Give Them the Why

One of the things I want you to think about as you’re interacting with your clients and your prospects is to make sure that you take the extra two minutes to give them the why. I had an exchange with a guy that was in another state that was having problems getting past the gatekeeper this past week. And he emailed me asking for advice on what he could do and how he could word an email in a way that would allow him to get the information that the gatekeeper didn’t want him to have. I asked him to forward me a copy of the email he had, and then I asked him just to copy and paste the response that I gave him.

When I got his email, I read what he was asking for, and quite honestly, it was not a bad email. It wasn’t offensive or anything. The problem was it was the same email that this gatekeeper gets from every single agent that wants information from her. After taking about two minutes to sit down and craft a response, explain why I needed the information, how I would use that information and how that information would benefit the company, the gatekeeper willingly surrendered everything that my buddy was asking. At the end of the whole ordeal, I asked him, “What was the learning experience in all of this?” His response was, “You wrote a magical email.” My response was, “Absolutely not.”

See, I can teach people how to fish, but I’m not going to fish for you. The learning experience for this guy was very simple. Take the time to give the person the why. Once he explained why he needed the information, not only did he get it, but he had buy-in from the person that was his adversary, not less than five minutes ago. It doesn’t make sense for you to go after large commercial accounts if you want to treat them as if you’re going after Bob’s. Take the two minutes you need, give the reason why, and you will always get what it is you’re asking.