The Guinness Book of World Records listed Joe Girard as the “World’s Greatest Retail Salesman” for 12 consecutive years.

To achieve this accolade, he sold cars… in fifteen years he sold 13,001 in all. That’s individual brand new retail cars, not fleet or second-hand cars. Allowing for holidays and weekends, that works out to an average of 6 cars a day – every day – for the 15 year period.

Joe had always struggled in his life. With no formal education to speak of (he was expelled from school for a heated argument with a teacher) he moved from one manual labour job to another – dishwasher… dock worker… stove assembler.

He finally met and was taken under the wing of Abraham Saperstein, a Building Contractor who owned his own business. Saperstein liked Joe’s attitude and vowed to teach him everything about the building business. It seemed Joe had finally found his purpose in life. Their friendship grew over the years, until finally Abraham retired, handing over the business to him. Things couldn’t have looked much better…

However… all did not last long… a bad Real Estate deal for some private homes in Detroit cost him his business. He was left without a job, without any savings, and a debt of $60,000. Joe finally hit rock bottom when his wife, June, tearfully told him there was no food in the house and that their kids were begging for something to eat…

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