An assortment of stereotypes come from many different people with many different experiences when asked to define salespeople. Some have only good things to say but most have negative opinions about salespeople and the way they work. Aside from the pushy and obnoxious stereotype, one person that shows a great representation of a good salesperson is a man named Joe Girard.
Joe Girard was stapled with being known as one of the greatest car salesmen of all time. However, he did not start with this type of fame and knowledge with selling cars. Joe started out at the young age of 9 years old walking the streets of his neighborhood, in and out of bars, or into saloons looking for opportunities to shine individual’s shoes. At the age of 11 Joe took on the job of being a news carrier boy for the Detroit Free Press. For every new customer of the Press that Joe obtained he was rewarded with a bonus of a Pepsi-Cola casing. After getting quite the supply of Pepsi-Cola he began to sell these cans to kids in his neighborhood at a price that no vendor on the street could ever match.
Joe’s later years after schooling and his young adulthood consisted of constant in-and-out jobs here and there until he got a job as a car salesman. The legacy Joe left behind from the number of cars he sold and how he treated his customers is crazy. Joe not only wanted to sell the car to people but obtain that connection with the person incase anything went wrong with the car or just to hear how the car was treating the individual. Joe did not just take the money and run, he made sure to stay in touch and make sure the customer was truly happy with their purchase decision.
Joe’s entire life dealt with selling but one thing Joe also exemplified was being an entrepreneur. Being the entrepreneurship within sales, Joe was able to create little businesses to help his family with income but not only that, he never gave up the sense of success, that eagerness to find or learn more. Joe focused in on sales but held more importance to the happiness and success of the sale after
BoweryJE22
What a coincidence! Todd talked about him last time. I assume that he is a legen-(wait for it)-dairy salesman, just like Michael Scott.
This is a great story of how selling can really shape and define someone. Joe struggled at times and was trying to make a name for himself, and ultimately persevered and learned a lot along the way.