What’s the singsong experience?

It’s when a Gatekeeper starts offering information, in a continuous pattern, to your request.

Don’t misunderstand — I had spent several hours sourcing into a particular entertainment company with very little — almost none — success.

Several hours.

Admittedly, the customer said it was a challenge.

Then I got “lucky.”

It was 7 my time and 4 on the West Coast where my target was located.

I was frustrated.

I was slightly angry.

That’s how I get when I get frustrated.

Infantile — I know — you don’t have to tell me but sometimes it serves me. Other time I just try to stay away from other people, but last night what felt like an unproductive day motivated me.

I hate to go to bed feeling like a loser.

I kept dialing.

Finally, on one call I was transferred from the Gatekeeper’s console to an executive assistant (to one of the Executive VPs who reported to the CEO).

She answered!

Most at this company had not been answering throughout the day. I had been doing a lot of “stabbing in”* with few results.

I had been given a list of names inside the company and the request was to fill in the reporting structures under those names.

I needed the reports of the EVP she reported to. I had one of them from the customer. My gut was telling me there were several more.

‘Hi Judy — whatcha’ need?” she asked, all friendly-like.

I’m sorry, Marla, this is Maureen–”

(Before the receptionist/gatekeeper transferred me I asked her (quickly) whom she was transferring me to. She gave me the EA’s name (Marla) so that’s why I knew it. Marla didn’t say her name when she answered.)

She cut in before I could finish. Actually, I was finished. I say as little as possible when I’m calling.

“Oh, you’re coming in from the reception desk — no matter!” she chirped. “Whatcha’ need?”

Now, don’t ask me why she said “no matter” and then don’t ask me why she asked me what I needed. She just did. It happens, sooner or later. You just have to get to the later sometimes.

I told her what I needed:

“I was trying to reach Peter Boyle’s group — I understand you support him?”

“Yes,” she answered, pleasantly.

“I understand Matt Hogue’s title has changed (the receptionist/gatekeeper had given me that much).”

“Yes, he’s the CFO now. He was the VP,” she confirmed, still pleasant.

I could feel myself tensing. When you’re phone sourcing you reach a do-or-die moment when you can sense if the person on the other end is going to proceed (or not). I was at that moment and my neck and shoulder muscles were hurting from the day’s frustrations. I sensed she would go on.

“But I don’t have the other members of the group. Can you tell me who they are?” I dice-rolled.

Like I said, this do-or-die moment is fraught with emotion for many phone sourcers — the phone sourcers reading this know what I mean. Phone sourcing is a high-stress activity, admittedly. It’s a big part of why many people don’t like doing it.

She trilled off seven names.

I was tired so I misspelled a couple, tripping on the keys as she was trilling but I got them down best I could without interrupting her roll.

I knew once I had the names I could cipher out the titles somehow.

Maybe even with her.

The names are the most important thing.

I gambled further, knowing from experience if she told me this much she’d go further with me:

“And can you tell me, Marla, what Jerome’s title is?”

“Accounting Manager,” she shot back.

“I think I misspelled Ann’s last name. What is it?” I asked, all the while horrified at the indecipherable mess I had made of it.

“Schuster?” she asked. I recognized the incongruent letters I had typed and also recognized how the mess I was staring at could be Schuster.

“Yes; with a ‘c’ or no ‘c’?” I vollied.

“With a ‘c’: S-C-H-U-S-T-E-R,” she slowly spelled.

I said nothing, listening to the silence when she finished.

I felt she wasn’t (finished).

“And she spells her first name with an e,” she added, breaking the silence.

“Thanks. I had it without,” I told her, matter-of-factly.

I was fighting to control my voice.

“And Lisa? What’s Lisa’s title?” I went on, holding my breath.

“Reservations VP,” she said.

Here comes the singsong part — it’s always music to my ears.

“And Jan is Marketing Director, John is Director, Business Operations, Pam is Regional Director of Sales and Ken — Sr Director Product Development,” she sang trippingly off her tongue, getting the job done.

“And you have Matt — CFO,” she finished.

It’s almost like they go into some sort of trance.

“Yes, I do have him,” I admitted, with an emphasis on “him.”

That’s it?” I asked, doing a final check while still typing what she had just told me, the last part from memory. I’m lucky in that voice/sound seems to “implant” itself into my memory (I keep hearing like what it was said) for a few seconds after I hear something.

“That’s it,” she answered, convincingly.

Quickly, I then said, “Marla, you’ve been a great help — I do appreciate it. Thank you and Good-bye!”

She said “Good-bye” and I hung up.

I breathed a long sigh and sat back, arching and stretching my arms around my keyboard and adjusting my head on my shoulders. I heard cracking and felt relief.

Now, you’re wondering why she told me all that she did and why, finally, it got easy? I don’t know for sure but I have my suspicions. I’d like to hear yours first, though. Tell me what you think.

*stabbing in When you call in to a company’s internal dial system; willy-nilly with the expectation that someone will answer at their desk who will be able to give you information. It’s (usually) a very effective phone sourcing technique!

“I need to find Application Engineers installing medical equipment — x-ray equipment to be exact — and I looked on LinkedIn and there’s not much I can use. Oh, sure, there are some application engineers who list ‘medical equipment’ in their profiles, but I need people from specific companies — companies like GE, Johnson & Johnson, 3M, Medtronics, Becton-Dickinson, Boston Scientific, Stryker, St. Jude, Varian, Cordis — you know, the majors. And I don’t need them if they worked at those companies in the past — I need them working at those companies today!

“I also don’t need all the desperate substitute offerings LinkedIn is giving me because they don’t have exactly what I need –I can’t wade through that mess of misfits.”

“Can you help me?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you help me fast?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said again.

“I have to warn you, though, a couple of those companies you listed are customers of mine so I won’t be able to source them but I think we’ll be able to add some other companies that will yield you a list of 30 or 40 that might do the trick for you,” I added.

“And you’ll be able to get me names of the application engineers at those companies who are installing medical equipment today?” he asked. There was an emphasis on the word “today.”

“Yes,” I answered.

“And you’re sure they will be application engineers — the guys in the field installing the equipment?” he pressed, still unsure I knew what he was talking about.

“I promise,” I solemnly swore.

“How long will it take?”

“Give me 48 hours,” I answered. I’ll be able to send you probably half of what’s out there to get you started. Give me another 48 hours and I’ll send you the rest.”

I heard the surprise in the silence that followed.

“You there?” I asked.

“Yes, yes, I’m here,” he stammered. You sure you’ll be able to find these guys? I’ve wasted two weeks foolin’ around with the crap online. I can’t waste any more time.”

I understood I had a doubting Thomas on my hands long before he asked me this last question. I also understand the hurt, confusion, and doubt that his own failed efforts on this difficult search were casting upon mine. It wasn’t his fault — he’s been led to believe the remedy for hard-to-fill positions like his resided online.

It doesn’t.

The information* he seeks resides in the tightly cocooned interiors of companies like the world-class players he mentioned and it’s hard to get to. It takes a refined sense of fast timing and intuition to reach it.

Fast timing and intuition doesn’t exist online.

They just don’t.

They exist in the sharply honed telephone skills of clinicians like me and other expert phone sourcers who paw and peek and dig and dive into these companies. It exists in your own or another’s ability to engage strangers to tell you things.

Anyone can “engage” the Internet.

It never says “No.”

It never barks back at you or asks you why you need the information you’re seeking.

The Internet is safe.

It’s anonymous and it’s modern technology so it feels like something’s getting done.

The results (in the example given above) speak for themselves.

“I’m sure,” I assured him. “If I don’t, you don’t pay me!” I added, closing the deal.

“Give me 48 hours,” I said.

“What do you need to get started?” he asked.

*Before anyone gets too excited let me state that there are some positions that are fillable with information found online. But the high paying, challenging ones? Not so much.

One of ERE’s long-time members, Ted Moore, in a comment to that article, stated, “If you rely heavily on LinkedIn and similar tools to connect with those your clients can easily find and recruit on their own, at least as they perceive it (and what else matters?), I look forward to competing with you.”

I know Ted and I also know he means what he says.

I also know as time marches on those who think LinkedIn is sourcing are eventually going to pay a heavy price for their growing addictions.

In my “Help Me Help You” document that I send to all my new customers requesting telephone names sourcing, there is a paragraph that instructs the customer to provide me:

– Any names you might already have — this does two things: 1) avoids me duplicating your efforts and 2) gets me in to the targets faster. Be sure to include their titles and any contact info you have on them — their titles help me understand how close I am to the target and what these folks may be called at the respective companies and their contact info gives me clues as to how to get inside their organizations.

More and more we have the LinkedIn discussion.

THEM: Do you use LinkedIn?

ME: Not much.

THEM: We’ve already done LinkedIn.

ME: Silence.

THEM: We can’t find anything that works.

ME: Silence.

THEM: That’s why we’re calling you.

Me: Silence.

THEM: I’ve read your articles. Do you really think the majority of candidates are not on LinkedIn?

ME: Absolutely.

THEM: I think I believe you. I’ll be frank; I didn’t believe it at first.

ME: Silence.

THEM: You once wrote maybe 3% were findable online (see comments here). Do you still think that percentage is accurate?

ME: Absolutely.

THEM: That’s hard to believe with 135 million members!

ME: Silence.

THEM: I recently looked at the numbers — that’s how I came across one of your articles.

ME: Silence.

THEM: About 35% of the site’s members are American. We do all of our recruiting here in the States.

ME: Silence.

THEM: I’ve recently seen numbers that estimate only about 10-15% of LinkedIn profiles are in the active range.

ME: Do the math.

THEM: That would mean only about 4 to 7 million Americans have profiles that mean much of anything on LinkedIn.

ME: There are about 150 million workers in America. I’ve seen the number pegged closer to 200 million recently.

THEM: What do you need to get started?

What I haven’t included here is the question some ask: “What if the names you send me are on LinkedIn?”

ME: Depending on the space we’re working, a small percentage may be. If it’s recruiters you want, chances are most of them will be and you don’t need me. Have at it. But if it’s Uranium Geologists you want, I guarantee the companies you desire won’t have many of their GeoScientists listed. But let’s do this. You do LinkedIn first. Please do it first. Send me the names of people you find. I won’t send you them. How’s that for fair?

THEM: I don’t have time.

ME: Silence.

THEM: So I suppose if they do turn up on LinkedIn that’ll be up to us to swallow.

ME: Silence.

THEM: That’s fair. What do you need to get started?

“Insurance doesn’t cover this. I need a second job,” she said, matter-of factly and in the common-sense tone I have always known her to adopt.

We went on to talk about several other things — how the “guys” in her male-dominated industry don’t appreciate or are willing to pay her fairly for the tremendous extra volume of business she has drummed up for the sales team in the past three years she has been with the company she works for now.

Granted, that’s her side of things and there may be another.

However, at the end of our conversation she happened to mention that she had developed a business relationship with someone who hates the telephone.

