persiflage. I’m simply suggesting that you can find a side door to the fortress when the drawbridge is up and the moat seems active with large reptiles. 

Bear in mind that for years consultants have educated gatekeepers incorrectly and have bestowed on them pseudo-power—the power of means over ends, which is commonly known as bureaucracy. You have to overcome that by introducing new learning and new facts.

The point is that only a true, economic buyer can provide the relationship, conceptual agreement, and approval to create the partnership you need. 

Any proposal that does not go to an economic buyer is pointless. Even if accepted, it will be changed, altered, and often ignored by underlings, minions, and functionaries. If you’ve arrived at this point, where a representative from a legitimate prospect is communicating with you, then don’t give up the ship by allowing low-level people on board who promise to pilot the craft into the harbor. 

You’ll wind up on the rocks. 

Here are the key points to bring to bear when a gatekeeper is not amenable to self-interest to introduce you to the buyer: 

• Ethics: It’s a professional responsibility, and one of mutual respect.

• Precedent: What’s probably been the case in the past is no longer appropriate.

• Fear: What if something goes wrong after you take responsibility for vetting and accepting the proposal?

• Ignorance: All buyers have both personal and professional objectives they likely have not shared with subordinates.

• Partnership: You are evaluating the organization as a client, so there is a reciprocity here. (Most consultants walk in as supplicants rather than potential partners.)

• Speed: If you want to get this done then I must talk to the person who can approve it instantly.

• Clout: Inevitably, the buyer will have to champion this at the outset and perhaps through the implementation. That has to begin now.

• Credibility: This project cannot be seen as a human resources or training program or it will not receive proper support from line management. (If they don’t believe that, firmly pull their heads out of the sand.)

Sometimes both enlightenment and guile fail. A human resources manager told me that I’d work through her or not at all. For me, that’s an easy choice. There are people who are threatened, turf-defenders, insecure, envious, confused, and just malicious. Unfortunately, you find them more often among gatekeepers than true buyers. But that makes sense, because real buyers have real power. 

So when there is no side door to the fortress and the gators are swimming by, you may want to try to blow a hole in the works. You’ll be successful only about 10 percent of the time, but that’s still better than the zero you’ll wind up with by submitting proposals to low-level people. See Figure 3.1. 

FIGURE 3.1 Circumventing gatekeepers 

This is a last resort, but because you’re not going to get this business anyway, you really have no downside. The worst thing you can do is waste time developing a relationship and submitting a proposal to someone who can say no but can’t say yes. 

Now, what do I mean by “blowing up” the gatekeeper? I mean that you should feel free to pursue the buyer directly, because you may well know who he or she is by now or you can readily find out. You should cease to worry about the gate- keeper’s feelings or directions. 

Many people become alarmed at this point that the gatekeeper will undermine the ensuing project if you are successful finding and partnering with the economic buyer. Let me assure you that no subordinate is going to overtly undermine a superior’s project, and your relationship with the buyer will be strong enough so that you can easily point to any such interference and have it corrected. 

The language you can use with the gatekeeper can be something like these statements (not questions): 

• Since I’ve explained my need to meet with the buyer and you’ve been unwilling or unable to create an introduction, I’m going to attempt that on my own. I’ll mention our earlier discussions and the fact that you’ve been truly helpful. 

• I have some other avenues I can pursue with the buyer (you can use a name here, of course), and I’m going to try some of them. Do you want me to mention our discussions or not? 

• I’m sorry, but my policy and experience in creating successful outcomes demands that I see the buyer, and we have an impasse here. I respect your position, but I’m going to have to take other steps.

A Digression 

I realize that my stance here is somewhat harsh. After all, most of you can point to people in human resources, training, or learning and development who have helped you and perhaps even managed to buy from you with their own budget. But to quote Damon Runyon, “The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” 

If you find a hundred dollars when you’re walking to work, you can count yourself lucky, but I doubt you’d quit your job to support your family by searching for money in the street. There are always exceptions, but they prove the rule. I’m interested in your well-being and in your capacity to feed your family. I don’t care if the human resources profession takes exception or dislikes me. 

You cannot succeed in this business by catering to and dealing with low-level people unless it’s to work with them to quickly introduce you to legitimate economic buyers. If you don’t believe that, then you’re wasting your time and money in this profession.

At this point, you find the buyer by: 

• Asking others you may have met for an introduction.
• Sending a note (see below).
• Arranging to meet at an event where you know that he or she will be present.

