The auger in the ice maker in my refrigerator broke a while ago. I spoke with some people who know this business and they said I needed to purchase an ice bucket and auger assembly replacement, remove the old assembly and install the new one. I checked around and found that these assemblies are fairly expensive, so I proceeded to fish ice cubes from the bucket with my hand for the better part of a year which, I’m told, is somewhat unsanitary. Recently, I received an email from the manufacturer of the refrigerator announcing a major sale on replacement parts along with free shipping. This made the replacement assembly very affordable, so I ordered it. Well, even though I followed the ordering directions exactly, I managed to order the wrong assembly—it was two inches too narrow. As I read the directions on how to return this assembly, I learned that I had to pay the return postage which was going to be quite expensive. So, I called the phone number of the replacement parts organization. The woman who answered turned out to be quite friendly, so we visited and had a few laughs before we got down to business. She told me that the last digit of the part number was wrong and that she would send the correct assembly to me. Then I asked, “Am going to have to pay the shipping to return the wrong assembly?” She answered, “No, I’ll email you a prepaid label and I’ll expedite the shipping of the correct assembly so that you’ll have it tomorrow. How’s that?” All I could say was, “Thank you so much!” The lesson here is that if you treat people on the phone with kindness and respect, they will go out of their way to help you which, in turn, will make your life much easier.
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There’s only one way to become an outstanding success as a salesperson. It’s called repeat and referral sales. It doesn’t matter if you’re selling cars, real estate, insurance, pharmaceuticals, financial services or farm equipment. If you don’t focus your efforts on generating repeat and referral sales, you’re going nowhere as a salesperson. Furthermore, there’s only one way in which you can get your customers to provide you with continuing repeat and referral sales and that’s by turning them into long-term friends. Let me give you an example: Joe Girard was a car salesperson for Merolis Chevrolet in Detroit. For 12 straight years Joe was listed in The Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s best new car salesperson. During his final year of selling cars, Joe sold 1,425 new Chevrolet cars and trucks! That’s 1,425 new Chevrolet cars and trucks sold by a single salesperson during one calendar year! How did Joe do it? The answer is simple. 65% of his sales were to repeat customers and the other 35% were to customers who were referred to him by his repeat customers. So, the year that Joe Girard got into The Guinness Book of World Records for selling 1,425 cars, how many cars did he actually sell? The answer is NONE! His customers sold them for him. Why? Because Joe took the time to turn each of his customers into a long-term friend. As Joe put it, “I stand in front of my product as well as behind it.” In other words, before you could buy a car from Joe, you first had to buy Joe. He wouldn’t let you buy a car from him until he turned you into a friend. Then, after you bought a car from Joe and you experienced a problem either with the car or someone at the dealership, Joe went to bat for you and personally saw to it that the problem was resolved to your satisfaction. Joe also made it a point to stay in touch with his customers after they bought a car from him; he didn’t forget about them and he made sure they they knew it. Yes, Joe truly loved his customers and they loved him back by providing him with enough repeat and referral sales to make it possible for him to sell more than 13,000 cars in 12 years. As Joe said in his book, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, “All of my customers these days are people who ask for me by name. All of them.” You too can enjoy the same level of success as Joe Girard once you stop focusing on making sales and start focusing on turning your customers into long-term friends.
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