Every salesperson is familiar with the frustration that comes with being blocked by a gatekeeper, which could be a physical person or even just a system or automation that prevents you from interacting with the decision-maker of your target organization. Imagine if you had five strategies (and maybe even a bonus strategy) to get past those gatekeepers and land sales. In today’s episode of The Sales Evangelist, Donald is going to do just that.  Connect on LinkedIn  LinkedIn gives you a direct line to a purchaser and an opportunity to build a relationship with that person before you ever meet them face-to-face.  Don’t just spam someone with offers and messages and instead build a relationship. Congratulate the prospect on a promotion, a recent accolade, or whatever has recently happened.  Bring Intelligence Let’s say two people reach out to a prospect. One person gives a standard auto-message that could be sent to anyone, and the other person comes prepared with critical data relevant to the industry or organization. Who would you rather have a conversation with?   Use direct mail Think about ways you can stand out to a prospect. Even if it’s just a $5 gift card to Starbucks, that person will be more willing to talk with you. Consider even providing a small gift for the gatekeeper to thank them for letting you through to the decision-maker; that might be all the difference between a sale and an unanswered email. Utilize referrals If you and the gatekeeper or prospect have a mutual connection, especially if that person is the one introducing you, you’ll quickly get in touch with the people you want. Connect with other people within the company More and more enterprise deals are requiring more people to be in the purchasing conversation. If that’s the case, connecting with other influencers within that team will give you a better chance for success. Tools like LucidChart help diagram and build out your organizational process to make the process easier. Bonus Strategy:  Start a podcast No podcast? Write a blog. Ask gatekeepers for the prospect to share ideas and thoughts on a topic or subject for a content piece.  In this case, you’re bringing something to the table and offering the prospect a chance to collaborate on a piece of content that will help them, making it easier to get through the gatekeeper. This episode is brought to you in part by Skipio. Are you sick of crickets? As a salesperson, the pain of reaching out with phone calls or emails and not receiving a response is real. But all text messaging is not created equal. 85% of people prefer text over email and phone calls because they want to engage in a conversation, not listen to bots. Be more like people and start having conversations that end in the conversions you want. Try Skipio at www.Skipio.com. This course is brought to you in part by the TSE Sales Certified Training Program, a course designed to help new and struggling sellers to master the fundamentals of sales and close more deals. Help elevate your sales game and sign up now to get the first two modules free! You can visit www.thesalesevangelist.com/closemoredeals or call (561) 570-5077 for more information. We value your opinion and always want to improve the quality of our show. Complete our two-minute survey here: thesalesevangelist.com/survey. We’d love for you to join us for our next episodes, tune in on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, and Spotify. You can also leave comments, suggestions, and ratings for each episode you listen to!  Read more about sales or listen to audiobooks on Audible and explore their huge online library. Register now to get a free book and a 30-day trial. Audio provided by Free SFX and Bensound. Other songs used in the episodes are as follows: The Organ Grinder written by Bradley Jay Hill, performed by Bright Seed, and Produced by Brightseed and Hill.