Who Are Your Access People?

Access people are essentially characterized by the types of salient affiliations they may have with the prospect you’re trying to engage.

Specifically, the access person may:

• know the prospect directly or know someone who knows him or her directly;
• have the same interest as the prospect, ideally related to your organization’s work or unique to the access person and prospect (such as being avid car collectors); and
• communicate in the same style, such as being from shared professional backgrounds or similar upbringing or speaking in another shared language.

Let’s take, for example, a fictional couple in its early 50s with two children. The two own a small, private software company and have turned it into a successful growing business. At some point, they may have the opportunity to sell the company — thereby making them capable of a seven-figure gift — or their children may choose to enter the family business (making the family a multigenerational prospect).