Hilarious and Inspirational Sales Quotes to Boost Your Motivation

"A complaining customer represents a huge opportunity."

- Zig Ziglar

"People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily."

- Zig Ziglar

"Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win."

- Jeffrey Gitomer

"Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going."

- Sam Levenson

"Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect."

- William Clement Stone

"Make a customer, not a sale."

- Katherine Barchetti

"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, ‘Make me feel important.’ Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life."

- Mary Kay Ash

"Believe you can and you’re halfway there."

- Theodore Roosevelt

"I like to think of sales as the ability to gracefully persuade, not manipulate, a person or persons into a win-win situation."

- Bo Bennett

"If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will."

- Bob Hooey

"Honest and transparent content is the best sales tool in the world. Period."

- Marcus Sheridan

"You don't compete on price. You compete on relationships."

- Patricia Fripp

"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning."

- Bill Gates

"Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve."

- Napoleon Hill

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

- Wayne Gretzky

"Some men see things as they are and ask why … I dream of things that never were and ask why not?"

- Robert Kennedy

"Make friends first, make sales second, make love third. In no particular order."

- Michael Scott

"The elevator to health, happiness, and success [for a salesman] is ‘out of order.’ You’ll have to use the stairs, one step at a time."

- Joe Girard

"You’re only as good as your last sale, so you put your all into something and just hope that from that you can get your next job."

- Josh Peck

"To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business."

- Harvey Mackay

"Either you run the day, or the day runs you."

- Jim Rohn

"Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent. Its sale is proof of utility, and utility is success."

- Thomas Edison

"Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must outrun the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning in Africa, a lion wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle, or it will starve. It doesn’t matter whether you’re the lion or a gazelle – when the sun comes up, you’d better be running."

- Christopher McDougall

"Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there."

- Will Rogers

"80% of success is showing up."

- Woody Allen

"Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better."

- Jim Rohn

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage."

- Anaïs Nin

"A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

- Winston S. Churchill

"Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them."

- Ann Landers

"Focus on being productive instead of being busy."

- Tim Ferriss

"We’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over."

- Conor McGregor

"Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre."

- Warren Buffett

"Whatever you are, be a good one."

- Abraham Lincoln

"If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time."

- Steve Jobs

"Success looks a lot like failure up until the moment you break through the finish line."

- Dan Waldschmidt

"Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favor."

- Brian Tracy

"Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."

- John D. Rockefeller

"If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"The expert in anything was once a beginner."

- Helen Hayes

"Be so good, they can’t ignore you."

- Steve Martin

"I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later."

- Og Mandino

"The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing."

- Walt Disney

"Become the person who would attract the results you seek."

- Jim Cathcart

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."

- Henry Ford

"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."

- John Wooden

"A goal is a dream with a deadline."

- Napoleon Hill

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible."

- Tony Robbins

"Well done is better than well said."

- Benjamin Franklin

"You can’t just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they’ll want something new."

- Steve Jobs

"Companies should be selling ideas more than benefits. Sell Ideas. Not stuff."

- Aaron Ross

"A-B-C. Always Be Closing."

- Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross

"The difference between a successful person and others is not a lack of strength, not a lack of knowledge, but rather a lack of will."

- Vince Lombardi

"Every strike brings me closer to the next home run."

- Babe Ruth

"A successful man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him."

- David Brinkley

"Success is never final, failure is never fatal. It’s courage that counts."

- John Wooden

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."

- Dale Carnegie

"Today is always the most productive day of your week."

- Mark Hunter

"You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them."

- Maya Angelou

"Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much."

- Helen Keller

"Remember, it’s not just about being better at selling, it’s about being so good, they can’t ignore you."

- Steve Martin

"Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there."

- Bo Jackson

"Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude."

- Zig Ziglar

"People like to buy things they need from people they like. And somewhere we screwed it all up by making it some kind of crazy thing. It’s simply, 'What do you need? What are you trying to solve? Do I have it?' 'Yes.' 'Is it the right price?' 'Yes.' 'Next.'"

- Irreverent Sales Girl

"It takes two to speak the truth – one to speak, and another to hear."

- Henry David Thoreau

"You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do."

- Henry Ford

"If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes."

- John Wooden

"The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary."

- Vince Lombardi

"The best paying hard work in the world is selling, and the poorest paying easy work in the world is selling."

- Zig Ziglar

"90 percent of selling is conviction and 10 percent is persuasion."

- Shiv Khera

"People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons."

- Zig Ziglar

"Preparation, I have often said, is rightly two-thirds of any venture."

- Amelia Earhart

"Pretend that every single person you meet has a sign around his or her neck that says, “Make me feel important.” Not only will you succeed in sales, you will succeed in life."

- Mary Kay Ash

"Don’t count the days. Make the days count."

- Muhammad Ali

"Think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness."

- Oprah Winfrey

"You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

"In sales, a referral is the key to the door of resistance."

- Bo Bennett

"Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life."

- Dolly Parton

"Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is."

- Vince Lombardi

"Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere."

