![]() 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:
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:
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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