Selling a Vintage Fiat?

When I was a young man in late 1970s, I wanted a convertible. I was also cheap! The first car I bought was a 1972 Triumph Spitfire from a woman I worked with at IBM. It needed a clutch and a throw out bearing.

I had just received my engineering degree from Northwestern University and I wanted to teach myself auto mechanics. The Triumph was a good challenge to fix. I drove it around for six months and then sold it. Now I wanted a bigger challenge.

I bought a wrecked 1972 Fiat 124 Spyder. I was told that Fiat stood for “Fix It Again Tony.”  The car had been in a front end collision but was still drivable. I spent the next 18 months replacing fenders, the hood, a bulkhead, pulled the heads and valves, and much more.

The challenge was when I went to sell it.

Rebuilding  and Selling Hondas

Around the time, I was working on that Fiat 124 Spyder, I started rebuilding Hondas. I bought several Honda Accords and Civics which I would fix up, drive for a while and then sell at a profit.

This was the mid-1980s when Honda’s were still fairly new on the scene and were in high demand because of the quality and the gas mileage.

When I was ready to sell, I would put an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper for three consecutive weekends. Remember the classified sections where you looked for jobs, garage sales, and other things that people wanted to sell? The key was to be in the Sunday classifieds.

Because of the high demand for Hondas, I would get four or five people come out each weekend and finally I would get a single buyer.

Many would try to negotiate the price and those 3 weekends were pretty busy.

Selling Fiats

When I went to sell my Fiat is was very different. This was somewhat of a cult car.

I would put an ad in the classified section of the local newspaper for three consecutive weekends. That first weekend I had only 1 person looking at the car. They test drove it and said they would think about it.

The second weekend came and the same thing happened. Only one person came out to look at the car but they did not even want to test drive it.

The third weekend I got several calls but no one came out to look at the car.

The following Monday, I got a call from the original prospect from the first weekend asking if the car was still available. I told him yes, we did some minor negotiating and I offered to throw in an extra 5-speed transmission I had. We had a deal.

Only two people came out to look at the car and only 1 of those test drove the car.

You Only Need One Buyer!

Only one person test drove the car and he bought it. I later rebuilt several more Fiats and I rarely had more than two or three people test drive the cars, but one of them always bought it.

Applying for More Jobs is not Better

Do you apply for many jobs hoping to get an interview?

Or, do you carefully investigate each company by strategically networking to meet the right individuals? When a position becomes available, you find someone internal to the company to submit your resume. You submit your application when the time is right. You end up submitting very few applications.

This is called the Targeted Job Search.

What I learned from selling the Fiat is that it is not how many people who come out to test drive the car. If I prepared the car properly and priced it fairly, the car would sell. I only needed one buyer.

Similarly, when you are managing your career, you want to be selective. Preparation is key. You want to approach a prospective employer when the time is right. You only need to apply and interview with one company to get that next gig.

Proper Targeting

Long before I started Career Pivot, I started counseling individuals who had been laid off. There is one employer in Austin who is quite large and layoffs people at the drop of a hat. I would ask these individuals what they were looking for and what they commonly say is ” I can do product marketing, product management, project management, sales, program management,…….”. What they were telling me is they were good at such wide range of disciplines that my only assumption was they were not good at any of them.

They were feeding me a line of BS. I would immediately tell them to pick one and only one discipline to target. They would often complain that was too limiting. I would go okay pick two but no more.

Quantity Versus Quality

Just like when I sold that Fiat—it was not quantity but quality. Only people who knew about Fiats and truly admired the Italian engineering would come out to look at the car. (By the way, Fiat was at least 10 years ahead of the rest of the industry with many features like four-wheel disc brakes and dual overhead cam engines.)

You need to determine what to target. Most of us grew up when generalists were king. We live in an age where specialists are king.

What is your specialty? What companies are in need your specialty?  Do your homework. Pick the companies that are a good fit for you.

You only need one company to hire you for that next gig! More is not better!

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Research Your Target List

You need to research your target list and do not rely on assumptions, beliefs or rumors. You need to get the facts.

This is the third in the series on the Targeted Job Search.

To read the rest of the Targeted Job Search series click here.

