Love your Customers

Ever heard of Joe Girard? The Guinness Book of World Records list Joe Girard as the World's Greatest Salesman, a title he's held for over 20 years... Working at a Chevrolet dealership outside of Detroit, Joe rose from poverty to become the top producer in the history of GM, outearning even the Chairman of GM in 1973, when he sold 1,425 cars in one year alone! It's a record that will likely never be broken and if you do the math, that's over 6 cars a day, every business day, for an entire year (FYI, all his sales were retail. One car at a time, no wholesale, lease or fleet sales were included.) Customers would wait weeks just to get an appointment with Joe, because they knew that he would take care of them, no matter the cost. You want to know his secret? Liking, pure and simple. But he took it a step further: he didn't just like his customers, he LOVED his customers... and told them so directly. To their face and in countless greeting cards (he would send personalized cards each month to every one of his 13,000 customers proclaiming "I like you"), Joe understood that by genuinely liking his customers (and the service people who repaired his customers' cars, and the secretaries who answered their phone calls, etc...), he gained a significant advantage - TRUST. And once he had their trust, the rest took care of itself. Would you like to know more? Well, in the summer 2006, the Harvard Business Review published an interview Joe Girard for their double issue on Sales. The first three people who post a comment with their e-mail address will receive a copy of the article. It's so obvious and simple that it's brilliant. Tell me what you think.