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First thing to remember is they are just doing their job. Ah, there’s the key phrase – their job. Now taking that into account, when do they do their job? If the office hours are 9 to 5, try calling at 8:45am or 5:02pm.
If you don’t know your contacts extension then you can use the name directory. I know we all think that we should wait until our prospective clients are in for the day and settled with their coffee and give them a chance to listen to their voicemail and check their emails.
That’s actually a great time to reach the contact. The early morning call when they aren’t overwhelmed with other calls or having someone dropping by their office or being pulled into a meeting. The after hours call, when they aren’t struggling to get everything done that they need to before that conference call at 3pm or meeting some other deadline.
Maybe they just found out about a sales meeting that’s coming up or haven’t had a chance to even think about the managers meeting and would appreciate someone calling them up and assisting them, taking some of the burden off their shoulders. Or try calling mid day when there’s someone else answering the phones, even receptionists need to take lunch I’ve connected with meeting planners who didn’t mind talking through their lunch, as it was the only chance they were going to get to drop a few details and let me take over the leg work for them.
What you naturally assume is the worst time to reach someone may just be the best time. I’ve picked up the phone and dialed out of time zone and reached Directors at 7:30 in the morning who had forwarded their office calls to their cells.
People who were actually glad to hear from me because there aren’t enough hours in their day to juggle everything they do. Especially when so many people are covering more positions. For more information regarding the best/worst time to reach someone you can refer back to some previous blogs such as; When Is the Best Time to Prospect? Everyday! And Only a Few “Good” Hours Per Week to Prospect.
Another tip is taking the email address of the person you want to reach and plugging it in to Google.
Often you will get a direct number for the person you are trying to reach and sometimes you will even be provided with the name and number of their assistant. If you don’t have their email address, try the basic formats such as first name dot last name at the name of the company dot com. It takes seconds and could be the difference between not getting passed the gatekeeper and making that connection.
