The biggest single mistake people who are trying to become successful make is that they try to do it by themselves. That represents the hard way of trying to become successful. The smart way is to get people to help you and the more help you get, the faster you’ll get there. Joe Girard got into the Guinness Book of World Records as the World’s “Number-One New Car Salesman” by selling 1,425 cars in one year. What a phenomenal individual accomplishment! The question is, how did he do it?
For some insight, let’s take a look at the breakdown of Joe’s sales for the year he got into the Guinness Book of World Records. Joe is very proud of the fact that 65 percent of the cars he sold that year were to repeat customers. In addition, the remaining 35 percent were to customers who had been referred to him by his repeat customers. So, the year that Joe Girard got into the Guinness Book of World Records, how many cars did he actually sell? The answer amazingly is “none!” His customers sold them for him. Joe was a master at working smarter, not harder.
When people heard of his selling 1,425 new cars in one year, they all wanted to know, “Joe, how did you do it? What’s your secret?”
Joe would always come back with something like, “There are no secrets, you just have to do certain things right. First of all, you’ve got to know your customers. I sell Chevrolets. Who buys Chevrolets?” In Joe’s own words, it was your “average Joe,” the person who goes to work every day
He found that once you get to know your average Joe, you quickly find out that they don’t want to pay the cheapest price for a car that they possibly can. Now, they do want to pay a fair price, they don’t want to feel they’ve been taken advantage of. But Joe found that the most important concern to the average Joe when it came to buying a car was that they wanted to buy it from a salesperson they could trust.
So give the customer what the customer wants. To accomplish this, Joe said, “I stand in front of my product as well as behind it.” This meant that before you could buy one car from Joe, you first had to buy Joe. He would not let you out of his office until he turned you into a friend. Then, after you bought a car from Joe and you had a problem with the service department, Joe would fight on your behalf with the mechanics, the dealership and even the factory to make sure you were treated fairly.
Working smarter not only put Joe in the Guinness Book of World Records, it also made him a very wealthy man.
I have my cars fixed by an establishment called Don’s Repair. Although this place was a little out of the way for me, Don’s prices were good and when Don fixed something, it stayed fixed. So I started referring some of my friends to Don. They were also impressed with the quality of Don’s service and began referring their friends. As a result, Don’s business began to grow rather nicely.
One day, I was driving around town when my car started making a chugging sound and began to lose power. Gently, I nursed my car over to Don’s Repair. It was a very busy day and I could see when I arrived that he had a lot of work backed up. However, when Don saw me get out of my car, he immediately dropped what he was doing and came over to see what I needed. I raised the hood and started the car so Don could hear the chugging noise. After listening for about fifteen seconds, Don informed me that I had a disconnected hose and that my carburetor was sucking air. He reached down and reconnected the hose to the carburetor. Sure enough, the chugging noise went away. Don, however, burned his hand slightly on my hot engine during the process. Then he put a clamp on the hose so it wouldn’t pull off again in the future.
The whole process took about ten minutes of Don’s time. As he slammed down my hood, I pulled out my checkbook and asked Don what the charge was. Don told me that as I was a regular customer, and it really hadn’t taken him very long, there would be no charge. I argued that his time and inconvenience had to be worth something and reminded him that he did put one of his clamps m my hose. At this point Don looked up at me and said, “You don’t understand, do you?” Being somewhat puzzled, I said, “Understand what?” Don answered, “You are the cheapest advertising I can buy. I know what you are going to do when you leave here-you’re going to tell your friends, and that is what makes my business grow!”
Don was right. To this day, I carry around a stack of Don’s business cards in my briefcase. And when anyone asks me if I know a good place where they can get their car repaired, the first thing I do is hand them one of Don’s business cards. Then I spend a few minutes telling them how great it is to do business with Don. I am one of Don’s best salespeople and I don’t cost him one cent!
I get the feeling that I’m not the only unpaid salesperson working for Don. During the last three years, Don’s business has grown 600 percent and he has never advertised. It’s strictly word of mouth on the part of excited and satisfied customers.
Ross R. Reck, Ph.D.
Author of The X-Factor: Getting
Extraordinary Results From Ordinary People
