Everyone knows 250 people

Posted by Fadzuli

April 18, 2008

Have you heard of Joe Girard before? Well I got to know his name through Sufian when we were on our way to KL last April 2007.

Today the name rang a bell again cos it reminded me of this principle that “Everyone knows 250 people”. During that journey, Sufian asked me, “Have you heard of Joe Girard - The world greatest Salesman?”. Well I said, “No, why don’t you play the CD”. Just like many motivational CD, Joe’s CD was different. The speech tell tale a story which many could tear at as he tells you the life he goes through and the hardship till the day that he found his potential as a car salesperson.

Does everyone really know 250 people? This is what Joe Girard did. Everytime he closed a deal, he would pass 250 name cards to his clients and ask them to give it away - then he would say I’ll pay you for referring clients to me. He did what he promised and yes eventually he sold 13,001 in 15 years. I say wow!! Most salesman can only close 1-3 cars per month but Joe average at 72 cars per month. Do you find it ridiculous? Well its true and till today the record has yet to be broken.

So does the 250 name cards work. Here’s how I analysed it based on my experience. Firstly word of mouth marketing really beats any other marketing strategies such as advertising or anything available on this planet. If you can win one person heart and show them the value that you bring into their lives this will spin of to magical results.

This idea resonated to his clients and at the same time it became beneficial to them to refer others to Joe. So imagine closing 72 deals for that month and passed 250 cards to each one. That figure amount to 18,000 cards being printed and distributed. My gosh he dont even need to advertise.

So let’s get to the bottom line to see if it works in todays generation.

Let’s say for 18,000 cards he got a great deal of $8 for 100 cards, therefore amounting to $1440 for namecards. Each car sales, will result in $4,000 to $5,000 in commission ( I’m estimating cos I dont know the real figures. ). So imagine 72 cars - $360,000…

$360,000 - $1, 440 = $358,560 per month!!

OK that’s a lot per month. Anyway I’m just estimating, the price of cars is not worth that much in the US compared to here but you can see the amount of results it created right!!

What we should learn from this is that when someone made a difference to your life directly or indirectly, you owe them this gratitude of promoting them. Whether you like it or not, its a principle you need to believe in else it will be hard for you to grow. Ooh yeah don’t forget to ask for comissions.

Remember this rule that 10% of your earnings needs to be given away. So why not use it for referral fees.

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