Working in sales can bring its fair share of negativity. Particularly when reaching out to cold contacts, salespeople tend to get more “nos” than “yeses.”
In fact, a recent study found that just 17.6% of salespeople rated their job as outstanding, and 47.1% as just good. That means that 35.3% of salespeople felt negatively about their job.
While a motivational quote isn’t going to turn a pessimistic salesperson into a positive one overnight, the power of inspiration shouldn’t be ignored. In a job that’s consistently met with negativity, a positive message could make all the difference to your sales team and improve sales performance. Here are 127 motivational sales quotes to inspire your sales team in 2024, and beyond.
Relationship Building
1. “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.” – Theodore Roosevelt
2. “To build a long-term, successful enterprise, when you don’t close a sale, open a relationship.” – Patricia Fripp
3. “Value the relationship more than the quota.” – Jeff Gitomer
4. “An effective process has the reps thinking in terms of ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us.’“ – Trish Bertuzzi
5. “Assumptions are the termites of relationships.” – Henry Winkler
6. “Be genuinely interested in everyone you meet and everyone you meet will be genuinely interested in you.” – Rasheed Ogunlaru
7. “Before LinkedIn and other social networks, in the sales world, ABC stood for Always Be Closing. Now it means Always Be Connecting.” – Jill Rowley
8. “Humanize the sales process or perish.” – Steli Efti
Customer Care
Here are some of my favorite customer experience quotes for 2024…
9. “If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey
10. “We don’t want to push our ideas onto customers, we simply want to make what they want.” – Laura Ashley
11. “It’s through vulnerability that human beings create connections. The more vulnerable we can be with one another, the more that we’ll trust one another and the more we’ll be able to collaborate effectively.” – Neil Blumenthal
12. “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh
13. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou
14. “Service, in short, is not what you do, but who you are. It’s a way of living that you need to bring to everything you do if you’re to bring it to your customer interactions.” – Betsy Sanders
Sales Prospecting
15. “Keep your sales pipeline full by prospecting continuously. Always have more people to see than you have time to see them.” – Brian Tracy
16. “Start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.“ – Jill Konrath
17. “Every email is an opportunity to test a different benefit or angle.” – Heather R Morgan
18. “Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income.” – Jeb Blount
19. “Prospects are making their purchase decision based on whether they think you understand their problems and you have the knowledge, resources, and commitment to solving them.” – Trish Bertuzzi
Helping your Customers Achieve their Goals
20. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her to solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy
21. “The best salespeople know that their expertise can become their enemy in selling. At the moment they are tempted to tell the buyer what ‘he needs to do,’ they instead offer a story about a peer of the buyer.” – Mike Bosworth
22. “Sellers who listen to buyers carefully and then give them the missing ingredients – those are the ones who stand out.” – Deb Calvert
23. “It’s no longer about interrupting, pitching and closing. It is about listening, diagnosing and prescribing.” – Mark Roberge
Closing Deals
24. “If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” – Estée Lauder
25.“Customers don’t care at all whether you close the deal or not. They care about improving their business.” – Aaron Ross
26. “The only way to know when a deal will close is to ask the customer.” – Alice Heiman
Sales Strategy
27. “Remember, people don’t believe it when WE say it, they believe it when THEY say it.” – Shari Levitin
28. “Buyers do business with you, not with your company and not with your technology.” – Joanne Black
29. “You will attract way more buyers if you are offering to teach them something of value to them than you will ever attract by simply trying to sell them your product or service.” – Chet Holmes
30. “The sales compensation plan is Batman, the sales contest is Robin.” – Mark Roberge
31. “Killer salespeople uncover true problems behind desired solutions.” – Aaron Ross
32. “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – Edward Demin
33. “Sales success comes from the right balance of quality human interaction and appropriate use of supplemental tools.” – Deb Calvert
Asking Questions
34. “If you are not moving closer to what you want in sales (or in life), you probably aren’t doing enough asking.” – Jack Canfield
35. “The questions you ask are more important than the things you could ever say.” – Thomas Freese
Perseverance
36. “The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” – Thomas Edison
37. “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” – Babe Ruth
38. “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
39. “I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?” – Jill Konrath
40. “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” – Christopher Morley
41. “Fall down seven times and stand up eight.” – Proverb
Motivation
42. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
43. “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” – Norman Ralph Augustine
44. “Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
45. “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” – Wayne Dyer
46. “Either run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn
47. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Rohn
Setting and Achieving your Goals
48. “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” – Tony Robbins
49. “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” – Napoleon Hill
50. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” – C.S. Lewis
Taking Opportunities
51. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky
52. “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” – Mark Hunter
53. “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein
54. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
Positive Mental Attitude
55. “Quality performance starts with a positive attitude.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
56. “What we dwell on is who we become.” – Oprah Winfrey
57. “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” – Zig Ziglar
58. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” – Vince Lombardi
59. “Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.” – Zig Ziglar
60. “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
61. “There are no limitations to how good you can become or how high you can rise except the limits you put on yourself.” – Brian Tracy
