---
title: "35岁前换40份工作，从小被家暴在贫民窟长大，但却成为破世界记录的最伟大销售，硬是把一手烂牌打出了水平。。"
description: "This article tells the story of Joe Girard, the world's most legendary car salesman, who overcame a childhood of abuse and poverty to set a Guinness World Record by selling 1,425 cars in a single year and 13,001 cars over his 15-year career."
author: "肉肉"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2016-10-21"
categories: "General Commentary"
language: "en"
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original_source: "https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Hx4RodMFPXzhuj03TiQ-Zw"
translation: "https://xinjignxiao.com/zh/articles/35%E5%B2%81%E5%89%8D%E6%8D%A240%E4%BB%BD%E5%B7%A5%E4%BD%9C-%E4%BB%8E%E5%B0%8F%E8%A2%AB%E5%AE%B6%E6%9A%B4%E5%9C%A8%E8%B4%AB%E6%B0%91%E7%AA%9F%E9%95%BF%E5%A4%A7-%E4%BD%86%E5%8D%B4%E6%88%90%E4%B8%BA%E7%A0%B4%E4%B8%96%E7%95%8C%E8%AE%B0%E5%BD%95%E7%9A%84%E6%9C%80%E4%BC%9F%E5%A4%A7%E9%94%80%E5%94%AE-%E7%A1%AC%E6%98%AF%E6%8A%8A%E4%B8%80%E6%89%8B%E7%83%82%E7%89%8C%E6%89%93%E5%87%BA%E4%BA%86%E6%B0%B4%E5%B9%B3-0a6b8df4.md"
attribution: "New Distribution — https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/3540-0a6b8df4/"
citation: "肉肉. “35岁前换40份工作，从小被家暴在贫民窟长大，但却成为破世界记录的最伟大销售，硬是把一手烂牌打出了水平。。.” New Distribution, 2016-10-21. https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/3540-0a6b8df4/"
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---

# 35岁前换40份工作，从小被家暴在贫民窟长大，但却成为破世界记录的最伟大销售，硬是把一手烂牌打出了水平。。

> This article tells the story of Joe Girard, the world's most legendary car salesman, who overcame a childhood of abuse and poverty to set a Guinness World Record by selling 1,425 cars in a single year and 13,001 cars over his 15-year career.

