Sourcing is like attending a garage sale
The more I think about this the more it makes sense to me. Everything you need to know about sourcing you can learn by attending a garage sale!! Call it what you will; maybe it is the thrill of the hunt, the thrill of finding hidden treasure, or maybe even the thrill of beating the system. (You know, getting good stuff for a fraction of its value!) If you ever attended one you’ll appreciate some of these great nuggets of wisdom I learned from them.
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When you go to a garage sale you never know what you'll stumble upon, but you've got to maintain patience if you expect to land a deal. When you are sourcing the first lesson you learn is patience. You are going to be going through a lot of fluff resumes and talk to a quite a few wannabees. So get ready to do a large investment of time. If you are not patient, you shouldn’t be sourcing.; l* Y) U% _/ B# Y
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You probably won't find a new real treasure on your first trip. Chances are the first candidate you find will not be the “One”. Soucing is like going on a wild goose chase or as the old cliché goes there may be a lot of toads kissed before the prince charming is found.
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j, c9 ~! b; ~$ j) d: I4 eIt might even take you several trips before you make a purchase. You will see some likely candidates but on further inspection you’ll find they are not a real bargain. Be ready to go to your next source. 2 U2 w# U3 \ d' x! J
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You can't be discouraged. Searching thru junk hoping to find a bargain is exhilarating for precisely that reason: Just when you think you're out of luck, you discover a treasure. Isn’t this great, just when you’ve just about given up on finding that ace candidate!! Wham!! You can’t wait to dig thru the car seat for those fifty cents!!!!
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But the main reason why sourcing reminds me of garage sales is that if you just pick up “bargains” simply because they're bargains you’ll soon find out that sometimes there's a good reason why an item is a bargain: It's junk. Beware of the low hanging fruit!!!
