In our last two Tips, we were dealing with this tricky gatekeeper situation: 

Your decision maker is very favorable to you and gives you their business. This is one of your top 10 largest accounts. Sounds great, right? What if you have additional offerings that you could sell to that company that would add value to the customer and double or triple the amount of revenue you get from them? This is great news. 

But what if the Decision Maker did not support you going to the other divisions of their company to sell to them? You have asked them for their support and endorsement, and they are actively blocking your access to others. They have become a gatekeeper and are limiting your opportunity. This is bad news.

The suggested first step was to not step back, react emotionally, and retreat in fear, but to actually step forward by doing a quick analysis to determine if there was more reward to be gained than risk associated with trying to navigate the block.

The suggested second step was to try to figure out why they were blocking you. Was the reason emotional or rational?

Once you know (or can guess) the reason, you can assess different strategies to determine which gives you the best odds of success. If the reason for the block is rational, consider these strategy options with the gatekeeper:

• Go directly to them to ask why they are blocking you and resolve to address the issue with them
• Convert them into a coach
• Educate them
• Involve them in your sales efforts

If the reason is emotional, consider these options:

• Neutralize them with other similarly influential coaches or internal stakeholders
• Go around them and get to the decision maker
• Leverage a leader in your company to request a meeting with the decision maker
• Win in another area of the company and build momentum for your proposal

Regardless of the reason, it is often helpful to:

• Conduct additional research
• Enlist the advice and support of a coach
• Develop additional coaches

Of course, it’s always an option to accept the block and live to fight another day.

In the scenario above, there is no single perfect answer. If you choose to accept the block and not risk losing a big customer, it will help to show that you thought through the situation and considered your options. If you choose to “go for it” and try to change this outcome, you should move forward with courage and confidence that you can help the customer in more ways.

In the end, if you do this simple gatekeeper process, you position yourself to make a business decision, not an emotional decision. That means you are stepping forward and tackling the issue, vs. stepping backward in fear.