“How does that work for him?’ I asked, laughing.

“It works fine because I do the phone for him. He comes here five hours a week and he sits next to me while I call his list of prospects and pitch his product.”

“When I get someone interested I say, ‘Let me see if Jack is available and I’ll patch him through.’”

“It works beautifully.”

“I bet,” I said. “What does he pay you to do that?”

“He pays me $50 for the five hours plus $1,000 for any sale he makes. “

I replied, “You mean to tell me he comes into your home, sits next to you on the telephone and listens (and learns) while you do business development for him?”

“He hates the phone,” she answered in reply.

I started to tell her that was way not enough money but then I stopped.

My brother told me an article he’d read that said Americans are willing to work for 25 cents an hour, so who am I to judge?

It works for her and it works for him so I left well enough alone.

“There’s your second job,” I volunteered instead.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Most people hate the phone. If you’re willing to not only do that for them but also demonstrate your skill while you’re doing it so they can learn from you — there are plenty of people who’d hire you to do that!” I almost shouted.

If you’d like her to do that for you, too — and learn from her while she does it — contact me and I’ll put you in touch with her.

She lives here in Cincinnati so you’d have to be close (if you want to learn from her at her knee) or be willing to come here.

OR you may see the value (like I do) and be happy for her to do your biz dev for you from afar.

I guarantee you’ll be pleased with her (your) results.

In fact, I used to do wistful dogpile and altavista searches that looked something like this:

“Hewlett Packard” “employee list”

or this:

“Hewlett Packard” employees

You get the idea.

That was back in 1996.

Once in a great while I’d get lucky and something would come up but not usually.

I’d search for something — anything — that could get me inside of a company and then I’d call and bounce around until I got the information I was tasked to find.

It’s pretty much what I do (still) today.

Someone called me a “dying breed” on the Recruiting Animal show the other day because I use the telephone.

I’m okay with that.

In fact, I’m glad to be recognized as such because in this dying I am experiencing a rebirth.

More of that in a bit — let’s get back to the late 90s in this industry.

I’d lie awake nights (and keep my long-suffering husband Bob awake) thinking and kvetching at him why we didn’t build our own database.

“These are people out there in the workforce who aren’t going away, Bob. They might move to other companies but establishing their presence, right now — right here — has tremendous value!” I’d wail.

“Do you know how much work that is?” seemed to be the main outcry from him, but what it really addressed was that neither one of us had the know-how to put the thing together.

Then social networking evolved and sites like MySpace appeared. Memberships in that graduated into Facebook and a whole host of imitators.

LinkedIn recognized the value in establishing a workforce database and it arose on the horizon.

Today, every sourcer’s dream is realized of having a database — a list — of names to draw from.

Never mind that the “lists” still represent only a fraction of what’s out there. It’s enough of a dream realized that the ordinarily discerning are willing to be undiscerning.

They’ll be able to go on with the blankets pulled up over their heads until — well, until they won’t be able to any longer, and that time is fast approaching.

I got an email recently from a software vendor that said, “The initial outreach to a candidate has the largest drop-off in the whole recruiting process.”

The email, touting a webinar that would teach you how to not waste the opportunity in that critical first-touch to a potential candidate (found online), was really a clever marketing campaign to obtain more customers for the company’s product.

Smart.

This vendor recognizes that no matter the number of “names” available online, if you can’t handle the rush you can’t handle the results.

That’s where many recruiting departments are today.

They’re glutted on “names” they find on LinkedIn but they don’t know what to do with them.

They don’t know how to approach them.

They’re drowning in frustration.

I wrote a 5-part series in May here on ERE about How to Connect With People. Part V is here and there are links to the previous four parts at the bottom of that page.

I hope you enjoy it and can use it in your organizations.

Getting back to my “rebirth”: We’re very busy these days “profiling” candidates. Companies need manpower that knows how to talk to people and who can engage the “name” in discussion regarding opportunities.

Many recruiting departments and organizations don’t know how to approach someone who is not really “looking” for a job — someone who has not sent their resume in over the transom.

They don’t know how to read between the lines of a 100% filled-out LinkedIn profile or they don’t recognize the signs of an online contributor who lists everything about himself including his name, title, email, and number!

Organizations are filled with people who are afraid of rejection.

Social media is evolving again and where it’s going will only take you if you know how to talk to people — in real time.

The bus is leaving. Are you on it?

@ValentinoBenito guested on the Recruiting @Animal Radio Show on Wednesday, June 15 and he was regaling the crowd with tales of his past recruiting successes.

Early in the interview he made the broad statement that “Recruiting is pretty straight-forward.”

“Uh-oh,” I thought. “He’s going to rile some up in this crowd.”

What I didn’t expect was for him to explain what he meant so succinctly.

Usually, guests who come on the show and blither on and on about how successful they are get ripped to shreds and given low scores in the one half hour AfterShow that @Jerry_Albright hosts.

That didn’t happen with “Tino.”

It seems a ways back he was tasked to hire engineers on an historically large defense project and one of the companies the customer wanted to see lots of engineers out of was Boeing.

The great need meant that he couldn’t be too picky — he was grabbing engineers with generally correct experience by the bushel.

The customer knew the correct experience resided at Boeing.

They were smart because they were competing for people with other firms who were working on the same huge defense project and they recognized that they were in the midst of a war for talent in which speed was essential to beat the competition.

He was given the green light to offer people (from Boeing) jobs ON THE SPOT.

Owning this opportunity gave him a great advantage and made him swift of foot.

He could beat out the competition on any given day.

Few companies allow their recruiters this latitude.

There’s good reason to allow your recruiters to make “on the spot” offers to candidates.

If there are companies you admire — companies who have shown up (time and again) on the resumes of your better employees –it’s a pretty good bet that others who work for these companies would make good employees for you. Especially if you’re hiring in a discipline similarly aligned to theirs, like engineering.

I have often said that, in recruiting, identifying the target companies one sources from is half the battle.

What I mean is if you choose your target companies carefully and you source carefully inside them the people you identify will (most likely) be well suited to fill your open position(s).

It’s not rocket science.

Companies spend millions of dollars hiring (and training) the right people.

If their philosophy and ambitions align with yours poaching those people from those companies represents no transgression in civil law.

For those of you for whom the word “poaching” raises hackles on your spine let me be clear:

I am not recommending you “poach” with the intention of destroying another company.

If your intention is to hire the best people for your own company then have at it!

There’s a difference.

Commerce is not for the faint-hearted.

Getting back to the hiring-on-the-spot subject of this article:

Arm your recruiters with the ability to offer jobs immediately to candidates out of specific target companies that you admire.

Don’t be afraid to do this.

Recruiting is pretty straight-forward.

*A target company is a company you send a sourcer into to find people on the inside who hold specific titles or who are doing the job you want done for you.

Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake. –Wallace Stevens

Penelope Trunk wrote a recent piece about how to find satisfying work.

She made the important point that in order to find work you love, experimentation is required.

You might have to try your hand at 50 to 100 jobs!

I know that will surprise many people but I remember a stat from about 30 years ago that surprised me: that the average number of jobs a person would have during their lifetimes was 16.

I’d repeat that to people and they’d tell me surely I was wrong.

Interesting stats on this phenomenon are here.

I think nowadays the average number of jobs a person is expected to hold during their lifetimes is around a dozen with the most number of changes occurring early in a person’s lifetime.

I’m not sure why that number has gone down but I suspect it has something to do with education.

This surprised me from that study:

On average, the least-educated men held more jobs than the most-educated men, while the opposite is true among women.

Penelope went on to say something else that caught my attention:

“…satisfying work is the intersection of what you like to do, what you are good at, and what an organization values.”

We all know that, right?

Then why are we so perplexed by putting those three circles together?

Let me tell you how I did it.

I’d spent 22 years of my life doing something I wasn’t well suited to:Real Estate and Small Business Sales.

It was a family business so I suppose I segued into it with the belief that nobody would ever hire me.

More of that in a bit.

I’d started in college at the very early age (back then) of 18. During the summers I’d earn college expenses by selling farms in the hinterlands around Cincinnati.

I’d get up every hot summer day, put on a dress, and drive east of Cincinnati 30-plus miles out into the farming community of Clermont County.

The car wasn’t air-conditioned so I’d get out early.

I’d drive down long dusty driveways and get out of my car and walk to the front doors of farmhouses and knock on them.

Scary stuff, right?

I was scared (and hot) most of the time, driving (uninvited) onto a person’s property and down a gravel lane with dogs weaving around my car (some barking furiously) is no small stunt.

Even more of a stunt was gathering my nerve and walking those few paces to the front (or side) door.

Dogs bit me three times.

That’s a pretty horrifying thing, as you know if a dog has ever bitten you.

No matter: I was driven (by something) inside me that would not stop.

I suppose there was some optimism inside me but maybe it was just the fact that I was stubborn and obtuse.

That’s what my mother called me.

In a way.

She was trying to impress upon me some very important real estate theory that I just couldn’t (or, in her eyes, wouldn’t) seem to get. She was probably right. In exasperation, she blurted out one day that, “Nobody will ever hire you.”

That stung and it stuck.

In a way I am very glad it did.

It gave me the fortitude and the opportunity to work for myself.

In my opinion this is the best type of work.

Your mileage (and opinion) may vary.

At that time I think in the back of my mind, that statement carried import that I had few options, that I’d better get this or woe was I ever having a career.

For whatever reason, I stuck at those endeavors (and others) for 22 years, supporting myself and a growing family and taking on an office with 13 people operating under my brokerage license.

Then something inside me cracked.

I could not do it anymore.

I was 40 years old.

I advised everyone that I was closing my office and they should place their licenses elsewhere. The shutdown occurred over three or so months but the real shutdown for me lasted much longer.

I went into therapy.

I did not work.

After a year or so I was growing restless and my young children wanted a computer.

I got one and was immediately mesmerized.

I was drawn in — engaged.

I’d sit at it all day while the kids were at school learning its arcane language and ways and many hours into the night after they’d gone to bed.

Pretty soon a man from California asked me in an AOL chat room what I did.

Uncomfortable with the question I typed, “Nothing, really.”

That was the beginning of my phone sourcing career.

He asked me if I’d like to call into high-tech companies and “get names” of people who held specific titles out of specific companies.

He offered to pay me on a per-name basis.

I was kind of bored, and the pay got my attention, so I said, “Sure, why not?”

He faxed over a list of companies (I didn’t know how to upload/download docs!) and off I went.

I cannot tell you the pleasure I felt with the first name I “got” but I can tell you why I think I got that pleasure.

When I was a child, my brother and I would visit a relative’s farm. The relative had a pond or a creek or a lake — I can’t remember exactly, we were so young — with ducks. The ducks would build nests along the water’s edge and my brother and I would look for the nests (they were usually very well-hidden) and find them.

I remembered that feeling of excitement I felt as a kid finding those nests with their eggs and it was exquisite!