62. “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect.” – W. Clement Stone
63. “Keep yourself positive, cheerful and goal-oriented. Sales success is 80% attitude and only 20% aptitude.” – Brian Tracy
Just Getting on With It
64. “Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” – Thomas Jefferson
65. “Do something every day to improve your key skill areas.” – Brian Tracy
66. “Well done is better than well said.” – Benjamin Franklin
67. “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” – Sheryl Sandberg
68. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” – Henry Ford
69. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” – Walt Disney
70. “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we must do.” – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
71. “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.”– Lucille Ball
72. “Great things are done by a series of small things done together.” – Vincent van Gogh
73. “Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs.” – Henry Ford
74. “There’s no lotion or potion that will make sales faster and easier for you – unless your potion is hard work.” – Jeffery Gitomer
75. “What you lack in talent can be made up with desire, hustle, and giving 110% all the time.” – Don Zimmer
Success
76. “Filter everything you’re doing, saying and pitching and you’ll improve just about every metric you care about today.” – Matt Heinz
77. “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” – Florence Nightingale
78. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” – Abraham Lincoln
79. “Sales success comes after you stretch yourself past your limits on a daily basis.” – Omar Periu
80. “High expectations are the key to everything.” – Sam Walton
Courage
81. “Timid salesmen have skinny kids.” – Zig Ziglar
82. “Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.” – Jack Canfield
83. “Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection.” – Seth Godin
84. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John R. Wooden
85. “Lean in, speak out, have a voice in your organization, and never use the word ‘sorry.'” – Trish Bertuzzi
86. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair
87. “Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” – John D. Rockefeller
88. “The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” – Amelia Earhart
89. “Accept failure as part of the process.” – Unknown
90. “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” – Og Mandino
91. “We generate fears while we sit. We overcome them by action.” – Dr. Henry Link
The Human Spirit
92. “Greatness and nearsightedness are incompatible. Meaningful achievement depends on lifting one’s sights and pushing toward the horizon.” – Daniel Pink
93. “There is little success where there is little laughter.” – Andrew Carnegie
94. “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all deadly sins.” – Edith Wharton
Creative Thinking
95. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
96. “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs
97. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” – Pablo Picasso
98. “What differentiates sellers today is their ability to bring fresh ideas.” – Jill Konrath
Trusting your Instincts
99. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
100. “I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey
Leadership
101. “Leadership belongs to those who take it.” – Sheryl Sandberg
102. “As sales leaders, we have to set the bar high for ourselves as well as our teams.” – Lori Richardson
Gratitude
103. “Develop an attitude of gratitude. Say ‘thank you’ to everyone you meet for everything they do for you.” – Brian Tracy
104. “A straightforward way to show buyers that you genuinely like them is to identify something about them that you sincerely appreciate.” – David Hoffeld
Managing a Team
105. “I invite everyone to choose forgiveness rather than division, teamwork over personal ambition.” – Jean-François Copé
106. “Talent wins games but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” Michael Jordan
107. “A manager is a guide. He/She takes a group of people and says, ‘With you I can make us a success; I can show you the way.’” – Arsene Wenger
108. “None of us is as smart as all of us.” – Ken Blanchard
Time Management
109. “Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.” – Thomas Jefferson
110. “The common man is not concerned about the passage of time, the man of talent is driven by it.” – Shoppenhauer
111. “Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves.” – Lord Chesterfield
112. “Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.” – Winston Churchill
113. “Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. One man gets only a week’s value out of a year while another man gets a full year’s value out of a week.” – Charles Richards
114. “One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. Most people dabble their way through life, never deciding to master anything in particular.” – Tony Robbins
115. “Your future is created by what you do today, not tomorrow.” – Anonymous
116. “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
Achieving Customer Loyalty
117. “An ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness.” – Elbert Hubbard
118. “Repeat business or behaviour can be bribed. Loyalty has to be earned.” – Janet Robinson
119. “Unless you have 100% customer satisfaction… you must improve.” – Horst Schulz
120. “Loyal customers, they don’t just come back, they don’t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.” – Chip Bell
121. “Customer satisfaction is worthless. Customer loyalty is priceless.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
122. “Do what you do so well that they will want to see it again and bring their friends.” – Walt Disney
123. “You don’t earn loyalty in a day. You earn loyalty day-by-day.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
Measuring Results
124. “What’s measured improves” – Peter Drucker
125. “This thrilled Zuckerberg, whose primary measure of the service’s success was how often users returned.” – David Kirkpatrick
126. “When selling we tend to think in terms of getting a “Yes”. If I can get a yes for this “ask” I am on my path to the final, bigger, “Yes”. However, “No”s can be just as informative and can still guide us on a path to completing the sale. Getting the “door slammed in your face” doesn’t mean you need to walk over to the next house – simply change your approach” – Eyal Katz, VP Marketing at Trendemon.
127. “If you don’t collect any metrics, you’re flying blind. If you collect and focus on too many, they may be obstructing your field of view.” – Scott M. Graffius
128. “The numbers should speak for themselves, but they don’t. Growth metrics are the misunderstood teenagers of the tech world with murky intentions.” –Molly Norris Walker
Further Reading:
