What prevents a sourcer from being successful on the phone?

The biggest element is fear. Fear reinforces itself with stinkin’ thinkin’. Stinkin’ thinkin’ gets the job done every time.

There are many different (telephone) situations that frighten sourcers but I’d like to talk below about the most common one and what you can do about it to remove that fear.

The first thing I ask you to do though, reading this is to be honest.

Do you ever feel fear when it comes to picking up the telephone and asking a stranger for information?

Have you ever experienced a situation where you just knew the people you need to recruit are on the inside of a particular company’s four walls and the only way to reach them is via the telephone?

In that situation, even though there was a large monetary incentive to reach those people, did you not do anything about them because you were afraid?

Or maybe you did make that phone call but you were turned away easily by that front-line Gatekeeper? You dared not go any further because you were afraid of screwing things up?

Screw what up? You got nothin’ (so far) to screw up. You got bupkis.

Or maybe you did get past the Gatekeeper into the environs of a company and then somebody asked you what your business was. You freaked. You said something stupid that wasn’t true. You were caught out.

For real - have you ever dialed a company’s main number and then seized with a paroxysm of fear that caused you to hang the phone up, fall back frozen in your chair except for that nervous and guilty breath that you managed to gulp?

Guess what? Me too - lots of times.

It’s no fun admitting you’re afraid of things, is it?

If this describes you, read today's featured article over on ERE's Front Page.