Finding names gave me the same flush of pleasure, that same rush of excitement.

I couldn’t believe it. I was in egg heaven, and still am!

I understand that it’s not easy for most people to discover what they love. I believe, sincerely, that doing so requires a tremendous amount of work first on one’s self. That’s the real work. Once you’ve done that, once you’ve come to a place of self-awareness, everything else gets a lot easier.

It may sound kind of dumb to some of you but it makes perfect sense to me.

I’m a kid again when I do what I do — I have so much fun!

Think about something you LOVED to do as a kid. Remember that fun, hope, and joy it raised in you as a child, transfer it to a work activity today and you’ll feel that passion in what John D. Rockefeller III hints at when he said:

“The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it — every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.”

I regret only having a very few jobs most of my life.

I wish I had experimented more.

I hope this story encourages you to do so.

One of the ideas behind technology is that it empowers us to work creatively. By blending different technologies we can democratize communication in new and surprising ways.

If you buy into the theory (and I do) that future generations will design and build their own technologies by blending what works and what doesn’t work in different situations, then you’re far on your way to understanding that what works for one person might never work for another.

Once again, I’m going to approach this subject from a phone sourcer’s perspective and demonstrate how I blend the use of high technology with low technology.

Remember early on in this series when I delineated old (low) technology from new (high) technology in how we communicate?

BRAVE NEW WORLD (High technology)

Text

Instant messaging

Electronic mail

Social media exchange

Cellphone (mobile)

Real-time video (telepresence)

OLD WORLD (Low technology)

Snail mail

Fax

Land line telephone

Face-to-face communication

Keith Halperin pointed out in the comments section of that first part in this series that I forgot real-time video (broadband/telepresence, Skype, etc.) so I added it above.

There are many in our community who insist that the use of technology (Internet search, e-mail, mobile applications, messaging, etc.) is all one (really) needs to perform the work that must be done in our industry.

In fact, Dr. John Sullivan recently wrote an article here on ERE that detailed how to recognize if you yourself have become a technology dinosaur and recommended doing what Jack Welch (past CEO, GE) did: acquire a technology mentor to upgrade your technology status in the event you are found guilty of more than five transgressions on Dr. Sullivan’s list.

I don’t agree with some of his postulations but then, none of us have to agree. As the many comments brought forth, different things work differently for different people.

And that’s my point.

Use what works for you.

Here’s what works for me on a typical sourcing job and here’s how it happens:

Work comes in through either a phone call (low tech) or an e-mail (high tech). The e-mails that come in are usually from established customers, all of whom were preceded originally by a telephone conversation (low tech).

Occasionally a job order gets faxed in (very low tech).

It warrants mentioning at this point that what once was high tech is now low tech; at one point faxes were very high tech, remember?

I look at the job in e-mail. Many times there are attachments to the order (job description, Excel lists of targets and/or names the customer already has, special instructions, etc.) and I format all that into a working document (using my handy dandy electronic Word skills — still very high tech).

Next I do the lowest tech thing of them all. I think!

I plan, I plot, and I posture the job into how I am going to approach it.

When I first started sourcing — and you’ve heard me confess this before — I would spend inordinate time on the Internet searching for information … scratch that … searching for names — that I could use on a job.

Remember, this was the mid to late 1990s, so Internet search was new and cutting edge (very high tech) and very few people knew how to do it. The results that came in could pretty much be used as long as they had been “checked.”

We all know what that means.

As long as the person was “still there” (meaning still at a company) they were pretty much good to go on the list that got submitted to a customer.

It was so much fun to be a whiz-bang Internet sourcer.

Today, not so much.

That same once-high-tech formula has now become a low-tech approach that is being misused in some sourcing circles and is the main determinant why sourcing fails in many organizations.

In sourcing far more sophistication is required today than way back then.

Remember when we started this final piece in this series, I said, “future generations will design and build their own technologies by blending what works and what doesn’t work in different situations“?

Those in the know in sourcing today have done just that.

Until interactive applications become practical (and this will take years), matching robust common-sense knowledge with computers enables a new class of sourcers to make sense of today’s world with a breadth of knowledge that can be integrated with (some) computer applications.

They’ve recognized that technology morphs over time and what’s new today was old back then and what’s old now was new before.

When Lou Adler said that we must kick the sourcing habit in a recent article here on ERE, he said sourcing is getting easier by the day.

He’s right.

I personally don’t agree with him when he says, “at the current rate, by March 11, 2012, everyone will be connected by one degree of separation with everyone else either via LinkedIn or Facebook.”

I think that ignores the trepidation that is beginning to develop in the population around over-exposure, but that tale remains to be told.

Sourcing (as most people think of it) is on the endangered list because its high tech approach is yielding inadequate and many times stale results.

So how can we make the old new again and the new old again?

We can learn how to communicate with each other, and yes, you can just about guess in what direction we’re going here.

What works for me in the next step in my sourcing process is another low-tech tool.

I get on the phone.

I said before that when I started sourcing (in the mid 1990s) I’d spend lots and lots of time on the Internet forestalling that fateful moment when I had to pick up the phone.

This has become a common low-tech problem that self-medicates itself with the overuse (and misuse) of the Internet.

Nowadays, on most jobs, it’s just way faster (for me) to pick up the phone and start talking to people to obtain the information I need.

It doesn’t much matter anymore how scary the job looks.

I just start calling my target lists, knowing that the more I call, the easier the job is going to become.

The more I talk to people, the more I learn.

I call because I know the majority of the people I need for my job I cannot find on the Internet.

No way.

No how.

This calling — what may seem to you a low-tech technique — may not work so well for you. I’m going to ask you why that is.

You can send e-mails (most of which won’t get read and those that do stand a very high chance of being misunderstood) and you can send text SOS messages out to your network of contacts or you could post your need in some social networking group you’re a member of.

You could even make a video of yourself detailing your urgent need for a medical device sales application engineer and tell them where to send their resume.

You can use all those high-tech channels and then you can sit and wait for results.

Unless you’re some mega-bucked organization that was way ahead of the curve and has been investing in today’s high tech so-called communication channels for the last 10 years, using all the high-tech gadgets of today isn’t going to mean squat if you can’t talk with somebody and make a connection.

I think communication that uses real-time analogy and association is the highest technology we as humans possess.

It’s a brave new world and, oddly enough, it very much resembles the old.

Part IV. Part III. Part II. Part I. Intro.

In truth there’s not a lot of difference in the two.

In both, you want to engage people naturally. Talking with a business associate should be not much different from talking with a friend.

Talking with a friend employs many of the same techniques we use in business communications — respectful and tactful interaction.

There are some areas of intimacy that should not be transgressed. Revealing too much of your personal business in a business transaction is generally thought to be not good advice. Use common sense here.

We’ve all heard the so-called “7%-38%-55% rule”: that communication is comprised of 55% body language, 38% tone of voice, and 7% content of words.

That’s mostly true except when…

• your words, body language, and tone contradict each other
• you’re on the telephone
• you’re speaking to someone who doesn’t speak your own language

If your words, body language, and tone disagree, body language and tone will tell your story.

If you’re on the phone and there is no way to “see” your body language, your tone and word choice are going to be critical. I tell my phone sourcing students that attitude and stance are what they need most of when calling for information.

Cross-cultural communication is an area that is gaining study as our borders haze into one another. Language training is becoming commonplace these days in businesses that seek to do business globally. Grasping what we as humans have in common and how that commonality can unite us seems to form the basis for this type of communication.

Intercultural and international understanding is an area in which I hope someone more knowledgeable than me will write an article on here on ERE.

Because I am a phone sourcer I’m going to concentrate today on what communication techniques work best for me in my phone sourcing activities.

Your mileage may differ (but I don’t think by much).

In both personal and business communications, the most important thing is to keep your tone and pitch at “normal” levels.

Because you’re working (mostly) without visual “body language” — the largest component in most communications — your tone and pitch on the telephone are hypercritical.

If you speak too fast you’ll sound nervous.

Too slow — bored (and boring). Your listener may tune you out.

Too high — that nervous thing again.

Too low — your confidence could appear limited.

Strive to keep your tone and pitch at normal levels.

It’s not hard if you relax and lose the fear of calling that many in business have today.

This means to speak at a moderate pace and in a normal tone of voice.

You must take both your surroundings and the surrounding of the person you’re calling into account.

If you’re calling into a company, chances are the first person you’re going to meet up with is the Gatekeeper.

These ladies eat milquetoast with coffee all day long.

If your aim is to talk to someone who can give your company business, there’s no excuse (nor has there ever been one) not to do a little research on the front end on who you might want to talk to.

Sure, situations arise where there is nothing to be found (online) about a particular company, but the example that follows will work in most situations:

“Hello, Amanda. This is Maureen Sharib. Can you please transfer me to Finance?”

(About half the time they will transfer you to someone in Finance – if you’ve sounded confident and knowledgeable. At this point it’s your job to jump in and ask who you’re being transferred to — but sometimes you need more …)

“Who do you want to talk to in Finance?”

“I see that Sheila Watkins is your CFO — is Sheila available?”

“Ms. Watkin’s calls are taken by Delilah Atkins — would you like to talk with her?”

“Absolutely, Amanda. That would be great. Can you tell me, before you transfer me, what Ms. Atkins extension is?”

“Sure, it’s 468; hold one minute!”

I immediately gained a small level of familiarity with the Gatekeeper when I repeated her name back at her (because she told me her name; if she does not tell you her name, skip this part.)

I told her who I was; I removed the mystery so she didn’t have to ask/wonder.

I told her immediately how she could help me.

I had information on backup (the CFO’s name) in case I needed it. This is one of my “tricks.” I spool out a little information at a time. I offer it in bits and pieces only on an “as needed” basis. By using this technique you’ll get an immediate “feel” for how security conscious the company is.

I mirrored her company culture. When I heard her refer to Sheila Watkins as Ms. Watkins I moved to the use of the more formal title in my approach.

I pressed her for a little more information. This is usually possible (unless she sounds impossibly harried) and gives me the beginning of an understanding of the company’s phone tree in the instance where I’m rewarded with an extension or a direct dial.

This is where body language in communication comes into play (over the phone).

By visualizing what’s going on at the other end of the phone many times you can “imagine” the body language of the other party.

You can hear what’s going on in a Gatekeeper’s background if you’re “listening” for it.

You can “imagine” her physical reaction to stress.

You can “hear” stress in a person’s voice and you can act on those cues.

In the example above I was crisp and to the point.

My words were said in a moderate and confident tone of voice.

My voice was naturally animated when it needed to be and my words were enunciated.

My voice was calm and relaxed.

In every instance, I sound sincere.

She didn’t have to struggle to hear/keep up with/understand what I was asking for.

I told her the truth every step along the way so she (usually) immediately “trusts” me.

Hearing a ringing telephone in the background I could “visualize” some of what was going on in her environment and a little of her “body language” — at least enough to gain a modicum of cooperation from her.