I prefer a hard-copy personal note to e-mail, because it stands out more in a crowd these days. Here is an example of such a note. You do not want to criticize the gatekeeper, nor do you want to make a “pitch.” Remember, you simply want to gain a meeting with the decision maker. That is your next, small, “yes.” 

Dear Mr. Watson, 

I’ve been meeting with Randy Chase, who has asked for a proposal regarding my services to help with your expansion plans into new markets. Randy has explained what’s needed, and, at this point, I believe I can fulfill those needs. 

However, it’s become apparent that you are the person with fiduciary responsibility, and it’s unethical for me to provide a proposal without hearing from you directly about your objectives, expectations, and desired outcomes. We can accomplish that in a brief visit, and I’ll be in your area several times over the next month. 

I’ll call on Friday at 10 a.m. to set something up that’s mutually convenient and will enable me to generate an accurate proposal with detailed ROI based on your inputs and information. If that date and time are not good for you, please suggest another or contact me at the number on this letter head. 

Looking forward to meeting you.
Sincerely,

When you call, and you get a secretary or voice mail, say, “This is Joyce Randall and I’m calling as promised,” and nothing more. My suggestion is to call three times, and then write a final note expressing your disappointment that you were unable to meet. 

Never burn your bridges, but don’t spend excess time trying to make this hap- pen. It works about 10 percent of the time, so it’s worth some limited effort. Don’t copy the gatekeeper, by the way. You’re flying at a higher altitude now. 

In many cases, consultants reach the economic buyer but quickly find themselves out in the cold draft of the hallway again. They reach the summit, but then fall off. 

The reason is that, instead of attempting to develop a relationship with the buyer, the consultant is too scared, too subordinated, too insecure, and doesn’t establish a peer connection. So the buyer says something like, “I’m not sure we can use your help or not, but why not talk to my HR director who knows more about this than I do, and see what she says?” And the consultant trots down to HR, hearing the “clunk” of the gates of the cathedral closing forever behind. 

The buyer says these things for the following reasons: 

• You are talking about deliverables, not results, and the buyer isn’t going to make decisions about commodities. 

• You talk in jargon, which the buyer identifies as the unique vernacular of HR. 

• The buyer legitimately believes that the HR people can provide advice and you do nothing to dissuade or counter that erroneous belief. 

• The buyer is unimpressed with your language, approach, or look, and this is the easiest way to get you out of the office quickly. 

All of this can be avoided, but you’ll have to “consultant up.” (I’m attempting gender neutrality here.) Here are your steps. 

1. Focus on building the relationship. Don’t launch into a “pitch.” Never bring visual aids. Adjust to the buyer’s style. 

2. Don’t feel as if this is a final exam. If the buyer says, “Well, what can you do for us?,” say, “I don’t know, why don’t we discuss your current challenges and priorities?” 

3. Discuss “what” but not “how.” The former will stimulate interaction about key concerns but stop short of offering solutions, free consulting, or opportunity for the buyer to say, “That won’t work here.” 

4. Provide value immediately. For example, tell the buyer, “In my experience there are three keys to retention of top talent. Are you using all three to your maximum ability here?” Or provide a diagnostic and ask which of three circles or four quadrants (or whatever) the buyer’s organization occupies, and whether it needs to maintain that position or change. 

5. Stress that these are strategic issues not suited for subordinates, whose orientation is tactical.

6. Point out that whenever you suggest major change, people will resist it,unsure of their role, so their feedback is often more self-serving than organizationally oriented.

7. Indicate that HR people are often resentful because they are upset that they didn’t think of your intervention first, or hadn’t done it successfully themselves, or weren’t chosen this time. 

In the worst case, here is the language to use: 

I’m happy to interview whomever you like. I’ve found that what I hear is often different or antithetical to what you and I discuss, so let’s agree on a date for us to get back together once I see your people. How is next Thursday at 10? 

This combination of preventive and contingent action should keep you safe from delegation. 

However, there are times when “legitimate” delegation will be requested. The buyer may sincerely want you to talk to some senior people or front line people whom he or she believes can help in framing the proposal. In that case, agree to the steps (provided they are not laborious, lengthy, or quasi-consulting work) but absolutely insist on the debrief period so that you can finalize a true conceptualized agreement with the buyer. 

But the overarching issue here is that consultants allow themselves to be delegated. Focus on these causes not from the buyer’s perspective, but from your own ability to reconcile them. 

Low self-esteem: You feel that you don’t deserve to be there, that you’re not the equal of the buyer, that you’re an impostor. Therefore, you take whatever measures are necessary not to “divulge” who you really are, which means you accept virtually any buyer suggestion or direction.