- Albert Einstein

"Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you."

- Tony Hsieh

"You have to drop your sales mentality and start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you."

- Jill Konrath

"If you’re going through hell, keep going."

- Winston Churchill

"Tough times never last, but tough people do."

- Robert Schuller

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

"Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

- Winston Churchill

"Success is the culmination of failures, mistakes, false starts, confusion, and the determination to keep going anyway."

- Nick Gleason

"You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing and falling over."

- Richard Branson

"Fall seven times, stand up eight."

- Japanese Proverb

"You just can’t beat the person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes."

- Henry J. Kaiser

"The best revenge is massive success."

- Frank Sinatra

"By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day."

- Robert Frost

"Teamwork is the secret that makes common people achieve uncommon results."

- Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

"Interdependent people combine their own effort with the efforts of others to achieve their greatest success."

- Stephen Covey

"No matter how brilliant your mind or strategy, if you’re playing a solo game, you’ll always lose out to a team."

- Reid Hoffman

"No matter how senior you get in an organization, no matter how well you’re perceived to be doing, your job is never done."

- Abigail Johnson

"Good leaders organize and align people around what the team needs to do. Great leaders motivate and inspire people with why they’re doing it. That’s purpose. And that’s the key to achieving something truly transformational."

- Marilyn Hewson

"Strategy is not a solo sport, even if you’re the CEO."

- Max McKeown

"Unity is strength… when there is teamwork and collaboration, wonderful things can be achieved."

- Mattie Stepanek

"Never miss a good chance to shut up."

- Will Rogers

"You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can sure sell a bunch of books if you have a good one."

- Jayce O’Neal

"The only thing worse than training employees and losing them is not training them and keeping them."

- Zig Ziglar

"Confidence is 10 percent hard work and 90 percent delusion."

- Tina Fey

"There’s never any guarantee that anyone will like you. So if anyone likes you at all, you’ve already won."

- Chelsea Handler

"Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting."

- Christopher Morley

"The secret of getting ahead is getting started."

- Mark Twain

"Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people."

- Steve Jobs

"Good teams incorporate teamwork into their culture, creating the building blocks for success."

- Ted Sundquist

"If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn’t be human, you’d be a game show host."

- Gabriel Heather

"The sales compensation plan is Batman, the sales contest is Robin."

- Mark Roberge

"A-B-C. A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, always be closing."

- Alec Baldwin (humorous twist)

"You don’t need a big close as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation, and watch your results improve."

- Harvey Mackay

"'Hey, here’s a gourd!' is not so different as, 'Hey, here’s enterprise sales software!' The language changes, but the humans are the same."

- Chris Penn

"There’s so much creativity in brokeness, brokeness will have you making it work."

- Issa Rae

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

- Confucius

"Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."

- Vince Lombardi

"To be successful in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here’s what’s exciting — there are lots of people!"

- Jim Rohn

"Nothing is impossible; some things are just less likely than others."

- Jonathan Winters

"The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!"

- Marvin Phillips

"Opportunity doesn’t make appointments; you have to be ready when it arrives."

- Tim Fargo

"Sales is not about selling anymore, but about building trust and educating."

- Siva Devaki

"The best sales questions have your expertise wrapped into them."

- Jill Konrath

"Everyone lives by selling something."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"The most unprofitable item ever manufactured is an excuse."

- Jason Mason

"Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers."

- Seth Godin

"My sales objective is to get my prospects to look at my products the same way I look at bacon."

- Kurt Mortensen

"Before I do anything, I ask myself, ‘Would an idiot do that?’ And, if the answer is yes, I do not do that thing."

- Dwight Schrute, The Office

"If they don’t give you a seat at the [negotiating] table, bring a folding chair."

- Shirley Chisholm

"Prospects are perishable — handle with care."

- Zig Ziglar

"Confidence is going after Moby Dick in a rowboat and taking the tartar sauce with you."

- Zig Ziglar

"Only fools and dead men don’t change their minds. Fools won’t, and dead men can’t."

- John Henry Patterson

"Some salesmen think that selling is like eating—to satisfy an existing appetite; but a good salesman is like a good cook—he can create an appetite when the buyer isn’t hungry."

- George Lorimer

"The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer."

- John Madden

"Either run the day or the day runs you."

- Jim Rohn

"It hurt because it mattered."

- John Green

"Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance."

- Anne Lamott

"You have to learn to keep your eyes on an ultimate goal. If you lose sight of that goal, you have to get out."

- Hamdi Ulukaya

"Growth and comfort do not coexist."

- Ginni Rometty

"I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse."

- Florence Nightingale

"Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them yourself."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Engaging people is about meeting their needs – not yours."

- Tony Robbins

"If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself."

- Henry Ford

"Let us all be the leaders we wish we had."

- Simon Sinek

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead

"Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean."

- Ryunosuke Satoro

"Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships."

- Michael Jordan

"Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability."

- Patrick Lencioni

"No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it."

- H.E. Luccock

"Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results."

- Andrew Carnegie

"The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team."