I know this may seem farfetched to some of you, but other phones sourcers, I’m sure, will back me up here.

Here’s another one of my tricks and this is where the “attitude” in phone sourcing comes in.

I expect nothing.

There are many times I get rebuffed.

I take that as part of the potion.

By not being expectant I don’t get freaked out when I do get rebuffed.

That freak-out doesn’t carry over into my next calls.

I just move on to the next call with no frenzy.

I take nothing personally.

I have a “next” mentality.

On an “appearance” note, the words you use will create an impression of you even though it’s only the telephone.

Your vocabulary must be correct: we’re often judged by the words we use and the kind of grammar we speak.

Don’t ever use words you don’t know the meaning of. You’ll come across as strange and out of context.

Likewise, use small words that are easy to pronounce.

Nobody ever complains because you made something easy to understand.

(I saw that statement on Twitter recently.)

Pronunciation is something we could all practice, daily.

In business (and in our personal communications) we have to connect with people from all walks of life.

Communication is the lifeblood of your existence.

Make it easy for others to understand you.

If you do this, you’ll suddenly start understanding more yourself.

Next week we’ll talk about how to use both low and high technology appropriately in our communications. Again, it’s going to be from a phone sourcer’s perspective.  I hope you’ll join the discussion from your perspective!

Part III. Part II. Part I. Intro.

…after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.

Mr. Disraeli’s supper companion’s remark demonstrates to us how the prime minister made the young woman feel after their engagement over supper.

I say the word “engagement” knowing that nowadays we all hear a lot about how we can become more bonded in our communications with others.

One of the synonyms for engagement is commitment.

When you say the word commitment, you cannot ignore the meaning of assurance and obligation that lies behind it.

If we are to “engage” another we must naturally offer our pledge, our vow, if you will, that we will stand behind what we’re offering.

We must be trustworthy.

In order to be trustworthy we must also be able to trust.

Conversation is almost always about feelings.

Seldom is it about facts.

Facts might be the starting point to a conversation, but it’s most always the feelings of the conversationalists that color the outcome.

What we think and feel is not always what we say.

Many times it’s in what’s not said that carries the truest meaning.

The same British politician, Benjamin Disraeli, also famously said, “Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for truth.”

Twenty three million Americans just watched Great Britain’s William and Kate become the most celebrated couple in the world with their marriage in Westminster Chapel on July 29, 2011.

There’s a saying that says, “Have your feelings or they will have you.”

There was much comparison between this wedding and the wedding of William’s mother to Prince Charles, heir to the throne, back in 1981 at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

The difference in the demeanors of the wedded at each ceremony struck me.

The earlier marriage presented an older, dour faced, uptight Prince Charles next to a shy and almost-frightened doe of a girl, Lady Diana Spencer, in an ill-fitting and star-crossed joining.

This latter event showcased two obviously devoted-to-one-another lovers inside a connected bubble of their own notwithstanding the pomp and pageantry going on all around them.

The Dean of Westminster, John Robert Hall, conducting the marriage ceremony, soberly asked the assemblage about the couple, “Therefore, if any man can show any just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together let him now speak or else hereafter, forever, hold his peace.”

Thereafter, the marriage ceremony itself was performed by Dr. Rowan Williams, the in-all-ways interesting Archbishop of Canterbury, who asked again, this time bringing the wrath of God into the mix:

“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment, why ye may not be lawfully joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it. For be ye well assured, that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s word doth allow are not joined together by God; neither is their Matrimony lawful. “

Man! If that dire warning didn’t cause one or the other guilty party to drop to their knees and beg forgiveness I don’t know what would have, but it may certainly have been a second warning to both the participants and the congregation for anyone with the kind of information that Prince Charles harbored on his wedding day about Camilla Shand Parker Bowles to step now forward or “…hereafter, forever, hold his peace.”

I could only think how differently things may have turned out if someone inside the Palace had paid any attention to Prince Charles’ glum and sardonic looks and remarks surrounding his own marriage. The bitter aftermath and disaster may have been avoided in two, what seemed to be, very unhappy lives.

Because Charles, Prince of Wales was not allowed to have feelings in the matter of his own marriage, his feelings, in the end, had him.

The lesson here is obvious to us in this discussion about feelings.

All the factual talk about duty and country and bucking up that probably went on inside a Palace deciding that Camilla was not a suitable match for the future king turned out to fare not well in the knotty outcome.

Everything that describes the opposite of feeling — insensitivity, numbness, unconsciousness, obtuseness — appears to have come into play surrounding what is the most important event in one’s life.

The person one marries is the most critical decision one makes in life.

It befuddles the imagination that an institution like the British Monarchy would ignore that fact and be so out of tune but they did all that for Charles with the resultant catastrophe that followed.

One can only imagine how the parties to that marriage felt all those years.

The crying-out spoke for itself and the tragedy that ensued is something Shakespeare himself would have written on.

This is the stuff we are made of.

No species on earth is crueler to one another than man.

But we can change all that.

We can change and we can be kind to one another.

We can watch for the telltale signs in each other.

We can look for the pain every single one of us carries and we can work to decrease that pain and increase each other’s happiness and joy.

How can we do that?

We can do that by using Disraeli’s secret.

We can explore the possibilities in one another by showing a genuine interest in the other person.

We can ask questions and watch facial expressions and body language.

We can listen closely to the answers and discern what’s not being answered — what’s not being said.

We can create a bubble around ourselves and the other person that says to that other person, “You are my world, right now in this place and time and I am interested in what you have to say to me in this space I occupy in it for you.”

We can be kind.

We can be gracious.

We can make another person feel good and safe in this eventful world we all live in.

If you can do this, your aim will open a hole in another’s heart and you’ll touch their feelings by knowing their secrets.

You have the capacity to change their lives.

They will never forget you.

You’ll make an impact and a difference in a person’s life and you’ll also make a difference and an impact in your own.

******

Next week we’ll focus on how business communication differs from personal communication. Part II. Part I. Intro.

His main political rival was the renowned orator William Gladstone and four-times Liberal prime minister.

A young lady was taken to dinner one evening by Gladstone and the following evening by Disraeli. Asked what impressions these two celebrated men had made upon her, she replied, “When I left the dining room after sitting next to Mr. Gladstone, I thought he was the cleverest man in England. But after sitting next to Mr. Disraeli, I thought I was the cleverest woman in England.”

Both Disraeli and Gladstone were politicians of extraordinary ability whose personalities clashed throughout their lifelong rivalries.

Gladstone’s style of debate was “torrential, eloquent, evangelical, vehement, and ‘preachy’; Disraeli’s, urbane, witty, and worldly, with a streak of romance as well as cynicism.”

What the tale above has always told me is that someone who is full of himself — even though brilliant — can be unlikeable as a result of pedestaling his own ego.

On the other hand, someone who is skilled in social interaction (as Disraeli was) understands the power of listening and how it translates in connecting with another human being.

Disraeli’s genius lay in assembling and expressing ideas in writing. That’s not an easy thing to do when you’re talking all the time.

I can just see the two evenings in perspective: A darkened candlelit walnut-lined dining room with Georgian crystal, and fine, sturdy Worcester china paired with gleaming English silver and the participants in formal dress.

There’s a slight discernable patter as servants hover in the background and the quiet, distinct murmur of tableware being expertly served and removed sounds through the room just under the buzz of the table conversation.

On the first evening a young woman is seated next to an elderly gentleman who is gesticulating grandly with his wine glass and becoming ever more boisterous as the evening wears on. He talks about himself and his accomplishments and in general, focuses the conversation on himself, pedagogue that he is.

She consumes everything on her plate and leaves the table feeling stuffed and uncomfortable.

The next evening finds the same young woman seated next to a man with his shoulders slightly hunched, head tilted in toward her, listening intently to her answers to his questions while he attentively and deftly handles his knife and fork. The woman is the center of this man’s universe for the evening and his attentiveness is causing her to bloom far beyond her ordinary borders.

She eats little of what’s on her plate but leaves the table feeling stimulated and excited.

This story is often told about communication. Two intelligent, eloquent men with two completely different (connection) results!

By making a conscious effort to focus on others — to practice attentiveness — you’ll find that all the parties to the conversation enjoy themselves.

If you ask far more questions of the other person than they ask of you, you’ll experience a meaningful and connective dialogue and the other person will remember you for how you made them feel.

You’ve all heard the old common sense adage; “God gave you two ears and one mouth so you can listen twice as much as you talk.”

If there’s one simple element to successful communication, it’s listening.

This doesn’t require amazing social skill.

It just requires keeping your mouth shut and not one-upping the other person’s story — not telling yours at the expense of another’s.

In general it requires keeping your finger off the trigger of your mouth.

It’s all about how you make the other person feel.

Bringing the concealed carry class insight into this, my instructor said, mid-morning, talking about bullet caliber, “The bigger hole’s better.”

The bigger hole you can make in the other person’s heart — the more you can touch their feelings — the more you can connect with them at this basic human level — the more fruitful your communication will be.

You have to get at close range for this to happen.

You’ve got to get up close and personal.

Communication is all about feelings.

That’s what we’ll talk about next week.

(Intro; Part 1 on communication techniques)

It was fun.

Chapter 6 of the National Rifle Association’s guide to the basics of personal protection in the home published in 2000, says that, “…encounters occur at very close range, often in reduced-light conditions, and are over in a matter of seconds. One study of Police shootings in a major urban area showed that the majority of encounters took place after dark, at three yards or less, in less than three seconds, and involved the firing of an average of three shots.”

The instructor called these events, “up close and personal.”

That’s where I got the idea for the name of this series.

In this series you’re going to learn effective communication techniques — the “up close and personal” ones.

We’re going to first touch on the traditional and emerging technologies that foster communication and then we’re going to delve in later chapters into the techniques that lead to real connection between people.

Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the information society. –World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Declaration, A/4

We are more connected today to each other than at any other time in history yet in many ways we are also more alienated than we’ve ever been from one another.

Much of today’s technology allows us to live under the cover of connections.

Connection and communication are two different things.

Much of today’s communication happens in a variety of ways. I’ve broken them into two categories: Old World and Brave New World:

BRAVE NEW WORLD

Text

Instant Messaging

Electronic mail

Social Media Exchange

Cell Phone (Mobile)

OLD WORLD

Snail Mail

Fax

Land Line Telephone

Face-To-Face Communication

TEXT

Beginning with the brave new world’s newest technology advances, texting, or text messaging, or SMS (short message service) refers to the exchange of brief written messages between fixed-line phone or mobile phone and fixed or portable devices over a network.

It is very popular with the young and seems to be the preferred method of communicating for them. Including spaces, text messages traditionally can’t exceed 160 characters, and failure rates can be high.

Text messages are either included in the cell phone bill voice plan or are added as an extra cost. SMS messaging is used pervasively around the globe.

INSTANT MESSAGING

Related to texting, instant messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based communication between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients.

