Fortunately, Isenberg had at least brushed with the industry before. As a young boy he had visited a number of northern California junkyards, accompanying his father, who was a "core buyer" based in Oakland. As such, the elder Isenberg scoured local salvage yards for such parts as alternators, carburetors, brake shoes, and transmissions, that could be wholesaled in bulk to parts-rebuilding companies. Isenberg can vividly recall riding with his father and, with a grimace, the chore of carrying generators, which always smeared the front of his shirt with grease. "I remember being appalled by the yards," Isenberg says. "They were totally disorganized. Everything was eash, there were no receipts. Money went straight into the owner's pocket, and, if somebody suddenly made a big sale that made his week, he would knock off for the rest of the day and get drunk." He came to know, too, that most owners were not crooks; they were just swamped, in some cases literally, by their own inefficiencies. And he also came to know much of the vocabulary of the salvage business. So years later, Isenberg might have been "on his own," but he had at least a walking start on his research.
There was another factor in his favor. Isenberg has always been known as an instant expert. In fact, that was his nickname at Price Waterhouse, he says. It wus also his modus operandi in school: At California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, where he received a BS in engineering; at California State University in San Jose, where he studied beyond a masters degree in Western philosophy; and at the University of Santa Clara, where he received his MBA. Many times, he recalls with a mischievous grin, his textbook would impart an audible crack when he perused it on the way to an exam.
With his speaking date fast approaching, Isenberg rustled up a few familial connections with the auto salvage industry and toured a couple of yards. He applied to what he gleaned standard management principles and cost-cutting strategies and fleshed out a three-hour presentation. He arrived early to the day-long program and took a seat in the audience among hundreds of auto wreckers. He wanted to listen -- and learn -- from speakers scheduled before him. Isenberg was particulurly impressed by the trade association's Washington lawyer, a well-spoken man in a three-piece suit who looked impressive behind the lectern and gave an authoritative talk on warranties. Glancing up from his note pad, Isenberg happened to look around him. Except for a couple of yard owners who were doodling, he was the only person with a pen in his hand. Everybody else was bored silly, he realized.
Isenberg felt a wave of fear grip him. He considered his own talk: authoritative and a bit stuffy. And he looked down at his three-piece suit. He made a snap decision. He darted upstairs to his hotel room and changed out of his suit and into the garb of his listeners -- casual pants and an openneck shirt. He scrapped many of his notecards and reworked a much more casual approach. Minutes later, when he was introduced, he stepped out in front of the lectern and spoke without a microphone. Occasionally, he let fly with n "bit of coarse language," and he made knowing references to some of the indelicacies of running a cash business. People sat up and listened. Afterwards, a number of yard owners told Isenberg he was the first person who seemed to understand their business.
"That really started me thinking," Isenberg recalls. "Here was a major industry no one was interested in. There wasn't anything published on it. The trade association had only about 175 members nationwide. It was a true orphan industry. A real goldmine."
Two years later, Isenberg left his $40,000-a-year job at Price Waterhouse and his view of the bay, and set up a one-man consulting shop in the guest house behind his home. The first year he didn't even clear $1,000 and reached a low point one evening in Pittsburgh -- his credit cards spent to the limit and only $5 in his pocket -- when he had to close a seminar by asking the roomful of auto salvage operators if anybody was headed near the airport. But he never despaired. "I've got a Pollyanna-like attitude," he says. "Sometimes it's to my detriment, but I can't believe anything I do won't be successful."
Success came on the fly. Isenberg jumped in boldly, drafting flashy brochures and headlines for seminar topics. "Things your CPA won't tell you," he plugged. "Practical money-making ideas. " Then he would do the legwork to back such claims. He traveled incessantly, seeking out the most progressive yards in the country, noting what worked for them, and adding his own thoughts. Sometimes he would conduct as many as three seminars in as many cities in one weekend. He was a "regular" at the snack counter at O'Hare International Airport's United Airlines terminal. And he pre-sorted his seminar slides by holding them up to the scanty light offered by airplane windows.
"I spent two years killing myself," he says. "Then one morning I woke up overcome with euphoria. It felt like I was floating over the bed. Suddenly, it dawned on me: I'll never work for anybody again. I can make it on my own. I'll never have to take a paycheck. I can live on my wits."
Over the years, Isenberg says, probably 4,000 industry companies have been represented at his various one-day and three-day seminars. He boasts a reenlistment of 50%. His business has expanded to Canada, Mexico, and overseas to Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, and New Zealand. His training materials include a 31-volume cassette course ($39.95 per volume), and he says he has shipped "tens of thousands" of three-cassette volumes. At upwards of $125 an hour, he consults with individual recycling companies. Finally, his corporation, Isenberg Associates Inc., of Cupertino, Calif., has brought some 400 yards into the computer age. As with many of Isenberg's operations, the marriage is symbiotic: Salvage operators, for a fee, receive detailed inventory and accounting data; and Isenberg, at no charge, receives vital nationwide statistical data that buttress his seminars and enlighten and guide his forthcoming schemes. All told, Isenberg reports, his company grosses "in the low seven figures."