- Phil Jackson

"Effectively, change is almost impossible without industry-wide collaboration, cooperation, and consensus."

- Simon Mainwaring

"The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime."

- Babe Ruth

"A group becomes a team when each member is sure enough of himself and his contribution to praise the skills of others."

- Norman Shidle

"I design, manufacture, distribute, and sell elevator buttons. I specialize in the fourth floor. And I don’t mean to brag, but I’m such a good salesman that I could sell one of my fourth-floor elevator buttons to the owner of a three-story building."

- Jarod Kintz

"[Sales is] trying to get to a decision. Now, preferably a yes, but sometimes a quick no is almost as good an answer. But a long no maybe will kill you."

- Alston Gardner

"I think the biggest mistake that salespeople make today is that they try to pretend they’re not salespeople."

- Irreverent Sales Girl

"On an important call late in the sales cycle, negotiations were getting intense. Neither side wanted to back down from the numbers that had been shared. But at a crucial point in the conversation, the party we were selling to forgot to hit the mute button on their conference line. We overheard them raving on and on about how much they liked the product, and we knew they were completely sold. Knowing this gave us the leverage we needed to close the deal on our terms. The moral of the story? Always check that mute button; it could save you some money."

- George Gallegos

"If you harness the power of innovation, you’ll convert sales complexity into a brutal competitive advantage."

- Tim Sanders

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."

- Og Mandino

"You are not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day."

- Marian Wright Edelman

"I have stood on a mountain of no’s for one yes."

- Barbara Elaine Smith

"Just don’t give up on what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong."

- Ella Fitzgerald

"Success isn’t about the money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives."

- Michelle Obama

"If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more."

- Erica Jong

"Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal."

- Ava DuVernay

"No matter how many customers you have, each is an individual. The day you start thinking of them as this amorphous ‘collection’ and stop thinking of them as people is the day you start going out of business."

- Dharmesh Shah

"You can’t just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You’ve got to get out there and make it happen for yourself."

- Diana Ross

"Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us."

- Angela Bassett

"You can’t beat the person who never gives up."

- Babe Ruth

"I thrive on obstacles. If I’m told that it can’t be done, then I push harder."

- Issa Rae

"I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard."

- Estée Lauder

"You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you."

- Maya Angelou

"Leadership belongs to those who take it."

- Sheryl Sandberg

"You can take and nail two sticks together like they’ve never been nailed together before, and some fool will buy it."

- George Carlin

"Doing [market] research on the web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."

- Roger Ebert

"Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are a good person is a little like expecting the bull not to attack you because you are vegetarian."

- Dennis Wholey

"Don’t sell life insurance. Sell what life insurance can do."

- Ben Feldman

"My favorite sales book? The Bible. I would improve it. You know how we people are."

- Kare Anderson

"[Sales and marketing] have to start talking to each other. They’ve got to stop spilling each other’s beers."

- Ann Handley

"This is a metaphor for a brand-to-customer conversation. The brand will be played by the ogre, Shrek, and the customer will be played by his stalwart friend, Donkey. The brand wants to define itself. They want to put their position out there and say what they are, but the customer is reflecting back how they’re experiencing the brand and they have their own story. It goes a little something like this. 'You know, for your information, there is a lot more to ogres than people think.' 'Example?' 'Ah, okay. Ogres are like onions!' 'They stink?' 'No!' 'Oh, they make you cry?' 'No!' 'Oh, you leave them out in the sun and they get all brown and start sprouting little white hairs?' 'No!' 'Layers! Onions have layers! Ogres have layers.'"

- Tristan Bishhop

"If I tell you I want to be a door-to-door salesman, don’t knock it."

- Jarod Kintz

"Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"If we are smart, we make a lot of mistakes."

- Raman Frey

"Why miss a SALE at twenty dollars, when people will buy at $19.95? I’ve found that the opportunity to save that nickel really makes people say YES to buying a NEW duck."

- Jarod Kintz

"With technology, you have to be careful because you can really be kind of cyberstalkerish."

- Eric T. Tung

"My favorite sales book? Harvey Mackay’s Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive. Why? Well, it’s the only sales book I ever read."

- Tristan Bishhop

"Some people are naturally funny and can drop some profanity, but I can’t pull that off."

- Lori Richardson

"For a leader, getting results is more important than getting credit."

"The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus."

"Every sale has five basic obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust."

"An organization’s ability to learn, and translate that learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage."

"A good salesperson knows how to talk; a great salesperson knows how to listen."

"Selling is a lot like tennis; if you don’t serve well, you lose immediately."

"I could sell ice to an Eskimo, but he’d probably just let it melt and drink it."

"I design, manufacture, distribute, and sell elevator buttons. I also install and repair them. I thought it was a good idea at first, but now I’m starting to come down."

"You know you’re a salesperson when your lie detector test is inconclusive on every question except your name."

"The best time to call me is email."

"Why is it a ‘close’ if it’s supposed to be the start of a customer relationship?"

"Teamwork divides the task and multiplies the success."