Online chat is a subset of instant messaging in that it is direct one-on-one chat or text-based group chat using tools such as instant messengers, Internet Relay Chat, talkers, and possibly MUDs. The word chat is defined as “informal conversation.”

ELECTRONIC MAIL

Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks.

Email started in 1965 as a way for multiple users of a time-sharing mainframe computer to communicate. It began to spread as an accepted medium of exchange in the late 1980s and continued into the 1990s and became widely accepted in the late 90s.

Recipients understand just over half of all email correctly with tone and language choices being the main culprits in misunderstanding.

The number of emails sent per day (294 billion/in 2010) means more than 2.8 million emails sent every second and some 90 trillion emails sent per year.

Around 90% of these are spam and viruses.

Around 1.9 billion email users — about 26% (1 in 5) of the Earth’s population — send emails from genuine accounts.

Estimates say that about 25% of all email accounts (730 million) are business accounts.

SOCIAL MEDIA EXCHANGES

Social media exchanges use web-based and mobile technologies to turn communication into interactive dialogue.

User-generated content is the fuel that social media thrives on with the added opportunity for individuals to dialogue in positions of social authority. That authority carries the added dimension of the message as marketing vehicle.

Never before has the effective (and ineffective) marketing message been carried to so many by so few.

CELL PHONES

A cell phone (mobile) is an electronic device used to make mobile telephone calls across a wide geographic area vs. the limited range a fixed landline offers within a home or office. It can bridge networks around the world by connecting to a cellular network owned by a mobile network operator.

Mobile phones support a wide array of the services just mentioned with handy Internet access, gaming, business applications, and photo services making them today’s “smartphones.”

One of the ironies to mobile is that cell phones are used to text rather than call by many young people. They’ve also become this younger generation’s primary digital music players, schedule keepers, and morning alarm clocks.

Beginning in the 1940s and in the 20 years from 1990 to 2010 worldwide mobile phone subscriptions grew from 12.4 million to over 4.6 billion, penetrating developing economies and reaching the bottom of the economic pyramid.

“Can you hear me now?” was Verizon’s astute response to customers’ (mostly unspoken) consideration of network reliability.

To me, it’s still the #1 problem with cell phones, and it’s hard for me to believe the quality issues still exist in the technology.

How reliable is your cell phone for having the clean, clear, and uninterrupted exchange required for business communications?

FAX

In existence in various forms since the 19th Century, a fax (short for facsimile) is a document sent over a telephone line that faces increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. In some countries, because law does not recognize electronic signatures on contracts while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing support in business.

LAND LINE TELEPHONE

A phone line that travels through a solid medium, either metal wire or optical fibre, as opposed to a mobile cellular line, where transmission is via radio waves.

Telephones allow two people to talk to each other.

They have long been long been considered indispensable to businesses, households, and governments.

FACE-TO-FACE COMMUNICATION (P2P)

People to People (P2P) remains, today, the most powerful human interaction. Electronic devices can never fully replace the intimacy and immediacy of people talking with, and connecting to, each other.

Next week we’re going to get into the meat and potatoes of this series on communication meant to help you enhance your communication and interpersonal skills. The different parts will:

• Explain the basic forms of communication in use today
• Appreciate the value in listening (active, paraphrasing) as a communication technique
• Help you understand the part feelings play in communication
• Focus on how business communication differs from personal communication
• Use both low and high technology appropriately
• Tailor your message to your audience

I know the different forms of communication above have a lot of links. I encourage you to visit and read them. Their understanding will be valuable in the different parts of this series.

(Series intro)

The outcry goes that social media has reinvented the wheel and any of us left in that old telephone wheelhouse better come out into the light and get with it.

Despite all the naysaying snickering that goes on in the community about the old-school techniques that can’t seem to get out of their own way there is intense underlying interest in how to communicate with someone.

The “How to Make a Phone Call” article here on ERE has been riding the Most Commented/Most Emailed lists almost since it first appeared on March 9, 2011.

Let me tell you a thing or two.

The shiny bauble that is social media is a panacea for what ails those of you who want it to replace the telephone for communication.

It’s a cover for your fear of rejection.

It’s not that the telephone doesn’t work.

It’s that you don’t work the telephone.

It’s kind of like the Confessional.

You’d rather have a grid between you and others — a nondescript separation between your hurt feelings and the other person just in case that other person doesn’t “like” you.

A place where you can confess your sins and receive forgiveness for the inferior being you suspect you are.

That’s what we’re really talking here, isn’t it?

Fourth grade acceptance anxiety.

Get over it already.

Some of the best advice I received growing up was from someone (very successful) who told me, “Maureen, walk up to people and smile and stick your hand out and say, ‘Hi, my name is Maureen. What’s yours?’”

That advice has never steered me wrong.

Never.

Sure, I’ve met some cold fish who took a step backwards and haltingly extended their hand into mine — you know, that weak-sister kind of handshake that speaks volumes about the owner.

But for the most part that advice has served me well in life.

Go ahead and listen to the debunkers who say the telephone is dead. Keep passing the articles among yourselves, Gen X, that proclaim the phone is passé and go right on ahead, Gen Y, leaving copies of it on your manager’s desk in the hope that she’ll cotton to the theory.

In the meantime I’m about to begin a new project here on ERE called, “How to (Really) Connect With People.”

And I’m not talking your social media “connections.”

I’m talking about how to reach out using the telephone and make yourself compelling.

I’m talking about the fading link in communications today.

I’m talking real-time talking and real-time community building.

The old fashioned way.

The way that will never go out of fashion.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” I answered, while thinking to myself that none of us ever really do.

She nodded unhappily.

“Did you read One Lesson Lois?” I asked.

She nodded that she had.

“Did any of that resonate with you?” I asked again.

“Well, sort of,” she said.

“But Lois was never in the recruiting business so I can kind of understand her reluctance. I know it’s my job to call people …” she trailed off.

I watched her body language as she said this.

The right hand that she had drawn back clenched to her chest moved to her leg and she started to scratch at her knee. Her left hand went to her mouth and started pushing at her lower lip.

She appeared to be thinking.

I was aware that on the first day of training Marianne’s co-workers joked that they never heard her on the phone. The joke included the explanation that her speech on the phone was so low that the others in adjoining cubicles couldn’t hear her — like a “mouse in church,” as her manager referred to her.

“It’s just that I don’t know what to say when they ask me why I’m calling!” she blurted.

“Now that you know you can eliminate much of that with your approach does that make any difference?” I asked.

“I suppose,” she admitted, reluctantly. “I guess old habits die hard,” she admitted, and laughed.

“But they do die, Marianne, if you replace them with other habits. That takes practice,” I said, feeling like Mother Hen.

As I said that I reached for the phone and nodded to her to put her headset on.

I called the first number we had on the TDW list and a bright young thing answered.

She didn’t tell me her name so I skipped right in, asking simply, “This is Maureen Sharib. Can you tell me, do you all offer pigging services from your office?”

“We don’t here, Maureen, but we do in our other TX office. You want the number?” she answered, helpfully.

“Absolutely, I do. That would be a great help.”

She gave me the number.

“Can you also tell me who I should ask for in that office?’

I could feel the tension tightening next to me.

“Sure! Ask for Paul Miller* — he heads our pigging services group.”

What’s his title?” I asked.

“Pigging Services Director,” she answered.

I scribbled Paul’s name down before asking, “In case I can’t reach him — is there anyone else in the pigging group I might try?”

“Let me look in that office,” she answered.

It’s long been one of my stock-in-trade tricks to call one office to gather information about another.

When I don’t have any names in to a particular target (and this is the case far more than you’d suspect) this can be a very effective technique.

When she said, “Let me look in that office,” she revealed to me she had access to the company corporate directory that probably included worldwide information.

Think of the power in that!

“There are several people listed under him,” she said. Without me having to ask, she went on. “There’s Michelle Michaels, Peter Lynn, Mark Lunowski, Jerome Matheson, Trey Walters, Renee Barr, Tommy Wu and Bob Rivers. You need them all?” she added.

Little did she know I already have them — having scribbled them as fast as she said them.

I took a chance.

“What I really need to know is are any of them listed as engineers?”

I held my breath.

Silence.

“Well, yeah, three of them are.”

This time I waited, silently.

“Peter Lynn, Jerome Matheson, and Tommy Wu. They’re called ‘sales engineer.’”

Bingo.

“Is one of them the manager?” I pushed.

“No, it looks like Trey Walters is the manager. Sales Engineering Manager,” she enumerated, sounding like she was enjoying this exchange.

Perfect.

“And the others?” I prompted, wanting to better understand how they might be structuring their groups inside these companies.

“The others look like Sales Reps and Account Reps,” she answered.

“Who’s what?” I asked.

“Michelle Michaels is the admin, Mark Lunowski is sales; Renee Barr and Rivers are Account Reps.”

“That’ll do it!” I exclaimed before asking just one more question, “Do any of them have direct dials or extensions?”

Not only did they have direct dials, they also had cell numbers and she gave all of them to me.

After I’d hung up Marianne sat quietly, shaking her head.

“I can’t believe she gave all that to you!” she then exclaimed.

“That the issue here, Marianne –you must believe,” I said. “If you don’t believe you’re going to sound worried and full of self-doubt and she’s going to hear it. You get that, right?”

“But she didn’t ask you why you needed all that information!” Marianne cried.

“They rarely do,” I answered.

“Her job is to help. That’s what she just did.”

She nodded that she understood but I could see she still had her doubts.

Like Bob did, about Lois (see One Lesson Lois).

I’m going to end this series here letting you know that Marianne did have some success on the phone while I sat with her and that one of the techniques we used was calling into plants and talking to a couple Plant Managers who had used pigging services that had been mentioned in testimonials on a few of the sites.

If you had visited the link in Part VIII when I first introduced Marianne’s challenge you would have seen the Wikipedia explanation that, “Pigging has been used for many years to clean larger diameter pipelines in the oil industry. Today, however, the use of smaller diameter pigging systems is now increasing in many continuous and batch process plants as plant operators search for increased efficiencies and reduced costs…Pigging systems are already installed in industries handling products as diverse as lubricating oils, paints, chemicals, toiletries, cosmetics and foodstuffs.”

The Plant Managers we were able to reach were very helpful in giving us names of people who had worked on their installations and additional companies in the industry.

Marianne was let go about a month after our training exercise.

I do not know where she is today.

*All the names listed at TDW are fictional and TDW’s results are actually the results of another company in the industry. For privacy purposes I am not comfortable putting results of any particular company on the Internet. TDW’s results were different.

This is an ongoing series regarding phone sourcing. Here’s part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII, part VIII, and part IX.

Here is this Tuesday’s Phone Sourcing Tip/it is also listed in the ASK Maureen group here on ERE. 
I hope you’ll join and contribute to our discussion!

Phone sourcing is simple but it’s not easy.

There’s a ton of tension in the process for most people.

