Sunday, January 29, 2012

Joe Girard's 250 Rule

Hello everyone.. whats up?
I have been off the radar for a while.. I am so sorry.
Anyways I promised I was going to give a review on the Joe Girard's book about sales. For those of us who don't know him, he is the greatest sales man in the world: and guess what? he sold cars. Now cars isn't something people buy everyday, so how did he become the greatest sales man ever.. Here are some of his rules:

Rule 1.
according to Joe almost everybody knows at least 250 people. At first when I read IT I was saying to myself: is this guy serious, but lets face facts: If there is a wedding in Nigeria no matter how small it is we would have like about 250 people, this would include relations from both parents sides, the bride and groom's friends, colleagues at work or school etc.. that makes up the 250. The contacts on my phone are over 200. I have about 142 Blackberry contacts. So if we calculate that then I know 250 people. I haven't added my extended family, which is usually large in Africa etc. So he says that you have to treat your customers right even though half of them may be wasting your time, cos for everyone who isn't happy with you that's 250 people that would think you are rubbish.

Rule 2
make sure you have a personal relationship with your customer. For example if you know their birthdays or the birthdays or their kids, or spouse and send them a card or a little gift, with a personal note reminding them that you have a new offer for them. How do you think they old react. First of all everybody no matter how little loves a present on his/her birthday.

Rule 3
don't waste your time joining the club. meaning if you are a salesman or you are at work don't spend your time in the lounge with your colleagues listening to what their wife or husband did yesterday, how terrible the economy is or how the work environment is terrible, or facebooking or bb pinging etc. For every minute you waste listening to all that, you have lost sales. Now I have notice that when I ignore my blackberry or facebook I achieve more, than when I am interrupted by bb pings or what's on someones facebook profile.

Rule 4
If you have the passion for it, you would be able to sell anything. Joe said that when he saw a car sale as his ticket to getting groceries for his family. He had the drive to sell anything and he did that.
Have you ever noticed that a lot of the rich people in the world were once extremely poor? How did the succeed? The passion to have food on their table. Once you see your job, your business, your writing etc as your source of livelihood, you would push yourself till you have achieved your goal.

Now I think it time to go an have my dinner. Do have a lovely day and I am looking forward to your comments.
Ciao