This is the story about how I stumbled into phone sourcing. I had never heard of it.

1. The Magic In the Method
Excellent Phone Sourcing Lessons
By Maureen Sharib

2. How I Became A Telephone Names Sourcer
 It’s a funny story.

3. I was burned out working in my previous
profession and took some time off.
 I was emotionally shut down.
 I went into therapy.
 I discovered new insights into my own character.
 I was introduced to computers and the Internet.
 I was transfixed.
 I was hanging out in AOL chat rooms.

4. I met someone. Someone who became my
husband several years later.
 In the meantime he taught me – long distance and over the Internet – how
to use a computer.
 He was very patient.
 I was very dumb but I kept at it.
 I bumped into someone on the Internet who asked me:

5. “What do you do?”
 I wasn’t “doing” anything because in my mind (then) if you weren’t earning
money you weren’t “doing” anything.
 Yeah, I know.
 Screwed up.
 I told him, “Nothing, really.”
 He said:

6. “Would you like to try your hand at names
sourcing?”
 “Huh? What’s that?” I asked.
 I had never heard of names sourcing.
 “Well, I give you a list of companies and your job is to call into each one and
get the names of certain people who hold certain titles.”

7. “How hard could that be?” I thought to
myself.
 I told you I was dumb.

8. I got lucky.
 The first time I called into a company I got the name right off the bat.
 Beginner’s luck.
 Stupidly, I thought, “He wants to pay me for this?”
 I couldn’t believe it.
 “Send me more!” I told him.

9. He did.
 I spent the next year struggling through different sourcing jobs.
 I was not good at it.
 Eventually he stopped sending me work (he fired me).
 I was bereft.
 I loved the work.
 I decided I had to get better at it.

10. But first I needed work.
 I collected the emails of a bunch of recruiters.
 I sent them a simple email:
 Hi. My name is Maureen Sharib and I’m a phone sourcer. I can help you find
people for your hard-to-fill positions. Please call me. My phone number is
513 899 9628.

11. It was 1997.
 First, one recruiter called.
 Then another.
 Then one referred me to a colleague.
 Before I knew it I had plenty of work to keep me busy.
 Soon I needed help. I asked the someone I had met in the AOL chat room to
help me. He did.
 We formed a partnership.

12. We worked long distance with each other –
he in New York and me in Cincinnati.
 It was fun.
 It was heady.
 We fell in love.
 We married.
 That’s Bob, my husband and partner today.

13. How I got better at phone sourcing.
 I started taking notes. At the end of the day I’d write out what happened
that day – good and bad.
 There was plenty of bad.
 There was no direction at the time on how to phone source.
 The old-timer advice was to ruse.
 I rused.

14. “Hi! We’re sending pizzas over. I need to know
who wants what topping and what their names
are.”

15. “Hi. This is Maureen in Events. I’m sending the
invitations out to the Christmas party – who all is
in your department?”

16. “Hi. This is Maureen, Jim Peters’ wife. His birthday is
coming up and I want to invite all his co-workers to a
barbecue. Can you tell me who they are?”

17. They all worked.

18. It was terrible.
 My Catholic guilt crept in.
 I couldn’t sleep nights.
 I felt there must be a “better” way.
 I started experimenting with not using ruses.
 It began to work.
 I felt better with myself.

19. I realized the notes I had been taking at
night were really “scripts.”
 I also realized there was a great need for teaching phone sourcing in the
world.
 That’s really how the MagicMethod course came to be.
 There’s one more thing I want to tell you.

20. Getting names was like an activity I did as a
child that I wildly enjoyed.
 My brother and I would find duck eggs in nests around lakes at a relative’s
house.
 It gave me the biggest thrill to find these well-hidden nests.
 Names sourcing gave me the same thrill.
 It still does.
 "Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake." ~ Wallace Stevens

21. The MMPS designation
 At the conclusion of the Magic In the Method telephone sourcing course you’ll
receive your MagicMethod Phone Sourcer certification.
 For more information on the MagicMethod telephone names sourcing curriculum
go here: http://www.techtrak.com/training.html
 If you have any questions contact the author of the course, Maureen Sharib at 513
899 9628 or email her at maureen at techtrak.com