Fear of losing business: Even experienced, successful consultants seem to think that they desperately need every piece of business and can’t afford to lose any “sale,” no matter how many concessions and compromises they have to make. This is seldom true, but these subordinate behaviors are what put you in that fearful position of not having enough business.

A love affair with methodology: You are so passionate about the techniques and approaches you’ve developed that your default position is to dive into it and discuss it from the inside out. Nothing, with the possible exception of vacation photos, bores others more. Focus on the other party’s results, not your inputs. Poor business acumen: If you can’t talk about ROI, margins, EBITDA, and valuation, then you can’t speak “executive.” You must acquaint yourself and become conversant in the language of the executive suite. (Stop using terms such as C-Level, which is a term used by lower level people, for example.) 

Failure to be “in the moment”: Buyers can go in many directions, and you can’t stick with a script or choreography. You have to listen, understand why the buyer is going in a certain direction, and work to return to the port of call you have in mind. That may take a while. Listen for comments, which you can lever- age to make your points and cement the relationship. 

Failure to set an agenda: Here’s a great opening line: “I know your time, like my time, is precious. I’d like to cover three things today and I’m sure you have some key issues, as well. Why don’t we agree on those and use our time accordingly?” This immediately makes you a peer, setting the agenda, and enables you to direct the conversation to your best interests. Many promising meetings simply run out of time because the consultant doesn’t properly man- age the time. You can always come back, but the longer things take, the more bad things can happen. Thus, it’s best to try to obtain a decent time frame (60–90 minutes) that is uninterrupted so that you can attempt to establish the proper relationship and trust, and gain conceptual agreement during that period. 

Before we enter the architecture of the proposal, let’s focus for a bit on ensuring that we garner and maintain the support we need. To this point, we’ve avoided or circumvented gatekeepers and achieved conceptual agreement with the economic buyer, based on the trusting relationship we’ve created. 

Prior to creating the proposal, discuss with the buyer these five issues: 

1. What are the accountabilities and roles the buyer accepts? 

There must be a key person within the client who can shake loose bottle- necks and champion the right behavior. That should be the buyer (and can also be additional people). Does the buyer understand and commit to those duties, particularly at the outset of the project? The buyer has to walk the talk (demonstrate desired behaviors) as well as talk the walk (communicate progress and accomplishment).

2. Are there any barriers that haven’t been discussed yet? 

Sometimes the normal course of discussion does not include potentially formidable barriers, such as entrenched department heads, competing projects, technology change, and so forth. What can the buyer foresee that the two of you should be planning to prevent or mitigate at the outset? 

3. Who are the key influencers? 

There are people who can informally lend weight and momentum to projects and who should be co-opted early. These may be sales leaders, union officials, popular managers, and so forth. Identify who they are with the buyer, and make plans to involve them in steering committees, important meetings, and so on. Show them how their self-interest will be served and how they’ll get credit for progress. 

4. Where are the likely early victories? 

Where are the likely best places to consider success? These might be tied in to the key influencers, but they might involve high-performing groups, the top-selling products and services, or particularly attractive markets and geographies. Start with small victories whenever possible to build the momentum. 

5. What’s on the radar? 

You’ll see a line in Proposal I in the next chapter that talks about you and the buyer informing each other of any events or issues that arise that may materially affect success. Now is the time to make the initial request. I’ve worked on projects where the buyer knew a divestiture was coming but didn’t tell anyone, including me! 

Case Study in Resistance 

When Hewlett-Packard was still making most of its profit from, of all things, printer ink, the head of the printer operation was a law unto himself. No matter what his peers agreed to, he would often choose to go his own way, confident that he wouldn’t be discomfited because he was providing most of the company’s bottom line. 

Similar dynamics exist in many organizations, albeit to smaller extents. You can just acknowledge them, you have to figure out how the buyer intends to deal with them. 

These final questions and checkpoints are an important transition to the proposal itself. The responses and discussion enable you to determine what the buy- er’s and your accountabilities should be, what time frames make the most sense, what options may be most appealing, and so forth. 

In every organization there is a layer—I call it the “thermal zone” (Figure 3.2)—which refracts and redirects things, just as happens in water. That layer com- prises key middle managers who really run the day-to-day operation, and whose commitment, not mere compliance, is needed for the success of any project.

FIGURE 3.2 The thermal zone 

Therefore, it’s best to recognize both them and the circumstances in which they work so that your project isn’t refracted out of existence.  

Note 1. One of HR’s and training’s favorite non verbs.