JOE GIRARD: THE GREATEST SALESMAN IN THE WORLD

“A man can be as great as he wants to be. If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication, the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.”—Anthony Robbins

Can anybody truly be as great as he or she wants to be?

If you are like me, you may have asked yourself this question at one time or another.

Today, together, we shall see how true that statement is. We will examine the life of Joe Girard; a long time nobody, who suddenly appeared in the all-time hall of fame as the greatest salesman in the world.

We shall learn from his record-breaking success, some power habits and disciplines we must develop to make real the dominant dreams of our hearts.

Joe Girard was born and bred by a penniless and abusive father who would beat him mercilessly with torrential shouts that Joe was good at nothing, would never do well and would never amount to anything.

It may be surprising why a father would choose to treat his own biological son that way; but I am more curious of what such experience was generating within the poor boy; what is really important me now was his mental reaction to his pitiful condition in those days.

In Joe’s own words, he said, “spark creates fires.”  The beatings were sparks that generated burning fires of determination that eventually proved not only to his father but to the entire world the hard truth that: a man can be as great as he wants to be.

However, for Joe, greatness didn’t happen overnight nor did it come easy, he had his fair share of personal failures just as Paul Arden says that failure and false starts are a precondition for big success.

Joe Girard failed on his attempts at several opportunities. He failed at different kinds of jobs. Since he was a high school drop-out; he had no formal credentials. He hopped from job to job with no success. He worked as a vegetable vendor, a truck driver, dishwasher, yet prosperity was far from sight. 

He seems doomed to failure like his father predicted, right? Well, not for long because very shortly, you will know about the experience that capped the whole thing for him; the experience that rekindled his burning fire of determination to win.


In the words of Channing Pollock, the only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck. Joe Girard, with a childhood experience that is potentially life-destroying, did possess the only good luck that all great men ever have: the fire of determination.

On that fateful night his wife asked him money to buy grains and the poor Girard came face to face with the moment of truth. He had nothing! Not even a stipend to feed his children for the next day. On that night, he hit his lowest point; he was at his wall: the rock bottom.

The flaming fire sparked by his father’s cruelty was suddenly rekindled at that moment. He knew he had a decision to make or his father assumption about him would have been true all along. 

I can imagine the fire of determination that knows no failure burning inside him. He knew he must try harder. He realized he must find something to succeed at or die trying. He was determined to make something out of his life. And he did.

How fierce was the fire from the sparks?

It was so fierce that Joe Girard who did not finish high school and who had never sold a car before, made a sale on his first day at  a car dealership in Detroit, USA. And in the second month he sold eighteen cars and trucks combined. 

An impressive level of performance that some veterans of the trade struggled to achieve; a record that challenged the status-quo and put the known champions at the dealership on the spot; an achievement that instantly made them very uncomfortable.

Ironically, his determination to make a name for himself was far more than what the staff of this car dealership could appreciate. As a result of office politics fuelled by the envy of established salesmen, Joe Girard was fired.

A blow to his determination and another setback in his journey towards success.

However, instead of thinking negatively of this experience by feeling sorry for himself on another lost opportunity; he decided to remain focused on his goal, he used the experience to fuel his ambition; that come what may, he would be a success. 

He gave life to the words of James Allen in the next phase of his journey, written as:

“To put away aimlessness and weakness and to begin to think with purpose is to enter the ranks of those strong ones who only recognize failure as one of the pathways to attainment. Who make all conditions serve them, and who think strongly, attempt fearlessly, and accomplish masterfully.”

More than ever, he was now really determined to succeed!

So he persevered by seeking a new chance with another car dealership in Detroit where he astonishingly proved to the entire world that he could sell cars more than any person alive.

Today, the thoroughly maltreated kid is a hall of fame icon with a yet to be surpassed record of selling more cars all by himself than ninety percent of all dealerships in North America; a record that may not be repeated for a very long time.

He had a remarkable record of selling on average of six cars a day; and he sold 18 vehicles a day in his peak days; and 174 vehicles a month in his peak month; and 1,425 a year in his peak years. In about fifteen year, Joe Girard sold by himself a record 13,001 new cars and trucks, all at retail, one customer at a time.

For his best year sales, he received awards twelve times for top record sales of the year in the industry. He has sold more cars than anyone living in history. Today, he is illustriously listed in the Guinness Book of Records as: “THE WORLD GREATEST SALESMAN.”

