Before Bill left to “head on over to Sourcecon” I told him we would stay at the hotel and finish and send him the names before we ourselves came over but that we expected him to bear testimony to the events as they happened and he agreed; including attending my phone sourcing session at 2:45 and standing up and talking about what happened including his emotions from the point of learning about the candidate’s withdrawal and his motivation and decision to contact us and all these events that were ensuing.

He agreed.

We ran out of time at the end of my one-hour phone sourcing presentation to get it all inbut Bill did get some of it out and he was also prompted in the closing session shortly after, when, sitting in the audience and being asked by the closing panel if anything at Sourcecon stood out for any of the attendees, to retell the events of his last twenty-four hours.

That was nice of him and was outside the promise he had made to us and Pam and I very much appreciate it.

***

“Paa-am!” I whined as the door shut behind Bill’s retreating back.

“I know, Maureen-“ is as far as she got before I cut in, excitedly, near heartbreak.

“No, Pam!  It’s not right. This is what I’m talking about.  THEY JUST DON’T GET IT!”and my voice grew louder on each uttered word.

“Look, we’ll just finish this – it’ll be a great piece of marketing to add to the presentation; if he doesn’t get it that’s his problem.  I think he does.”

“You do?” I asked, puzzled by this seeming contradiction in the otherwise voice-of-reason’s proposal.

“Look.  Something in that young man reached out to us in that packed room of sourcers last night.  How many phone sourcers do you think were in there?  You, me and those other two?  Let’s say a couple others we missed so maybe – maybe half a dozen among what? 100 – 150 people in the room?”

“All of them crowded around that Challenge thing at the other end?  He didn’t go up to them and say, ‘Hey guys. I have a career-threatening problem, here.  Can you maybe help me out with some extraordinary Boolean matching?’” 

“No!  You bet your ass he didn’t!   He came up to me and said, ‘I need a phone sourcer.’”

I sat back and considered what Pam was saying.

She went on.

“Sure – maybe he thinks there’s something over there today he might miss out on that’s going to help him further on this one – I don’t know but let him go.”

“Let IT go, Maureen.”

My spine tightened.

“You have this thing in your head that you think they don’t want to hear about phone sourcing and you’re wrong.”   

She emphasized the, "you're wrong" with a downward thrust of her chin. 

“WHY DO YOU THINK THEY INVITED YOU HEAR TO SPEAK?”

“Because you don’t know anything about the subject and/or it’s not important?”

“Jeremy knows it’s important – I hear that when he speaks.  I see it when he looks at you.  What I’m hearing is that "sourcing" to many of these people is becoming an enormous data management challenge – that to some maybe even the original meaning of the word is lost.”

“What better time to show them that phone sourcing is the fastest way to source?”

I blinked.

“I also see that other people are puzzled by your apprehensions and misgivings.”

I swallowed.

“You walk around with this stupid chip on your shoulder and it’s really unbecoming.  You’ve gotta’ get over yourself.”

“But, but, but…” I stammered.

“No buts,” Pam promised.  “You brought me here to observe.  I’m observing and this is what you need to hear.”

“This is an opportunity – this is a gift,” Pam went on.  “Bill is a sign – a signal from Heaven and if we don’t answer it we may as well pack our bags and go home right now because this is why we’re really here.”

“To do this.”

And she shut up.

I had tears in my eyes.

I knew she was right.

Right about all of it; not just some of it.

My mule-friend Pam, my dear-friend Pam who has been through the thick and the thin of things with me was telling me like it was/is.

By the way, calling Pam the phone sourcer a mule is one of the highest compliments you can pay a phone sourcer.  Having a mule mentality – one that cannot be moved from a goal - is essential to great phone sourcing!

So here we were; Bill had gone on to Sourcecon and Pam had replaced him on the couch and I still had my station in the bathroom and all was right with the world all of a sudden.

Tomorrow I'll relay what happened next!

Part V

Question: The ___________ is to the Phone Sourcer as Google is to the Internet Sourcer? 

Answer