all right guys now we are getting down to the brass tacks in this particular module we will talk about getting past the gatekeeper uh what is uh essential that you need to know uh how can you put your phrases and your words together to kind of get past the gatekeeper the gatekeeper is exactly what that word says it is they are the ones responsible for uh uh protecting the property, so to speak, or keeping other people out from getting into the decision makers and things like that. So this talks about how to get around that person and how to network and use your resources to your advantage. First thing we need to learn is what exactly is a gatekeeper? Right? So in business, a gatekeeper is exactly what it sounds like. Someone standing at an entry point to prevent unwanted traffic from coming through. It's the person responsible for deciding who can get through to the decision maker with the goal of preventing interruption from bothersome visitors and or callers. A gatekeeper is there to keep many incoming calls from getting to any key decision makers in the organization. It is typically the first person you'll encounter if you call or visit the office or the warehouse or whatever. It is. OK, so basically a gatekeeper is the person that keeps us away from talking to the decision maker, which would be the person that we would want to talk to when we are trying to ask people or businesses for their freight. OK, typically those people can be called traffic managers or shipping managers or transportation managers or what's another term? um procurement managers okay director uh of operations for transportation all type of titles but uh those people that have the power to say yes we'll let you try to move our freight this is the this person right here is the person that is trying to keep us away from those type of people okay and that's certainly you know no you know, nothing bad towards the gatekeepers. They're just doing their jobs. But we need to, as salesmen, you know, as brokers, we need to, salesmen and women, we need to learn how to communicate with them and hopefully, you know, get past them so we can talk to the people that we need to talk to to earn a business. Okay. So when talking to the gatekeeper, An example of how that would go is you've got, you know, you're the broker and you're calling into the business. You might say, you know, I like to speak with Mr. Johnson. And then we've got the gatekeeper on the other end. May I ask what is the purpose of your call? OK, we get this a lot. as brokers, you're going to get that a lot. So rule of thumb, first and foremost, be honest. Okay. We, we want to just, you know, come out the gate, say, you know, represent or say, this is so-and-so with whatever the name of our company is. Okay. Don't do things like this is the doc that this is his doctor calling about his blood work or something crazy like that. OK, that is definitely not what we want to do, because if, in fact, we get the person on the phone that has the powers that be to give us the freight and he's expecting to speak to his doctor and he gets you on the phone, he's not going to be too happy about that. Right. Because he's going to feel like you lied in order to get over to him. And we don't want to first impressions or lasting impressions. So that is definitely not the way that we want to start out. Okay. So the idea thing would be to say, I wanted to discuss his transportation arrangements with him. Okay. That's what we want to do. Something along those lines. Okay. Honesty is the best policy when it comes to this type of situation. Rule number two. You need to sound confident, okay? People can smell fear through the phone, especially gatekeepers, okay? So you want to be very confident in what it is you're saying. You know, this is so-and-so. I represent so-and-so, and I would like to speak with so-and-so about your transportation arrangements to see if we can potentially help you, okay? Don't say, well, yeah, my name is so-and-so, and I'm over here, and I just I wanted to see if maybe he would be willing to give me a chance to let me work with you guys and help me grow my business. We don't want that. So you need to be very firm, very direct, and a little charismatic as well. That goes a long way. So if you are one of those shy people, a great practice exercise will be for you to get in the mirror look at yourself and start practicing speaking okay so that you can build up that confidence uh for the the person that you're speaking with because they will definitely hear that okay now rule number three know who you are asking for very important use first names I cannot stress this enough so important okay if you can and you will learn how to do that in this course if you haven't already, but you should have, you should know, have a name and you should be able to find that name through certain tools that I will have provided you with and shown you how to use. So you'll have that information if you, again, if you don't, if you haven't already covered that chapter. Okay, so you should be before you're doing making phone calls, you should be doing your due diligence, you should be using those websites that I've given or any other tools in finding a finding a name of the person that you're speaking with. We don't want to just say, can I speak to your shipping manager? No, we need to try to figure out who the shipping, only time we would do that is if we just had no clue who the shipping manager is, okay? Then we kind of don't have a choice. But if we've done due diligence and we're using our tools and we do find a name, we don't want to say, can I speak to Mr. Johnson? We want to say, hey, is Paul available? I need to talk to Paul, please. Okay. That's what we want to do. As you see here in my model, we are not asking for Mr. Johnson. Okay. What we are doing is we are saying, Oh no, I'm sorry. We're not saying shipping manager either. Yes. Who is your shipping manager? We don't want to, we don't want to do that either. Okay. What we want to do is ask for Richard. Okay. Call whoever. That would be the appropriate way to ask for whoever we are needing to speak with, okay? Rule number four, last but not least, if all else fails, guys, find another avenue to get to who you need to speak with. You can certainly try and call a different department, okay? So, you know, the conversation may be when you call and the secretary or whoever picks up the phone possibly asks for the sales department. OK, instead of the shipping department. And then when you get over to the sales department, let them know. You know what? I'm sorry. I was I was transferred to the wrong department. I actually need to speak with Richard and shipping because what will happen is somebody in sales. Their job is not to block you from Richard. That's the gatekeeper's job. Right. That's Susie or Susan or whoever answered the phone. That's her job. So if you get to another department and you let them know, you know, hey, actually, I was looking for Richard. They're just going to probably nine times out of ten, they're probably just going to send you over. OK, so that is that these are the four rules to remember when we are talking to gatekeepers and or trying to get over to the powers that be in order to get that freight. OK, so make sure you practice these. And utilize these when you're making your calls, and I guarantee you, you will get over to that person that you need to speak with, okay? So this is going to conclude the end of this chapter. As always, I thank you for your time, and I will see you in the next video. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys, we are making great progress. That completes this module and let's move on to the next one.