DESIRE IS THE KEY WORD!

THE GUINNESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS HAS

PROCLAIMED JOE GIRARD, "THE WORLD'S GREATEST SALESMAN.

"During his days as an automobile salesman, Joe for 12 straight years, soldmore cars and trucks than any other salesperson. In fact, as an individual, hesold more cars than most dealers sell in total, and all of them retail.Coming from hard and humble beginnings, Joe had been thrown out of highschool, fired from over 40 jobs, and had even failed at being a petty thief!

But in 1949 things began to turn around. He met a man who "took him underhis wings" teaching Joe how to be a building contractor. Joe becamepretty successful and in 1961 he contracted to build a number of private homes.

Unfortunately he had accepted the word of a real estate speculator that saidthe area was to have a sewer system installed. Poor Joe, he went on the man'sword instead of checking things out and finally found out this just wasn'ttrue.Individual septic tanks had to be installed which meant the homes becamegreatly de-valued.

As a result, Joe lost his business. It was Christmas and Joe Girard had nojob, no savings, and found himself in debt to the tune of $60,000.

Then the final blow came.....On a cold day in January, June Girard tearfully told her husband therewas no food in the house and the kids were begging for something to eat.

On that day, Joe Girard found himself at the absolute bottom of the barrel.

It was either see his kids starve or go out and find something. After pleading and begging the manager of a car dealership to hire him; the manager

finally gave in and gave Joe a small desk at the back of the showroom.

When Joe's first customer walked in that day, just before closing time,Joe thought to himself, "There's no way this guy is getting out of herewithout buying a car from me."

Joe Girard remembered his hungry kids at home, then looked at his customerand saw......a bag of groceries!

Within a month he became so successful at selling cars that the managerfired him! He was too aggressive and the other salesmen were upset.

But Joe had found his calling and it wasn't very long before he washired at another dealership where he worked until the day he retired in 1978.

Recalling that first sale, and telling what made him the GreatestSalesman In The World, Joe says this:

"Want. My want. That was all I knew. And that want was enough to drive me tosay and do enough of the right things to sell that customer a car. I am notsaying that that's all there is to it, then or now, but that is most of it."

"If you want, and know what you want, you will have most of what you needto be a successful salesman. I mean that. Nobody can be a successful salesmanwithout wanting. Wanting something very much. And the more you want, the more youdrive yourself to do what it takes to sell.

""Once I saw that first customer as a bag of groceries to bring hometo my family, he was sold, whether he knew it or not.

"You and I might not ever become the world's greatest in what we do, but wecan become the best we can possibly be at it. It all starts, continues, andends with 1 simple word: DESIRE