BACK TO US: WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM JOE

 

Here is where to find out the strategies that turn a nobody into one of the greatest men in the world in just fifteen years; starting from 1963 till 1977. 

In the following pages, we are going to learn some of the tools, practices and habits responsible for this amazing feat and how we can adopt them in our own work and professions.

Based on Joe Girard’s book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, I have synthesized the following strategies as the keys to success not just in sales but in any and all result oriented endeavours of life.

I hope you will find them useful. Here they are:

1) WORK WITH A PLAN.

Girard deeply understood the significance of having a plan and diligently working that plan every single day.

Carefully study the advice of the master as Joe Girard unequivocally made clear the secret of effectiveness for any business achievement:

‘‘The way to get the job done is to decide what it is — everyday.

I mean you must — I don’t say should — take some time every morning and decide what you are going to do that day.

AND THEN YOU MUST DO IT.

I don’t believe in hard work. I believe in good work. I believe in smart work. I believe in effective work — work that works.’’

His approach corroborates what Brian Tracy says that all highly effective people think on paper and work from a written list.

This kind of focused plan enabled him to consistently deliver and do fantastic job at satisfying his customers and building quality relationships that last.

This — most likely— is the keystone of all his work habits and disciplines.

2) ADOPT THE LAW OF AVERAGES : WORK HARD

According to Jim Rohn, American foremost business philosopher, in one of his lectures, the law of averages, also known as the law of numbers, means that:

Your result is directly proportionate to your efforts. The higher the number of your efforts, the higher the number and probability of your success

In sales, the more people you talk to, the higher your chances of making a sale.

Let’s do some math:

If the average success rate in your industry is 10 out of 50, and you talk to 250 customers a month, you will, on average, close 50 deals a month.

However If you increase the number of customers you talk to 500 a month, then you will close 100 deals a month — everything being equal.

If you want more, you can still try harder; this is where the genius of the law of averages lies. There is a wide room for increase, if you are willing to do the work.

JOE GIRARD GREETING CARD.

Joe Girard devised a strategy based on this principle by regularly sending a card to everyone on his list of prospects.

For him, sending hand-stamped, heartfelt greeting cards on a consistent and regular basis was the key to establishing long-term relationships and it generated nearly two third of all his sales.

However, he made that happen through stupendous effort by personally sending more than 400 cards each day, 365 days, every single year.

With this approach, he was able to send a card to each of his customers once in a month; and he had over 9,000 names in his prospect folder.

This not only required brain; it also required brawn. It was both headwork and handwork; and as such, quite impressive.

This goes to show that the greatest luck bestowed on Joe Girard was his willingness and ability to do a lot of good work on a continuous basis.

 

3) TAKE SCORE & REVIEW TO MEASURE UP

Girard believed in taking scores and reviewing at the end of each day for a better performance, next day, next time and the next sales opportunity.

This is what he said:

‘‘One way to get over the dissatisfactions of a bad day is to review that day and try to understand why what happened to you happened.

I do that at the end of every working day.”

Ostensibly, such regular review is the basis of continuous growth in any business today.

FINALLY,

With the above analysis, we can see that more than anybody else, Joe Girard took his job as a duty; he took it as if his life depended on it. To him, he was not merely selling cars to customers but he was entering into long term relationships not just directly with the customers but indirectly with their families, their friends and their colleagues at work. 

He tried his best to satisfy the customer and he did something more. He was able to turn his customers into eager advocates by keeping the relationships very alive.

Not many people were willing to go this far and that’s what made him the number one champion of all-time in his chosen line of business. And it can do same for us, if we dare put it to work.

With the seriousness of his effort and the genuineness of his concern, I conclude this article with a nugget of truth from the greatest salesman alive that:  If we do the work to make our customers our friends, they will work for us, far beyond our wild expectations.

       ALWAYS KEEP YOUR WORD: HARM NO ONE

“I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice; therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects.”—Napoleon Hill

A promise to engage in no transaction that is not truly beneficial to all whom it affects, I believe is the greatest and most difficult human relation principle to live by. 

Practically, extremely few people can live out this tall code of conduct; however, everyone would desire nothing less than it from every other person in transaction with them. Quite an enigmatic plane of human nature!

Making such a solemn affirmation of truth and fairness to oneself is indeed difficult and rare. Yet, Napoleon Hill elected to make it one of his life principles; he chose to make it a way of life; he chose to make it a habit. 

This kind of humanitarian declaration could not have happened without deep knowledge of the values of virtues; so, this is an attempt to enlighten myself and another on the beauty of that refined ideal of human character; the principle of truth and justice. 

