20 Inspirational Sales Quotes and What They Mean for Your Team

To succeed in sales, you need a thick skin. Otherwise, you wouldn’t last long in a profession where you’re either being interrogated by a cautious prospect or you’re just totally ignored.

We all get stuck in a rut at work, every now and then, but in a profession like sales where a positive frame of mind is essential, you need a bit of inspiration, advice and motivation.

Here, we’ve gathered together 20 of the best sales quotes and how they could inspire your sales team:

• "Treat objections as requests for further information."
  Brian Tracy, author and sales expert - click to tweet

This quote sums up the attitude that you need in order to succeed in sales – you need to start seeing negatives as opportunities. If a prospect isn’t sure, it’s an opportunity for you to explain it better or to find another way of engaging them with your product or service.

• "90% of selling is conviction and 10% is persuasion."
  Shiv Khera, author and self-help expert - click to tweet

To sell effectively you need to believe in what you’re selling – you need to be confident and already sold on the product or service yourself. This accounts for much more than simple persuasion skills.

• "One of the best predictors of ultimate success … isn't natural talent or even industry expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections."
  Daniel H. Pink, author of five books about business, work and management - click to tweet

These words of wisdom explain the kind of mental strength you need to be a good salesperson. Everyone will experience failure and rejection, but it’s how you deal with that which determines how you succeed.

• "To build a long-term, successful enterprise, when you don't close a sale, open a relationship."
  Patricia Fripp, executive speech coach and sales presentation skills trainer - click to tweet

If you focus too much on making sales, you miss opportunities to start relationships. And if you look at it this way, you can start seeing failure to close a sale as an opportunity.

• “Value the relationship more than making your quota.”
  Jeff Gitomer, author and sales blogger - click to tweet

The key to being a good sales person is developing relationships with prospects and customers – and if you focus on cold, hard stats, you’re not placing enough emphasis on relationship building.

• “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.”
  Conrad Hilton, American hotelier and the founder of the Hilton Hotels chain. - click to tweet

This is a great attitude to have in sales – if things don’t go your way, try something else. Doing nothing doesn’t get you anywhere.

• “How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.”
  Gilbert K Chesterton, writer, poet and philosopher - click to tweet

Everyone experiences setbacks – at work and in their personal lives – but it’s how you deal with it and move on that determines how long it will be until you succeed. In sales, you need to have the right attitude to keep pushing on – even when your emails are ignored and you get objection after objection from a prospect.

• “Don’t sell life insurance. Sell what life insurance can do.”
  Ben Feldman, American businessman and one of the most prolific salespeople in world history - click to tweet

It can be easy to fall into the habit of selling the features of your product or service, but it’s the benefits that make a sale. It’s the difference between simply describing a product or service and explaining how that could enhance a prospect’s life or business.

• “It’s not your customer’s job to remember you. It is your obligation and responsibility to make sure they don’t have the chance to forget you.”
  Patricia Fripp, executive speech coach and sales presentation skills trainer - click to tweet

This sales quote highlights the importance of building relationships with prospects and customers – and most importantly, how this is your responsibility.

• “Nobody likes to be sold, but everyone likes to buy.”
  Dr Earl Taylor, trainer in leadership, sales and interpersonal and communications skills - click to tweet

We’re all consumers and we all like to buy, but everyone likes to feel that they’re in control – like it was their choice to buy something. The problem with some pushy sales tactics is that the buyer no longer feels in control and they feel like they’re being sold to.

• “Most people think ‘selling’ is the same as ‘talking’. But the most effective salespeople know that listening is the most important part of their job.”
  Roy Bartell, sales expert - click to tweet

It’s easy to misinterpret the role of a sales person – and to think selling is the result of one amazing pitch, where you wow a prospect with your words. In reality, selling is much more about listening to a prospect and working out what they need and how you could help them.

• “Sales are contingent on the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect”.
  William Clement Stone, businessman, philanthropist and author - click to tweet

With success in sales completely dependent on a positive attitude, it’s essential that a sales manager focuses on developing this – and motivating their team.

• “As marketing converges with customer service and sales, marketing today is more about helping and less about hyping.”
  Joel Book, Salesforce - click to tweet

The line between sales, marketing and customer service is blurring and it’s important your team understand this and tries to work with other departments to avoid mixed messages.

• “Outbound prospecting is all about quality, not quantity.”
  Aaron Ross, author of Predictable Revenue - click to tweet

There’s no point contacting hundreds of poor quality leads, just because it’s easy, when you could spend a little longer nurturing several good quality leads. As a sales manager, ensure the metrics you use to measure your team don’t encourage this kind of behavior.

• “B2B customers want to see a lot of value before buying more. That requires a company-wide effort.”
  Todd Berkowitz, research director, Gartner - click to tweet

B2B sales teams need to up their game to compete in 2015 – and that means collaborating more with other departments to help demonstrate how their products or service could add value to their business.

• “Engaging people is about meeting their needs – not yours.”
  Tony Robbins, motivational speaker - click to tweet

A good salesperson puts the customer first and uses their interests or pain points as the place where they start the conversation, as opposed to just focusing on what they want to say.

• “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, author of Solution Selling - click to tweet

People trust other people like themselves – it’s natural. A story about a peer is always going to have more impact than advice from someone the buyer can’t relate to.

• “There is incredible power in leading with research and leading with relevance.”
  Kraig Kleeman, author of The Must-React System - click to tweet

The art of selling is to make your product or service relevant to the customer, and the only way you do that is through proper research. Encourage a culture of research to make sure every prospect gets a personalized and relevant approach.

• “People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.”
  Zig Ziglar, author, salesman, and motivational speaker - click to tweet

In many ways, sales is a psychological profession and to succeed, you need to understand the emotional reasons for why people buy. Using logic, statistics and facts alone won’t get you very far.

• “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.”
  Wilson Mizner, playwright - click to tweet

Encourage your team to listen more and talk less. Not only will this lead to them better understanding the marketplace and industry pain points, but they’ll be liked and trusted more by prospects and customers.

To find out more about sales best practice, read our guides, The Real Cost of Poor Prospecting and the Best Practices of Winning Sales Professionals and Phrases Proven to Kill Rapport and Engagement.

What’s your favorite sales quote? Share yours below.