Step #2 in this process is to properly research the companies on your radar. Your goal is to find out if the company is somewhere you would want to work.

Start with some basic research:

• Check out each company’s website from your target list. Particularly, check out the press release section. Here, you will find press releases for financials, if it is a public company. If it is a start-up company, you will want to look for press releases for funding announcements.
• Check out all of the companies on your target list on Glassdoor. You will want to take the reviews on Glassdoor with a grain of salt. Read this latest article on Recruiter.com titled “Should Employers Fear Glassdoor Reviews.”
• Perform a Google search on the company to see where the company is showing up on the Internet. You may want to set up a Google Alert for the company name.

Connect on LinkedIn with Current Employees

You are looking for people who look, taste and smell like you. You want to locate people who perform the job you are looking for, with similar credentials and educational background, and have the same generational, gender or other identifiable characteristics. If you are someone in the 2nd half of life, you want to see if they hire people like you.

You start out by locating employees by either certification or job title from your target list.

The process I have had clients follow is the following:

1. Go to LinkedIn Advanced Search
2. Open up the Keywords drop-down menu and type the certification letters that you have  (PMI or SPHR or CCNA, etc.) in the Last Name field OR the various combinations of job titles that you are looking for in the Title field.
3. Enter the company name in the Current Companies field and select the company that most closely matches the organization that you are searching for. Sometimes you will find different divisions within the same company listed separately.
4. Type your location into the Locations menu. If your location does not appear, click on the “+” option and type in your location. You will need to select the geographic location that most closely matches the location where you want to work.
5. Click on Search

You now may want to refine the search based on keywords.

Using LinkedIn, locate people in the company who you are either a 1st or 2nd-degree connection.

1st-degree connections are people you are directly connected to and I would suggest you contact them immediately. Your goal is to start a conversation about how they like working for the company and to ask for some advice. Advice is the magic word in this conversation.

For 2nd-degree, connections will want to select a common connection and ask them how well they know the individual and whether they would be willing to make an introduction. You are looking for an introduction.

You may have to approach multiple connections for 2nd-degree connections. Be persistent.

For 3rd-degree connections, you may want to send a cold connection request stating you would like to ask them about their experiences at the company. You will find the connect option under the “…” symbol to the right of the name. See image to the right.

Once you have an introduction, schedule a phone call to plan to meet for coffee or lunch in order to ask them for AIR – Advice, Insights and Recommendations! Like I stated above, “advice” is the magic word. It is a compliment and people will rarely turn you down.

You are not looking for a job. You want to find out whether they like working there. What are the good and bad points about working there? Lastly, you want to ask them – who should I talk to next or who can you introduce me to learn more?

It is the last step, asking for the recommendation, that people will most often forget.

Connect with them on LinkedIn.

Connect on LinkedIn with Past Employees

Follow the same process for past employees except using the Past Companies drop-down menu. Go through the list of profiles to find those who recently left the company. This could be individuals who left within the last year.

Your goal is to ask these individuals why they left the company.

I have a client who had applied for a senior level HR position with a local company that had recently gone public. We located 3 people who had left within the last year. My client sent connection requests to all 3 individuals and wrote in the connection request that he would like to chat with them about their experiences at the target company. All 3 immediately accepted and agreed to chat with him on the phone.

Why did they leave? All three had the same answer. Toxic work environment.

My client interviewed for the position, received an offer and turned it down.

Similarly, I had a client who was interested in a company where the company founder had left after 10 years at the company. I was able to arrange an introduction to the company founder, and he told my client it was time to move on. He had nothing but glowing things to say about the company.

You may get a very different view of the company from former employees.

In the process make sure to connect with all these individuals on LinkedIn.

Magic Word is Advice

If you approach these individuals asking for advice rather than asking for a job, most of them will be receptive.

When did you turn anyone down when someone asked you for advice?

The next step in the process is to connect with recruiters.

To read the rest of the Targeted Job Search series click here.

Be sure to check out the Career Pivot Client Testimonials Page

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Do You Need Help With ...

Job Search	Career Pivot/Change	Career Success	Careers in the 2nd Half of Life
Social Media	Multi-Generational Workplace	Networking	Entrepreneurship