Excellent phone sourcers know how to use that tension to energize them selves and direct the flow of information.

There’s every bit as much science to this as art.

The science comes in the understanding of human nature (including our own) and the art flows out of that.

Once again I hope you enjoyed this series.

I enjoyed writing it.

Maureen Sharib, 2011

One of our readers, Ben Ness, SOSed Marianne (in Part VIII, Comments section) with the following:

I googled “pigging,” figured out it was the same as “pipeline inspection,” did a keyword search on linkedin using “pipeline inspection” and came up with 280 results who currently still work in this industry. And that is just in my network. The Internet is a beautiful thing. Marianne, if you arereading this, I hope this helps.

I asked Ben what kind of LinkedIn account he had, because when I put the words “pipeline inspection” into LinkedIn’s keyword box I got 280 results too, but guess what?

NONE of them had any names attached to them — only titles like:

Pipeline Inspection Manager at Weatherford International Inc.
Houston, Texas Area | Oil & Energy

Production Manager, Asset Manager at GE Oil & Gas PII

Systems Analyst & Inventory Control Manager at Pipeline Inspection Company
Houston, Texas Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline inspection at Universal Pegasus International
Corpus Christi, Texas Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline Inspection Manager at Mustang Engineering
United States | Oil & Energy

Vice President USA, Canada, Caribbean at TD Williamson Inc
Tulsa, Oklahoma Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline Inspection Manager at Weatherford P&SS
Houston, Texas Area | Oil & Energy

supervisor, pipeline inspection at Superior Well Services, Inc.
Tuscaloosa, Alabama Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline Inspection at Edward Newman Consulting LLC
Greater Denver Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline Inspection Tech at Weatherford
Houston, Texas Area | Oil & Energy

Pipeline Inspection Tech at Weatherford
Phoenix, Arizona Area | Infor

It turns out Ben pays $89 per month for the “Executive” level account and feels it is “well worth it.”

That very well may be but it doesn’t much matter in this instance because not only would we run down a whole lot of rabbit holes chasing Ben’s pipeline inspection dreams, we’d also miss the mark because pigging operations include but are not limited to cleaning and inspecting of the pipeline.

This is the kind of thing where so many searches jump the tracks and go terribly, terribly wrong.

What we “think” the client should take is not always what they will take.

We have to be terribly, terribly careful with this.

The targets Marianne had on the screen, she had been told, would be good places to find the types of people we needed.

Using them as a starting point, we went to Hoover’s and built a list.

Here is the information on the companies Hoover’s had data on that had the word  “pigging” in their descriptions.

It turned out that one of them was her client.

A good place to start on a search is to look at who the competitors are of your client.

The list included:

SPX Corporation
Charlotte NC  4,886.80M 15,500         Industrial machinery, nec
704-752-4400

T. D. Williamson, Inc.
Tulsa OK     456.69M     1,425   Oil and gas field machinery
918-447-5100

Process Pigging Systems, LLC
Cincinnati OH Single Location        2.00M         4       Process control instruments
+1-513-731-6005

Star Trak Pigging Technologies Inc Katy TX     Single Location        1.00M         9      Pipeline construction,
+1-281-599-7557

Pigging Solutions, LLC
Willard MO Single Location        0.31M         2       Hardware

+1-417-685-4018

Pinnacle Pigging Systems Inc
Pasadena TX   Single Location        0.10M         1       Oil and gas field services, nec
+1-713-920-2196

Aquilex HydroChem
Deer Park TX United States                    Sanitary services, nec
713-393-5600

It was obvious there were a couple large companies in this industry; they were listed first. The numbers you see listed on the second lines of each company are the gross sales and then the number of employees.

Eyeballing the first company, we see that SPX:

…controls the flow of multiple industries. The company operates from four units: Flow Technology (pumps, valves, other fluid handling devices); Test and Measurement (diagnostic tools, fare-collection, cable/pipe locators); Thermal Equipment and Services (cooling, heating, ventilation); and Industrial Products and Services (compactors, power systems, broadcast antenna systems, aerospace components). SPX focuses on global infrastructure development; end markets include power, petrochemical exploration, refinement, and distribution, as well as food/beverage, and tools/diagnostics. It operates in 35-plus countries with a sales presence in 150 countries. More than 50% of sales are generated outside the U.S.

The second company, T. D. Williamson, states:

T.D. Williamson must have known that a financial touchdown was in the pipeline when he founded his namesake company in 1920. T. D. Williamson, Inc. designs, manufactures, and maintains oil field machinery and systems including pipeline pigging, gas leak detection, pipeline inspection, plugging, tapping, valve and clamp, and cathodic protection equipment. The company also offers general pipeline, training, and turnkey services. T. D.Williamson operates a global network of sales offices and representatives. It has strategically located international service centers and/or manufacturing plants worldwide, including in Belgium, India, Singapore, the UK, the U.S., and Venezuela.

The others appeared to be minor players, but I thought we’d probably stumble across some others as we went along.

That’s what usually happens.

Looking more closely at SPX and Googling the terms spx pigging together we discern that the company has a division involved with pigging: GD Engineering®, an SPX company, offers a technology that allows the deployment of multiple pig launchers on unmanned platforms.

That’s what we want: the guys who go out on the sales calls who know what is required in the set-up. We find their website. The contact button reveals their locations and phone numbers for locations around the country:

GD Engineering
19191 Hempstead Highway
Phone 281-807-2818
Fax 281-807-2805

It also appears to offer up other companies for different products used in pigging:

Apex Instruments (for closures)
Girard Industries (for pig signalers)
Energy Equipment

We copy and paste all of them, along with their numbers.

All of a sudden we’ve expanded our list of targets with information that the targets themselves have provided on the Internet!

We also do a run on LinkedIn for GD Engineering. Nothing of any help comes up.

We move on.

Turning to T. D. Williamson we first do a LinkedIn search because we have the window open.

Lookie there: 108 results. Don’t get excited. One first name and last initial on the first one — a Talent Development Coordinator, Dallas B.

Titles only on every result after that first one!

That’s it (for me — your results may differ).

We refine and put the word “sales engineer” into the title box.

Nothing.

We remove the word “engineer” and leave “sales” in the box.

A mess of 12 comes up (no names among any of the 12, only titles!) but the majority of them do not look like they’d be much help anyway. Titles like:

Sr. Sales Rep. for T.DWilliamson — MIGHT know who we’re after, but who is it? And in what vertical? Pigging? No way to tell!

Service Center Supervisor — This person might know but again, who is it?

Business Development Mgr, Alaska at TD Williamson — Uhh … probably not

Marketing Communications, Lead Generation, Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, E-Marketing, and Website Management — Absolutely not

Global Web Publisher at T.D. Williamson, Inc. — Ditto

Manager Pipeline Solutions at T.D. Williamson, Inc. — Might know but who is it?

Senior Sales Representative at T.D. Williamson, Inc. Maybe but again, who is it?

Sales/Service Coordinator at TDW — Maybe, but…

Sr. Sales Representative at T.D.Williamson, Inc. — Probably knows, but…

Contracts Manager — Probably wouldn’t know but could. But who is it?

Operations Manager — Might know but…

Senior Buyer — No.

LinkedIn is basically useless to me at this point and I quickly lose patience with the exercise.

I turn to Google and look for the website. I want to know if it, like its largest competitor, also has a division that handles pigging.

It does — it’s called TDW Offshore Solutions and they have offices all over the country with the majority centered, from the looks of it, in the Midwest.

But there’s more!

Under “Events” there’ something called “Pipeline Pigging Conference.”

Man! I can’t wait!

I click on it.

NACE Corrosion in Houston

IPEIA in Alberta, Canada

Southern Gas Conference in Charlotte, NC

And more, many more.

I copy them all out and paste them, knowing that many of them will be valuable sources of additional target companies when we need them.

And we will.

But one of the best parts of that link above is the revelation at the site of terminology used in pigging, all keywords we can use to further our search. Words like:

- Hot Tapping & Plugging Services
- Freeze Plugging Services
- Plugging Isolation Services
- Cutter Repair Services
- Equipment Repair Services
- Hydrostatic Testing Services
- Drying Service
- Pigging Products & Services
- Online Cleaning Services
- Pipeline Cleaning Services
- New Construction Services
- Gas Leak Detection Services
- Turnkey Management Services

But in the meantime my eye drifts back up to that list of offices listed throughout the United States.

I nod towards it and say to Marianne, “Let’s start calling those.”

She sits up expectantly and reaches for the phone.

Then she hesitated and shrank back into her seat, drawing her clenched hand in to her chest.

Next week we’re going to finish Marianne’s lesson and also, this series.

I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed it.

P.S.  Yesterday when I was writing the IX article as I searched LinkedIn for the portions where I used LinkedIn, the only results I got were titles only.

Today the same searches are giving me (on the first couple pages) names, and then the info fades (as it does on unpaid accts) to first names and last initials and then to titles only.

Maybe it was a glitch in LinkedIn’s system yesterday but I can tell you this:

Several months ago I was one of the first who got results where the last name was represented only by an initial.

When I called it out in the sourcing circles I was told I must be imagining things.  Soon after everyone (who wasn’t paying) started getting them.

Sometimes I feel like a canary in a mine.

Are titles-only the near future of LinkedIn’s FREE search?

******

This is an ongoing series regarding phone sourcing. Here’s part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, part VII, and part VIII.

Here is this Tuesday’s Phone Sourcing Tip/it is also listed in the ASK Maureen group here on ERE. I hope you’ll join and contribute to our discussion!

Customers usually know who their own competitors are and understand that those are the best ponds to go fishing in.

If you’re doing work for a third party recruiter sometimes they do not know and, worse yet, are reluctant to ask their clients for fear of not looking like they know what they’re doing.

They don’t always work exclusively in an area to know that area intimately.

Your job as a sourcer sometimes is to augment their knowledge in a manner that doesn’t destroy their fragile egos.

This is easier said than done sometimes but it is critically important that the right targets be chosen before beginning any sourcing assignment.

Extreme care must be taken here and if it means spending extra time to correctly identify the field then it behooves you to do it.

It will save you much time and heartache later!

Her six coworkers all seemed to like her.

Her name was Marianne and she was a pretty 20-something and this was her second job after graduating from college.

She mostly didn’t say anything but she did answer willingly when called upon.

I sat down next to her at her desk on the second day of training.

She was scheduled after Max and she seemed organized and efficient when I sat down.

Her job was up on her screen and it was formatted exactly as I had asked the class to do it the day before.

She was quiet and attentive as she had been the day before.

I asked what we were looking for.

She answered that she wanted to work on a job that had been causing her quite a bit of stress.

She needed people involved in the pre-sales activity for a piece of pigging machinery that would be installed onto a food-manufacturing floor.

The client wanted them to live in the Midwest so they could travel around the country more easily than if they lived on one coast or the other.

Sound reasoning.

I asked her if she had found anyone.

