A client once told me that, although they liked what I did, to get the deal I would have to convince his wife first, in a separate meeting. Groan.
The primary role of gatekeepers is to filter or screen incoming communications and decide whether or not to pass them along to the higher-ups. The trouble is, many more people wish to promise something to the company than there are hours in the day, so their default answer to anyone requesting to speak to their boss has to be “no”.
It’s a well-prepared, well-practiced defensive position, so don’t count on pure facts and figures to be enough to breach it. The gatekeeper will do their job by not understanding them, and the actual decision maker will never see or hear them.That does not mean that this lock cannot be finessed, but doing so requires some willingness to break the rules.
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Because if you follow the rules, you will be sorted, weighed, and measured as one of many leeches, to be sorted descendingly by hourly cost.
The rule you need to break is a simple one: “The client knows what they want”. If you can correct the brief by asking to clarify important details, or helpfully pointing out contradictions in the brief, you could win the “above my paygrade” status from the gatekeeper, and get to talk to the boss directly. Bonus points if you get a paper trail of the conversation with the gatekeeper, they generally loathe that.