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I was watching Foundation with Kevin Rose and Tim Ferriss and wanted to share a cool tip I heard in the interview. Foundation, by the way, is a new series Kevin Rose put together where he interviews famous CEOs and asks them questions about their background, startup history, management philosophy, and future projects. Rose has a really relaxed, unassuming nature so his interviews are really enjoyable.
In the interview, Tim Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek, The 4-Hour Body, The 4-Hour Chef) shared the sales philosophy he implemented when working at a data storage company. In short, “Find something in common.”
The longer version of this advice is that you need to really dig in to your target, no matter who it is. Ferriss talks about all the product research he did, all the research he did when prospecting leads, super deep diving to the point where people who were buying data storage services from him thought he was an engineer. Through this research-intensive approach, he was able to learn what his audience was probably doing already, what they wanted, what they liked, the language they spoke, and how to position his company as the answer. He was finding something in common with the people he was selling to.
A similar approach is certainly useful when job searching. Have a target company or firm where you’re dying to work? Dig in to the company like you are writing a grad school research paper on it. Learn everything about the company, everything, then learn everything about their three main competitors. Build contacts at the firm (even if it’s a superficial contact list) and start reaching out to them with interesting conclusions you’ve made in your research. Propose things you think could help them (credit for this idea goes to Ferriss, check out the video above at minute 12 for his story).
Rinse and repeat when pitching ideas to your boss. Find out what their biggest pain point is, what most affects their bottom line, and send 3-5 ideas on how to solve that problem. Is the biggest problem generating new business? If so, try to come up with an innovative way to search for and solicit new business. Even better, just do it on your own. Worst case, you are taking a proactive, ownership-oriented role to solve a problem that you don’t solve but you get closer to. Best case, you are literally changing and improving the way a company does business. Now THAT’s what people want to see on resumes.
Finding something in common is a great sales and job search technique (yet another way finding a job is like dating). You want to connect with your audience, and in order to do so, you need to speak their language and address what’s most important to them. Go in prepared, well-versed, and you’ll have them eating out of your hand. Go in unprepared, and you’ll likely be shown the door.