The underlying wisdom of Hill’s promise to himself was best expressed by the great poet of the twentieth century, Khalil Gibran, stated as:

“Safeguarding the rights of others is the most noble and beautiful end of a human being.”

However, since this is a very broad topic, I want us to think now on truthfulness with our words; our focus today will be on justice to promise.

THE SHACKLES OF PROMISE

Before making a promise, we are free to act as we wish, but after we make a commitment, we are bound. The moment a promise is made, the person making it becomes a slave to whom it is made.

Once the promise is made, their privilege becomes their right; and consequently becomes a duty for us to fulfill without fail. 

And not keeping the promise is not fulfilling our duty; and that is a subtle form of harm. It harms them because, it endangers their plans and expectations; subsequently, it damages our integrity and credibility, going forward.

The logical question to ask is: What is promise?

In simple language, promise is a pledge we make to somebody to do or provide something to another; it is a vow that creates expectation of us; it is an assurance that something will either get done or not.

It is an undertaking by us that exposes others to potential benefit or harm.

Being true and just to our promise — which is the focus of this week’s article —  therefore borders on our sincerity and fairness to make real what is expected, in spite of the challenges that may arise in the process.

Below are the tactics we can employ to habitually safeguard others from harm through our words and commitments; thereby protecting our integrity, credibility and dependability from avoidable but corrosive erosion of the vital force of enduring success: unshakable character.

I have extracted them out of the counsels of three masters from the past; and they are as follows:

HESITATE TO PROMISE

“He who is slowest in making a promise is the most faithful in its performance.”—Jean Jacques Rousseau

Living with integrity means putting ourselves on the line, every single day. 

That means we must make some promises in order achieve some goals, still, we want to make sure that, as men of integrity, we are not taking serious things too lightly. In this sense; it is smart to pause, to wait, and to hesitate.

Remember, only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

This is what I do when I am confronted with a situation requiring me to make a promise to someone. I just say something like, please, let me call you back.

I remind myself with a statement written boldly in my journal, which I read regularly from time to time: “I don’t promise in haste.”

 

It is far better to be slow in making a promise and then keep it than to rush to promise and then fail at it.

For a person of integrity, failing a promise is a no-no. Don’t ever forget that!

BE CAREFUL ON YOUR COMMITMENT

“Don’t ever promise more than you can deliver, but always deliver more than you promise.”—Lou Holtz

When it is certain and immediate that you must commit, you want to choose your battle carefully; you want to err on the side of caution.

Weigh your circumstances and be sure you are saying yes to what you can truly accomplish; so, think things through to follow-through.

For example if you want to fix an appointment, always fix a time with enough buffer to eliminate any possibility of lateness or disappointment. 

With this tactic, delivering more than you promise will not just happen, it will happen regularly and it will seem easy and effortless. 

This is what made it possible for Tynan to say in his habit manifesto that:

“I am exactly on time, nearly every single time and absolutely never seriously late.”

MAKE YOUR WORD….. TOUGHER THAN THE LAW

This is the real deal. Hesitation is what happens before we commit. Once a commitment is made, there is no going back. 

To be a man of integrity, your promise must be totally immune from changes in circumstances; whatever the changes may be. This is the main reason for careful forethought in the first place.

Once you promised to do a thing, get it done; no matter what it may cost you in time and money. This is the key to integrity; this is the meaning of being true to your words; this is the only meaning of justice to promise.

And anytime you find this too difficult to do, repeat to yourself many times, the statement of resolve by Walter Scott, written below as:

“Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word NEVER.”

The goodness in being always dependable cuts across the board; both the doer and the receiver win together; and, this is not only the winnings of the heart and the mind but also the winnings of the purse.

According to the Ethics Resource Centre in Washington, D.C., companies that are dedicated to doing the right thing, that have a written commitment to social responsibility and act on it consistently are more profitable than those who don’t.

In this case, what is true for corporate entities is true for individuals as well.

On a final note, I have written this tough topic not because I am perfect at it but because it is an ideal I am trying to master: a virtue that I recently grasp its importance at work, at home and in life. 

I am merely a humble student of the habits of nature; of the science of personal achievement; of ethics, and of life.

Quite often, writers write about what interests them a lot; on what they have an insatiable need to learn; on areas that can benefit them the most. 

I hope you have the same or even a higher level of awareness to make this lofty principle a key habit in your daily life for as long as you live.