She showed me a list of people who had obviously come from online; they had titles like sales managers, sales reps, and sales support with the occasional sales engineer sprinkled in.

It was the sales engineers we were after, I pointed out. It was right in the beginning of the job description.

“I know,” she admitted, disconsolately. “They’re just so hard to find!”

“What have you done so far?” I asked.

“Well, I looked on LinkedIn -- ,” she admitted before I stopped her in her tracks.

“You’re not going to find them on LinkedIn,” I stated, bluntly.

“How did you know?” she blinked, almost near tears.

“Because they’re not on LinkedIn, Marianne. If they ever were, chances are they’ve moved on and are not in the last reported place they listed.”

She continued to listen.

“Remember? LinkedIn rode the social media juggernaut and now — well, not so much.”

“Look — let’s do a LinkedIn search.”

She reached for her keyboard, and to my surprise LinkedIn flashed immediately up.

She was using it for her home page!

Ignoring that mistake, I told her to put the word “pigging” into the keyword box and the word “sales engineer” into the title box.

“Mark it current so we can see who has the title today,” I said.

“Now hit ‘search’,” I instructed.

Two results came up.

One — an “Andy V” — hadn’t worked in pigging since 1991, and the other, “Rick P.” listed himself as a designer for pigging products and as an application sales engineer but he had been with the same company for 19 years and was working in Alaska in the oil industry.

He had started his first job in 1975.

We all know what that means.

Come on, we do.

“I hate it that LinkedIn isn’t listing last names anymore,” Marianne remarked, seeming to ignore the paucity of resources being offered.

“Yeah, well, get used to it. There’s more of that to come,” I warned before telling her to change the title search’s “current” status to “current or past.”

Woo-hoo! Eight came up.

Just think.

Of 100 million “members” now on LinkedIn we can muster out only eight with “pigging” in their profiles.

Now, all of a sudden Rick’s last name came up — Rick Pruett — at the top of the heap.

But we all know what chance he stands.

Next came a John T. who worked for the same company but in Houston. He hadn’t worked in project sales since 2004 and now carried the title “Operations Manager.”

What are the chances he’d want to go back on the road 26 years after graduating from college with a B.S. in Engineering Technology?

Yeah, you guessed it.

Let’s not kid ourselves.

Next came Andy V. again and we all know what use he is to us at this point.

A smiling Chris P. showed up next and listed himself as a Consultant. It seemed he’d been working for himself the last 16 months.

Before that he was a “Global Sales Manager, Product Line Manager (Inspection)” and was also located in Houston.

Oh, but lookie there. He started school in 1971.

That ugly nemesis again — and, oh, he was in the oil business — not food.

It seemed nobody on the results page was in food.

Moving on, Richard Craig S. was a Corrosion Engineer in San Diego and we could see the connection topigging but it seemed he was also working with fuel lines.

“Not likely to be the same thing in the customer’s eyes and besides, who wants to move from San Diego to the Rust Belt?” I asked, deadpan.

She nodded her agreement.

Next up, Jason D. was now an Art Director, Multimedia Specialist, Art Guru in Florida, and what’s the point in even opening him up for inspection?

But let’s do it.

We’re on a wild goose chase anyway.

You tell me: do you see why he came up in the search?

I don’t.

Maybe this is why he came up in our search:

“From mingling with celebrities to guinea-pigging weird product or meditating deep in design, I always keep it interesting.”

Rock on Jason, but we’re going to move on.

Or not.

I just don’t have the strength it would take to investigate a “Territory Representative” at a company in Missoula, Montana that develops and markets cleaning, sanitizing, pest control, maintenance and repair products and services for the hospitality, institutional, and industrial industries who doesn’t even have the sense God gave a mule to fill out his profile let alone Peter R., a Business Development Manager at another oilfield services company.

We need someone experienced in the food industry.

There are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

There are also no butts that I can see in any of the results so far that can put us remotely in the vicinity of what we need.

Marianne is discouraged but I’m not.

Next week we’re going to explore the opportunities LinkedIn did offer and we’re going to build on those few results using Hoover’s and a brief search engine visit to create a robust search that’s going to surprise you.

This week, though, you have a test to complete.

It’s not really so much a test as it is an opportunity for you to strut your stuff.

I want all of you online aficionados (and I know there are many of you!) to tell me what you’d do at this point.

I also want you few telephone sourcers out there to tell me how you’d proceed.

We all look forward to your advice.

This is an ongoing series regarding phone sourcing. Here’s part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V, part VI, and part VII.

Here is this Tuesday’s Phone Sourcing Tip/it is also listed in the ASK Maureen group here on ERE. I hope you’ll join and contribute to our discussion!

Phone sourcing is all about attitude.

It’s not what you say but how you say it.

Great phone sourcers say very little.

They know how to elicit the information they seek with the questions they ask.

They think about a sourcing job like a puzzle.

They sketch out the outer rim and then flesh in the interior.

Phone sourcing jobs go faster the further you get into one; just as a puzzle helps to build itself more quickly the more you work it.

“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.” — Lou Holtz

The class question from last week asked what things are at work that would cause Lisa our Gatekeeper to drop her defenses in the statement below.

“Lisa?  Hi, this is Maureen Sharib. Can you transfer me to Sheila McKinney?  Before you do, though, can you tell me: is Sheila one of the pipeline engineers there? She is? I thought so. In case I can’t reach Sheila, Michael Edwards is also one of the pipeline engineers I could try? That’s great, Lisa. And just in case I can’treach him, either, can you tell me who else in that group I could try?”

I will list them in occurrence, as I see them.

I said her name.

I then identified myself to her.

I asked for her help that included a name of someone inside the company; a name she was likely to recognize.

I asked one question at a time.

I repeated her name during the “interrogation.”

You may see something else. Tell us about it.

We left our student phone sourcer back in Part IV sitting nervously beside me, listening in on my calls.

After we’d managed to expand our call list with locations in the Marcellus Shale zone where we’d likely find the few pipeline engineers that existed in the region and had collected ten or so of them with my efforts I picked up the phone, handed it to him and said, “Your turn.”

He recoiled like I was about to hand him a hot poker, red-hot brand side first.

As he was collecting himself I put on the second head-set so I could listen in and pushed the “mute” button.

“Uhhh … Okay,” he said reluctantly, knowing this was part of the program and having been told in advance that I’d do some of the calls as a demonstration before handing it off to him to finish.

“What do you think would be best to call next?” he asked.

“Texas ought to be open by now — let’s call headquarters of that company and see if they have any offices in the Marcellus Shale region.”

Boldly he dialed the Texas headquarters number of the energy company that we had identified as one of the major players in the region.

He surprised me with his approach.

“Hello, Operator this is Max Hines in Ohio. I’m trying to reach Simon Michaelson in Pennsylvania.” I noticed a name he had tucked in to the job. It appeared to have come off LinkedIn.

“It looks like we have an office in Williamsport — but I don’t see him listed …” she trailed off, sounding like she was really trying to find Michaelson.

“You want the number?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am I do,” Max answered.

She gave it to him.

Then he really surprised me.

“Do you have the ability to look into the Williamsport office?” he asked.

I sat back, knowing what was coming next.

She was either going to say “yes” or “no.”

If she said “yes” I knew the possibilities.

She said, “Yes.”

I wondered what he’d do with this opportunity.

“If Simon’s not there, is there anyone else listed I might connect with?” he asked.

I exhaled, waiting for the answer.

I was hopeful.

I wanted this to work for him.

“There are about thirty people listed there — what are you looking to do?” she queried.

Ignoring her question, he asked, “Is there another pipeline engineer listed?”

After a brief pause she said, “There looks like there are three of them listed. You want to try them?” she offered.

“Yes, Ma’am; that’d be a big help.”

Was I detecting a slight Texas drawl?

After she’d given them to him he went the extra mile and asked if any of them had direct dials.

Two did and one had a cell phone.

Hanging up the phone, I said to him, “I see my work’s done here.”

“I’m a clutch player,” he smiled.

“I see you are,” I said, rising from the chair and collecting my things.

“I’m going to go work with Marianne now. I want you to continue working on this and give me a report in a couple hours. I think you‘re going to do just fine,” I congratulated.

Marianne turned out to be a different story but we had her whipped into some performing shape when I left her desk to go on to the next victim.

It was a struggle though.

Marianne’s heart wasn’t in it.

That story in Part VIII.

This is an ongoingseries regarding phone sourcing. Here’s part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V and part VI.

Here is this Tuesday’s Phone Sourcing Tip/it is also listed in the ASK Maureen group here on ERE. I hope you’ll join and contribute to our discussion!Some keyboards arenoisier than others.

If you’re phone sourcing the way I want you to phone source everything you’re hearing on the phone is going into your research document at the time you’re hearing it! That clickety-clack of the keyboard can stop some Gatekeepers from “sharing” with you. You don’t want that to happen.

I recommend you use a silent keyboard if yours is too noisy. Mine are rubbery and last about six months before the key symbols wear off. You can get one under $50. Here’s the one I have at present. It cost $17 plus shipping.An added benefit of this one is that it lights up.

I have a sense that a real yearning is emerging for information about how to communicate.

I mean about how to communicate face to face or over the phone and not about “communicating” on someone’s “Wall” on Facebook or sending an InMail through LinkedIn.

I’m talking about what you should say on the phone.

There’s a difference between calling an “active” candidate (one whose resume is out there or “in there” or a candidate who is obviously “out there,” meaning he is high-profile on the Internet or the trades) and the truly passive candidate: the guy we sourcers find closeted away behind a company’s closed doors, who is not listed anywhere on the Internet, who is way too busy working to even think about thinking about looking for another job.

When I’m calling through a list of folks, profiling, I don’t leave call back messages until I’ve called through the list 5-6 times.

When I’m sourcing, I’m in the habit of trying to remain in the power seat, in charge of the process.

When you leave a plaintive “please-call-me-back” message you’ve transferred “power” (and the chance of your success) into the hands of another person.

No, no, no, and double no, no, no. You never want to do that!

I call through a list, top to bottom, methodically, and talk to the ones that answer.

Let a number ring 2-3 times; usually they’ve answered if they’re there in that amount of time.

This can reduce calling time from 60-90 seconds per unanswered call to about 15 seconds, which includes the dial!

Definition of Profiling: The first contact with the candidate who has been identified through sourcing that includes an introduction to your opportunity and a gathering of facts about the potential candidate’s abilities.

That candidate may or (more probably) may not be thinking about another job.

Your task here is to knock on his door and introduce yourself and your mission and get his general information while taking his initial temperature regarding the opportunity you’re presenting.

This is quite different from contacting the “active” candidate who sent his resume in over the transom regarding a possible new job opportunity, which I talked briefly about above.

“How’d you get my name?” the phone-sourced potential candidate usually asks.

When I answer this, I tell them the truth.

I tell them I was tasked with identifying them within their organization to see if they might be interested in a specific opportunity.

If they press further I tell them they may have been located in a variety of ways, one of which (and usually the most probable) is that I called their organization to find out who they were!