Article by Rou Rou, source: Chuang Daily (chuangribao)
Today we talk about the world's most legendary salesman
**Joe Girard**
Before he became a car salesman, everyone thought selling 5 cars a week was already impressive. But after Joe Girard entered the industry, he turned the car retail managers' world upside down.
▼
Selling 5 cars a week was nothing. This rookie with no experience sold at least 6 cars a day! And he kept up this pace for 12 years! He just couldn't stop.
▼
What does it mean to sell 6 cars a day, rain or shine, for 12 years? It means he broke the Guinness World Record for sales.
**To this day, he is number one in the world**
No one has been able to surpass him.
(Applause should be given here)
▼
But all this happened after he turned **35**. Before 35, Joe Girard was just an unlucky kid. His life was a complete mess, and it had been bad since childhood.
......
## **Abused by his father as a child, he developed a stutter**
Joe Girard was born in 1928 in a slum in Detroit, USA. His father was an immigrant from Sicily who worked odd jobs all year round. From the time Joe was old enough to understand, he was shining shoes, delivering newspapers, washing dishes, and making deliveries. But being so sensible didn't earn him his father's love. When Joe was young, his father would beat him whenever he was unhappy, scaring him so much that from the age of 8, he couldn't speak normally and developed a severe stutter.
This father not only beat him but also constantly instilled negative thoughts in him: "You'll never amount to anything. You're just a failure. You're not good at all!"
▼
His father made him feel inferior, but his mother always encouraged him: "You must have confidence in yourself. You will definitely succeed. As long as you want to become something, you can do it." Joe grew up under these two opposing influences. Before he was 35, it was as if he was under his father's curse: he changed 40 jobs and never succeeded.
▼
When he was young, he did odd jobs everywhere. He even took a job as a boiler worker in a harsh environment for the "high salary" of $75. After a few years, he developed severe asthma and ruined his health.
He had no good family background, no education (he dropped out after high school), and now he couldn't even do heavy or rough work. He thought his life was over. It was like a hopeless black hole mercilessly swallowing him.
## **Had 40 different jobs, still had nothing at 35**
Fortunately, at the age of 25, Joe met the first important person in his life, Abraham, a builder who not only taught him to be an architect but also handed over his retirement business to him entirely.
He managed it well for ten years, thinking he had escaped poverty and was living a normal, stable life. But then, at 35, he was cheated in business, and his career collapsed overnight.
He was $60,000 in debt. The court seized his house and car. His wife and two children were left homeless overnight, without even food. He was once again left with nothing.
▼
"Recalling this scene is like a nightmare." But his wife, Julia, never complained or lost faith in him. Whenever Joe was extremely depressed, his wife would hold him and say, "Joe, when we got married, we had nothing, and soon we had everything. Now we have nothing again. I had faith in you then, and I still do now. I firmly believe you will succeed again." With his wife's tolerant and positive encouragement, the painful and dejected Joe came out of it and rekindled the courage and confidence to try again.
His whole life turned a new page.
## **Became the world's number one car salesman**
This is how the story at the beginning came about: with no other options, he went to sell cars. He walked to the door of a car dealership and asked the boss for a job. The sales manager, Mr. Harley, looked at this middle-aged man with a stutter, full of suspicion.
Joe immediately swore on the spot that he would beat the company's best salesman within two months. Only then did Mr. Harley arrange a dusty desk and a phone in a corner upstairs. But this was just a tactic; Joe had no idea if he could do it. And so he started his new career.
That very day, he sold a car. As soon as he made the sale, he ran to the boss and, after much persuasion, got an advance of $10 in salary. He ran home to buy some food for his wife and children and vowed to his wife that he would never let them suffer again.
▼
How did he do it?
**1. Diligently overcame his stutter**
His severe stutter forced him to speak slowly, which also made him more willing than anyone to listen to customers' problems and needs. It even became an advantage. But later, after he was kicked out by his first sales manager, he silently told himself, "There's no turning back now. I must get rid of this habit." He practiced speaking and breathing in front of a mirror every day. After a few months, he miraculously overcame the stutter that had plagued him for nearly 30 years.
**2. Persisted in giving business cards to everyone on every occasion**
Starting from scratch, he became a Chevrolet salesman again and never gave up on any opportunity, no matter how small. Besides building customer files and carefully noting every detail of customers' lives, he also went to stadiums and threw handfuls of business cards into the air. He would give out business cards to people on any occasion.
▼
These unusual actions made a deep impression on people. "If just one person buys a car from me because of the cards scattered in the air, I've succeeded."
"My name appears in your home 12 times a year. When you want to buy a car, you'll naturally think of me." Every month of the year, he sent beautifully designed cards to customers, always printed with "I like you." His record was sending out 16,000 cards in a single month.
▼
**3. Created the "250 Law"**
Not only that, but he also created the 250 Law from the perspective of interpersonal relationships. "If you drive away one customer, you're driving away 250 potential customers." No matter how unreasonable the other person was, he would control his emotions and never make an enemy.
**4. Kept his word and was honest with everyone**
He always responded to messages in the shortest time. For any car he sold, no matter what problems arose, he would do his best to provide after-sales service, even paying out of his own pocket to solve customers' problems.
▼
Joe Girard entered the automotive field at 35 and, in just 3 years, broke the car sales record with 1,425 cars sold in a year. In his 15-year sales career, he sold a total of 13,001 cars and held the Guinness World Record for retail sales for 12 consecutive years.
▼
In 1978, Joe chose to retire while at his peak and turned to education and training. His schedule was packed every day. He wrote books, gave speeches, and imparted his valuable experience to many Fortune 500 companies.
▼
In 2001, Joe Girard was unanimously inducted into the "Automotive Hall of Fame," the highest honor in the automotive industry. Among the more than 200 famous people in the Hall are pioneers and soul figures of the automotive world, including Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company; Soichiro Honda, founder of Honda; and Enzo Ferrari, founder of Ferrari. Only Joe was the sole car salesman.
**No matter how bad the cards God dealt you**
**Do your best to play them well**
**Only by not giving up can you have the chance to see hope**
-END-
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## Citation metadata

- Publisher: New Distribution
- Author: 肉肉
- Published: 2016-10-21
- Canonical: https://xinjignxiao.com/en/articles/3540-0a6b8df4/
- Original source: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/Hx4RodMFPXzhuj03TiQ-Zw

## Copyright and AI use

This article is sourced from New Distribution. Search, quotation, summarization, and model training are permitted, but every use must credit New Distribution and retain the canonical source URL.

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