The Best Salesperson Ever?

Happy National Face Your Fears Day! Today’s the day to call that lead you’ve been putting off for weeks. The worst thing that can happen is they hang up on you (and/or scream and call you names). 🤷 

In today’s Follow Up:

• The best sales rep to ever live 🏆️ 

• A cold email sales tip ✍️ 

• Sales across the internet 🖥️ 

• A sales tool to reach more prospects 🫱 

• 5 new sales jobs 💰️ 

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The Best Salesperson Ever?

Joe Girard is one of the most legendary salespeople that you’ve never heard of.

Joe was literally named the “World’s Greatest Salesperson” by the Guinness Book of World Records and holds the record for most cars sold in one year.

So how good was Joe?

Let’s take a look at his stats. 👇️ 

• 13,000 cars sold during his 13-year career (1963-1977).

• Averaged 1,000 cars sold per year or 6 cars per day.

• Best year = 1,425 cars sold.

• Best month = 174 cars sold.

• Best day = 18 cars sold.

To put this into perspective, at the time, 95% of car dealerships sold less than 1,000 cars per year…

Joe was outselling entire dealerships as an individual sales rep.

But like most of us in sales, Joe didn’t always know he’d end up there. Joe jumped around to a few different jobs in his 20s and was left with a mountain of debt after a failed home construction business.

So at 35 years old, with $0 in his savings account, Joe begged the nearest car dealership for a job and finally found his calling.

Joe’s car sales career only lasted 13 years, and at the ripe age of 49, he retired from car sales to train others on selling and write books like How to Sell Anything to Anybody.

Joe passed away in 2019, but left behind many of his learnings and secrets to becoming the best salesperson in the world.

So we dove into everything we could find and found the top 3 things you should know. 👇️

1. Love Your Customers

We get it… This one sounds cliche and cheesy.

But there’s truth behind it.

Joe showed his customers that he loved them by doing over-the-top things whenever he got the chance.

He’d pay for their maintenance, check in with them after their purchase, and take care of any issues with the cars (even after they rolled off the lot).

And this stuff really worked… After a few years of dealing with chaos outside his office, Joe had to start seeing his customers by appointment only (that’s the type of problem you want).

Joe was also famous for sending handwritten notes to his customers every single month, which was a time-consuming task, but ensured that Joe was always at the top of their minds.

So although his customers would only buy a new car once every few years, they’d always think of Joe when the time came.

Takeaways:

• Go above and beyond for your customers whenever you get the chance. They’ll remember it.

• Follow up with customers after you get the sale. This is the best way to ensure they’re happy with their purchase.

• Try sending handwritten cards to your customers. Even if they’re not ready to buy, you’ll be top of mind when they are.

2. The Law of 250

After speaking to a funeral director, Joe found out that the average funeral has 250 people in attendance.

This means that the average person has 250 people in their life that they have the ability to influence.

So if you speak to 50 people in a week and 2 are unhappy, those 2 have the ability to influence another 500 people. Throughout the course of a year, just 2 negative interactions per week could lead to 26,000 people being influenced.

Although you may only interact with a few people every day, each of them has the ability to influence another 250 people throughout their lives.

Word of mouth can be your best friend or your worst enemy. In business, you can’t afford to burn bridges and leave a bad impression on customers.

3. Sell The Product People Want

This isn’t something that Joe talked about much, but it’s clear that it was an ingredient to his success.

Joe was a salesman at a Detroit Chevrolet dealership during the years that the Chevy Camero, Monte Carlo, Chevelle, and Corvette were all in their heyday.

Almost like selling AI products today…

If you have a product that people want, selling gets a whole lot easier.

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