Never Give Up when Telephone Name Sourcing: You Never know what you Might Find by just Jacking Around in the Automated Company Voice Mail System

Just another selection in the lucky in name sourcing tips writings!

Automation can be a beautiful thing when tracking down phone numbers or even when doing name sourcing or lead generation. You never know what you might find by just jacking around on the company voice mail system. Through patience and perseverance, sometimes you’ll get further than you ever would have with the live gatekeeper.

Here’s just one quick example.

I received a name that I most certainly would want to talk to. It was actually the boss of a candidate I was working with.

He didn’t have the phone number of his boss handy, as the boss was at a very small site during the current week. So I did a quick search on the name of the company and the name of the person and the addition of the search phrase “phone OR contact”. I could have gone to the website of the company and x-rayed the site using a similar phrase, or even called into the company, but you never know what extra tid bits of information (leads, names) you’ll find when doing an internet search on someones name. The “yellow brick road” paths you might go on from there might just lead to gold in some other way. Serendipity is the correct word.

Yet, no results came from this strategy.

I did see a number listed on the company website that looked like it could be for the small site so I tried that.

As I mentioned, the site I wanted was actually a small site so I knew this wouldn’t be easy. I sensed trouble was ahead. I was right, but I kept going. And, as stated before, sometimes the path less traveled can be the right one!

A call to the number yielded only a voice mail system. No live people and not even the ability to put in an extension OR to put in a name! These people really had a lock down!

The only choices given were to select from a list of departments.

I made my best guess on what department the person likely would be in. Unfortunately, that’s a hard choice when looking at manufacturing sites.

My first choice was wrong, but I did get a name within the engineering department I sure would revisit.

I had a feeling I should go back through the department list again, so I called back and this time choose a different department. Well, this was incorrect too, but I did hear the option to press 0 for a secretary. Thinking my search was over, I decided to go this route anyway. As luck would have it, I tried patience and listened to her whole message. After her voice mail intro, I heard the option to press *t for additional options. This took me to a message that asked if I’d like to leave a message, but BAM, it ALSO offered to search by names by pressing *a! Wow, I found it, but only after a long patient road. I typed in the persons name, and got to his voice mail. Even luckier, he also mentioned his new number to use to contact him!

Remember, the dial by name option wasn’t at all listed in the main menu. It was only through some lucky, patient, and relentless selections that I found it buried DEEP within the company voice mail system.

Now this is only one story out of MANY that haven’t gone so good. I was lucky this time. However, it really shows that it’s usually worth SOME effort to not give up right away when swimming through the company vice mail system. Usually it’s worth it to do some hunch exploring. Who knows, you may even be able to source some new leads / names via this method.