How to build your business: Your prospect’s assistant is your prospect

​Today’s aide is tomorrow’s leader
 
If you’re looking to land new business, you certainly want to get a sit-down with that big senior decision-maker. Yet all your efforts are hampered by those layers of assistants, aides, and administrators standing in your way. Right? 
 
Maybe not. 
 
A lot of the “problem” depends on your perception. If you regard them as hindrances, then they will be. But you don’t have to. In this article, we’re going to turn that perception—the one that says that junior personnel stand in your way—on its head. Not only that, we’ll show you how you can build your business by opening the door rather than trying to batter it down. 
 
How to build business: Navigating the org shoals
 
First off, don’t bemoan what is an accepted reality: Senior leaders need junior assistance. Once they rise above a certain stratum within a given organization, these leaders will need to focus on their highest-value skills, while delegating the lower-level tasks to others. They’ll also need someone to help manage their schedule, screen calls and emails, and generally protect them from the hordes of hungry vendors out there who regard them as a ripe prospect. Because they are. 
 
So unless you’ve got personal or other privileged access to this ripe prospect, there are only two ways for you to proceed: cleverly or brutishly. If you haven’t guessed, we’d advocate the former above the latter. But first let’s see why the latter won’t work. 
 
Beware the battering ram
 
You might be tempted to make an end-around and get by that assistant. You may want to go above them and reach that decision-maker directly. If so, good luck. You’ll need it. Consider: 

• The decision-maker likely won’t see your advances, and if they do, they’ll probably just kick them back downstairs to the assistant, anyway. 

• Even if you do get the decision-maker’s attention, you’ll stoke the ire of the assistant for having demeaned him or her—guaranteeing that they’ll do their best to torpedo your efforts when you’re not looking. It’s a lose/lose. 

 
Besides, what would your messaging to the senior leader even look like? It would smack of desperation: “Please give me five minutes of your time! I want it so badly that I’m willing to blatantly insult your professionalism by trampling roughshod over your carefully-planned organizational hierarchy! ”Ugggh. 
 
The smarter way in
 
As we’d hinted above, you can be infinitely more successful in your business-development efforts if you actually cultivate your relationship with the assistant. There are so many reasons for this: 

• In direct contrast to what we’d mentioned above, when you respect the assistant and their role, they won’t be ticked off at you for trying to evade or ignore them. 

 

• The senior decision-maker you want to reach will ultimately respect you more for having played by the rules and utilized the proper channels. You’ll automatically position yourself as a standup person. 

 

• If you’re courteous and respectful to the assistant, they will like you. So they’ll want to help you. (Contrast that to all the other “barbarians at the gate” who don’t respect the assistant. How much senior-level access will any of them get granted?) 

 

• Once you establish and cultivate a relationship with the assistant, you’ll always have an open channel to reach them—and, by extension, the senior leader, too. 

 

• When you ultimately prove your mettle to the senior leader, this reflects well on the assistant for having vetted you. It’s a feather in their professional cap. In other words, you want to help the assistant to advance his or her career. That should be a clear, if secondary, goal of yours. 

 

• When that assistant gets promoted, you’ll suddenly have the “personal or other privileged access” that we’d mentioned earlier! 

 
How to do it
 
You need to engage the assistant directly, with respect, and wholly cognizant of their role, and your goals. Be clear. Be candid. Be helpful. 
 
By the way, we worked with a client recently in which we helped craft some direct mailers that were ostensibly addressed to the senior leaders, even though we well knew that they’d be screened/intercepted by the assistants. And guess what happened? Our client got requests from various assistants, to the tune of: “Hey, that piece you sent us was great. My boss wanted to know if you would you mind sending us three more.” 
 
“My boss wanted to know…”
 
Ta-dah. As you might’ve guessed, our client was able to secure senior-level meetings, based on those assistants’ notes, shortly thereafter. 
 
Need help crafting the right messaging that gets you in the door and up the ladder? Contact us today.We do this kind of work all the time, and would be happy to discuss your needs with you. 

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