This usually both surprises and delights them.

Other reasons I’ve given are that my attention fell upon them because of some posting they may have put out on the Internet regarding their work, or their name may have been passed to someone at the company I’m calling on behalf of because they were good at what they do.

If I found them on LinkedIn, I tell them so.

They’re never surprised by this one.

I’ve never told them I found them in a job board database because I’ve never been on a job board.

Whatever explanation I give them I punch the fact across that they have been specifically chosen for contact.

This is usually enough to assuage their paranoia (some industries are afflicted more so with this than others) and flatters them to the point where they relax and begin to share their information with me.

I try not to draw any lines in the sand. I feel this “first contact” is precarious enough without asking scary questions that they feel pressured to answer yes or no to.

I rarely ask them their salaries at this first contact. Few want to answer this.

After all, most of them are not looking for another job and don’t see the relevance in revealing this particular piece of information.

The object is to get them to start talking. Once they do this they will spill most of their beans along the way. Sometimes, even what they’re earning.

My job at this point is to listen and take notes.

The person on the other end of the phone isn’t going to give me squat if he doesn’t like me, and that’s the first and most important object of cold calling — the object being to like and enjoy what you’re doing because it’s going to come across in your voice and delivery.

Believe me, it will.

So every day is probably not a good idea to be doing this. You must “feel like it” so choose a time when you “feel like it” and go hard at it until you don’t!

Learn to manage your time. There are of things you have to do besides get on the horn, so set your days up to allow for this.

There are “good” times and “bad” times to call people. Remember that!

You’ll reach far fewer people from 11 to 1, and right after lunch some are sleepy and might not want to be bothered.

I like the 8 to 11 slot in the morning. I catch them at their desks before the day has taken its toll.

Or for the very same reason, that 4 to 6 timeslot can be effective.

Use common sense when you’re calling. Keep in mind the different time zones.

As the only direct contact I generally have with candidates is when I do profiling, I’m sure there are others who have better skill sets at eliciting information, but here’s what I say when I’m profiling:

Me: “Hi, this is Maureen Sharib. You’ve been identified by XYZ Corporation as someone they’re very interested in for an open position they have. Do you have a few minutes to share a little information with me?”

Them: “Huh? Who, me? How’d you get my name?”

Me: “Your name was identified by XYZ as someone they’re very interested in talking with regarding a design position they have open. Is now a good time to talk?”

Them: “Yeah, I guess so. But I’m not looking to make a move. Whatd’ya need?”

Me: “Well, let’s start with you. You’re an RF Design Engineer there?”

Them: “Yep. Level III.”

Me: “How long have you been with ABC?”

Them: “Three years, before this I was with LMN for two years and before that I was with DEF for seven.”

Me: “So you have 12 years experience — have you ever managed others?”

Them: “I don’t like to manage — I can’t stand people — ooops — did I say that?”

We laugh.

Me: “So you have 12 years experience?”

Them: “Yeah.”

Me: “You’re part of a design group now?”

Them: “Yeah, there are six of us. Jerry Speaks is our Manager. I gladly leave the management stuff to him.” (He’s stuck on the prior question, it seems. Management might be a sore spot for him.)

We laugh some more. (I’m making a written note who his manager is.)

Me: “Where did you go to school?”

Them: “Cal State Fullerton. I have a BS in Electrical Engineering and an MS in the same from there. I’m thinking about going for my PhD. Thinking about it.” (Emphasis on “thinking”.)

Me: “What do you like most about your job?”

Them: “Being left alone. They pretty much leave us alone to do what we want — probably because we’re working on some pretty high-level security stuff and they don’t understand much of it. My buddy Chad’s the Team Lead and I leave the facey-face stuff to him. I like working in the lab. What did you say your name was?”

Me: “Maureen Sharib. Would you be interested in learning more about this open position at XYZ?” I make another written note that “Chad” is his co-worker and the Team Lead. Chad who? You bet I’ll find out!

Then: “Well, yeah, I guess, it never hurts to listen.”

Me: “Would tonight be a good time for someone from XYZ to call you — maybe at home?”

Them: “Yeah, that would be good — tell them to call my cell, it’s 408 xxx xxxx.”

Me: “About 7:30 Pacific time then?”

Them: “That’s good.”

Me: “Before I say good-bye, I was wondering if you had any friends who might be interested in a test engineering position XYZ has open…”

Them: “Yeah! I do! My buddy Fred’s lookin’ to make a move — I’ll pass your name along to him.”

Me: “I wonder if I might email him the position?”

“Them: “Yeah, that’d be okay -– his email is fred.buddy@abc.com.”

Me: “Okay, thanks very much, I’ll get this right out to him and it’s been great talking to you, I wish you the best of luck — good bye!”   

So how do we find the other members in a person’s group when we know that group contains what we’re looking for?

As you recall, that was the last question posed to me by my student sourcer on the second day of our MagicMethod training.

For those of you just now tuning in, MagicMethod is my particular brand of phone sourcing. I’ve been phone sourcing since 1997 and the program developed (for me) as I struggled in the early part of my career to find a way to phone source that was something apart from the literature in existence at that time on the subject.

What am I talking about?  There was no literature in existence on phone sourcing when I started!

My early fears were only met with the chagrin I felt when my questions were met with surreptitious answers like…

“You find a local pizza joint and you call up and tell them you’re delivering individual pizzas to their department for a job well done (you guess) and who are all the ASIC engineers in the group so you can 1) take their individual orders and 2) know who gets what.”

“You learn how to hack and hack your way into the company’s intranet.”

“You tell them you’re from the state taxing authority and you need a list of all the employees in a particular department.”

All scary stuff.

Some of it dumb.

Some of it illegal.

All pretty effective when delivered w/ more nerve than it takes a burglar.

None, really, my cup of tea.

MagicMethod developed out of a desperate need to know.

It was a desperate need because the long and short of it was and is that I love(d) phone sourcing and I had to find a way I could do it that allowed me peace of mind.

MagicMethod fomented over several years and really started with a library of “scripts” that I wrote.

The “scripts” were really a diary I started to keep at the end of the day. When I had a particularly good day (or a particularly bad day) I found pleasure (or solace) in relating to myself the course of events in a written form.

The scripts worked to remind myself, over time, what worked and what didn’t.

As time went on I grew to realize it wasn’t so much what I said on my sourcing forays as how I said it.

The core premise of my training emerged from that theory.

That and the time-worn KISS principle to “Keep It Simple, Stupid.”

On a good percentage of calls a phone sourcer makes it is possible to say almost absolutely nothing and still get the information you seek.

The (few) veteran phone sourcers reading this understand what I mean and will agree with this.

Notice I’m not saying every call.

Nothing works 100% of the time.

When I say “a good percentage” I’m clearly talking (on most jobs) about 50% of the time.

There are fields — like pharma, biotech, defense, and some high tech — where this figure won’t hold, but in most verticals it will.

Fifty percent translates to mean that on about half of your calls, if you approach the Gatekeeper correctly, you’ll be rewarded with the information you seek.

It doesn’t necessarily happen right-out-of-the-gate but over time, and with practice, it will!

So here we are. About to make our third call the MagicMethod way and my sourcer is all ears.

Exactly what I want him to be.

It’s a fallacy to think phone sourcers talk a lot.

The simple truth is the good ones talk very little.

They listen.

They listen for the information in the silences because much of the time it’s in the silence where the information resides.

On our last call the young Gatekeeper either was a well-trained guardian or we did or said something that caused a warning flag to go up her flagpole.

I suspect the latter.

Remember, as I approached her I had a nervous would-be phone sourcer at my side, listening in with a special jack.

That played into my delivery and the fact of the matter is that when I glanced sideways and saw him sweating bullets it may have impacted my approach.

Phone sourcing is high impact and it can be high stress.

The key to phone sourcing is connecting with someone.

You have a very few seconds (maybe three) in which to do that.

If you don’t make that connection immediately it’s a pretty good bet your call is not going to be that fruitful.

As mine appeared not to be.

I shouldn’t really say that, though. Before she went south on me Lisa did tell me some very important information. She told me:

…her name
…the company had a casual atmosphere
…that Jim Walters was one of the pipeline engineers
…that he was one of six
…that they all sat together
…Jim’s three number extension

After she told me those six critical pieces of information, all of which I scribbled as she spoke, she transferred me to Jim. Knowing that the high likelihood was that I would hit Jim’s VoiceMail (even though she had just seen him arrive) I rode the transfer out to “listen” for more of what I could use.

That’s what I’m talking about when I talk about the information residing in the silences.

If you “listen” to everything that’s said each piece of information becomes a piece of the puzzle with which you can work to complete the whole.

I know some of you are wondering what would I have said if Jim had answered. Here’s the answer:

Nothing. I would have hung up.

The reason I would have hung up at this initial stage is that I am on a scouting mission and I don’t want to reveal more of myself than I must.

Jim is a valuable resource I may have to target later if I can’t decipher the message with the info I gather but to approach him at this early stage would be foolish.

I’ll repeat: At this early penetration stage a phone sourcer usually doesn’t have enough information to gamble a dice roll on an important member of the group.

Like a puzzle, we’re in the early framing stage.

That’s a good way to think of a phone sourcing project — you build the outer rims (frame) with the general information you gather (and extrapolate) and then you fill in the interior’s missing pieces.

Fortunately Jim’s VoiceMail answered his call and he hadn’t as yet changed his holiday message. (Employees often forget to do this and sourcing around the holidays can be especially revealing because of this!)  Jim’s VoiceMail told us what would probably turn out to be two other members of his group and their extensions.

Remember, Jim’s extension was 127. The extensions of the two others he gave me were 131 and 125. Their names were Michael Edwards and Sheila McKinney, respectively.

Now, we’re going to have a test.

The same test I presented my sourcer at this point when he excitedly asked me how do we get all of Jim’s coworkers.

You have the framework.

You tell me, in the comments section below, what you might reasonably divine from that information and why.

Be as specific as possible and give me the logic to your answer.

EXTRA CREDIT: Tell me why knowing Lisa’s name is listed as one of the six important pieces of information.
******

This is an ongoing series regarding phone sourcing. Here’s part I, part II, part III, and part IV.

Here is this Tuesday’s Phone Sourcing Tip; it is also listed in the ASK Maureen group here on ERE.
I hope you’ll join and contribute to our discussion!
******

Much of phone sourcing is like taking a test.

If you hit a lot of headwind at one company skip to the next.

Don’t get hung up and don’t let it discourage you.

Remember, though, to write down exactly what occurred at the company you had trouble with.

This is so when you call back (either later in the day or on subsequent days) you’ll know what you experienced on your previous call(s).

Many times the early information you gathered will help you go further beyond what you were able to accomplish on your earlier call.

Also, information you learn from other companies might elicit ideas for you to use when penetrating the (other) more difficult companies.

Sometimes dilemmas answer themselves.