How I Became A Names Sourcer Part I
In my early days of sourcing, ten-plus some years ago, I was fired from my first job. I tell you this because I know some of you struggle with names sourcing, especially with telephone names sourcing. Let me explain.
It was 1996 and I was in the middle of the first sabbatical I had ever taken in my life. After twenty-two years in one business, I was burned out and I was learning some hard lessons. My children were young teenagers, thirteen and fifteen, and they wanted (needed) a computer. I purchased one and that's when the fun began again.
I eyed it warily in its break-front desk after it was installed. I listened as my daughters argued over whose "turn" it was and while they were at school one day I turned it on – I wanted to see what all the to-do was about. It whirred and then blinked at me before a steady screen-saver stared back at me. "What do I do now?" I wondered.
Gingerly I pressed a key on the keyboard and another screen popped up. It must have asked me, or guided me, to do something, I can't remember exactly what happened next, but what I do remember is that the thing drew me in and taught me about itself. The more I interacted with it the more entranced I became. Pretty soon I was regularly cruising AOL's chat rooms. I thought I had mastered the p's and q's of the thing until someone remarked one day they had been "out on the web" and had found something; I think in those early days it was "Amazon" and this person reported the exciting news that we could order books at substantial discounts and have them delivered to our homes! Oh, the heady days of start-ups!
"Out on the web?" I wondered. I visualized this black stringy spider's web stretching out into infinity before me, (I wonder why I thought of infinity at that early stage?) and, with some trepidation, I followed someone's instructions as to how to get out "on the web". Holding my breath I entered some instruction into my browser and Voila! I had a whole new playground to romp in. I couldn't believe it – my shuttered mind expanded with the possibilities.
Days turned into nights turned into days for me as I excursioned my way around the world. I visited the Hermitage in Russia, strolling down its gilded corridors admiring its treasures; I meandered my way along the Nile snooping the darkened interiors of pyramids; I took roundtrip rides to Mars and other planets; I splashed in the Mediterranean Sea. All this I did from the comfort of my family room, in front of a burning fire facing a large picture window that framed the wintry landscape. As Spring approached the fireplace dwindled but the fire borne in my soul wouldn't temper itself – it raged with the possibilities, it fueled my inextinguishable desires. One day, visiting a chat room someplace, someone asked me what I did.
"Oh, I'm not really doing `anything'," I answered, counting in my head that "anything" is what you did for money. "I'm just learning things – I guess you could say I'm adventuring," I further explained, feeling the need to explain. "Oh? Adventuring where?" the typed response came across. "Just about everywhere," I pecked back into my keyboard, and then explained best I could what it is I did with many of my waking hours. "Hmmm..." I remember the person saying. "Do you think you'd like to try to do names sourcing?"
"Huh? What's names sourcing?" I puzzled back.
"Well, I give you a list of companies and you go into them and find the people who hold specific titles. I will pay you $8 per name to do that." "Sounds interesting," I said. "How do I do that?""Well, you use the telephone and you work from home. You call and ask for the department these people are likely to be in - there's a myriad of ways you'll be able to do it once you get good at it. Would you like to try?" he kindly offered.
"Sure! Why not?" I volunteered. I was multiplying the "per name" rate in my head and asking myself, "How hard can it be?"
Let me tell you something. In the fall of 1996 I did not know what a software engineer was much less understand the concept of "software". A hardware design engineer? What was "hardware"? If it had been me, I don't know that I would have given me the opportunity. But let's place this in perspective. It was the heydays of Silicon Valley and this guy's business was centered there. He had such a great need for sourcers because his customer demands were so intense that any port in a storm would do, and I was proof positive of that.
He sent me my first job. He faxed it to me because, dummy me, I didn't know how to download, much less upload, a document. I will spare you the embarrassing details but I struggled through it. It was probably, maybe, 25% accurate. He was so kind! He coached me, he taught me, he advised me where I probably went wrong and sent me back in to do it again. I came back, this time probably at 50% results, and he persevered in his charity. Some jobs took me two, some took me five, do-overs. But I did them over if they needed to be done over. I think this is what he saw in me, this determination, this stick-to-itiveness, this soldier's heart that won't quit. And that's all I had to commend me at that point. But apparently that was enough and it's enough to commend you too if you have this trait in your character – if you're the type who carries on, who doesn't stop in the face of adversity, who bull-dogs the job until it's finished – you can become a great telephone names sourcer. Don't quit – that's the single piece of advice I have to you – never surrender. It's a far more charming ideology than it is a common practice.
I know you're wondering about the firing part. That confession will be in the next installment, tomorrow. I thought this was enough daring-do reading for any one person in one day.
Maureen Sharib is a seasoned telephone names sourcer, names sourcing since 1997. She and her husband Bob own the names sourcing firm TechTrak.com and Maureen telephone-names sources daily as well as teaches telephone-names sourcing in her online telephone names sourcing course "The Magic In The Method." She can be reached by email at Maureen at techtrak.com or by phone at (513) 899-9628. Maureen will come on-site to your company to teach telephone names sourcing to your sourcers. The investment will make the valuable results your sourcers produce in the future inexpensive!
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Time to start dialing...
