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Resolve to be among the top 20% of salespeople who make 80% of the sales.
Sep 29, 2025
Most salespeople are half prepared. They know everything about their company and their product. They know nothing about their prospect.
No computer network with pretty graphics can ever replace the salespeople that make our society work.
Treat objections as requests for further information.
Our very living is selling. We are all salespeople.
Only two groups of people intimidate me absolutely: salespeople and the French.
There's an idea out there that salespeople have actually been obliterated by the Internet, which is just not supported by the facts.
A smart salesperson listens to emotions not facts.
A book tour is not a good opportunity to let your mind wander. You have to pay attention, remember salespeople's and interviewers' names, succinctly summarize your book in a 'selling' way, and so on.
Remember that failure is an event, not a person.
A salaried job trains us to be "right" all the time and induces an entitlement mentality. This is because we get paid the same amount no matter what work we are producing, and we begin to see this is fair and right, and we begin being trained to think we are right all the time. When we become salespeople and marketers, we have to leave all of that behind.
Prospecting - Find the man with the problem.
How you think when you lose determines how long it will be until you win.
Qualified software engineers, managers, marketers and salespeople in Silicon Valley can rack up dozens of high-paying, high-upside job offers any time they want, while national unemployment and underemployment is sky high
The best way to sell yourself to others is first to sell the others to yourself.
Victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.
It was always my practice to train salespeople under my direct supervision, and to treat children with the utmost consideration.
I try to visit stores because it's important to meet the teams and to hear the comments of the salespeople.
I've known entrepreneurs who were not great salespeople, or didn't know how to code, or were not particularly charismatic leaders. But I don't know of any entrepreneurs who have achieved any level of success without persistence and determination.
I talk to nurses and programmers, salespeople and firefighters - people who bust their tails every day. Not one of them - not one - stashes their money in the Cayman Islands to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.
Obstacles are necessary for success because in selling, as in all careers of importance, victory comes only after many struggles and countless defeats.
Ninety percent of selling is conviction and 10 percent is persuasion.
One of the best predictors of ultimate success in either sales or non - sales selling isn't natural talent or even industry expertise, but how you explain your failures and rejections.
Don't sell life insurance. Sell what life insurance can do.
The difference between involvement and commitment is like ham and eggs. The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.
To succeed in sales, simply talk to lots of people every day. And here's what's exciting: There are lots of people!
For every sale you miss because you're too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you're not enthusiastic enough.
People don't buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.
Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win.
Great managers know they don't have 10 salespeople working for them. They know they have 10 individuals working for them . A great manager is brilliant at spotting the unique differences that separate each person and then capitalizing on them.
Several national tests have revealed the following startling statistics about why salespeople fail...15% Improper training both product and sales skills. 20% Poor verbal and written communication skills. 15% Poor or problematic boss or management. 50% Attitude.
If you work just for money, you'll never make it, but if you love what you're doing and you always put the customer first, success will be yours.
Good salespeople sell value and social media is the best place to find this value because of its transparency.
There are only two stimulants to one's best efforts-the fear of punishment, and the hope of reward. When neither is present, one can hardly hope that salespeople will want to be trained or want to do a good job. When disappointment is not expressed that one hasn't done a better job, or when credit is withheld when one has done a good job, there is absolutely no incentive to put forth the best effort.
A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go further than a great idea that inspires no one.
In order to succeed, we must first believe that we can.
I've always taught that a poor economy is the best opportunity for salespeople because the naysayers and grumblers have already given up, leaving more territory, more opportunities to be successful than in a good economy when virtually all salespeople are out there, giving it their best.
To succeed, we must first believe that we can.
Internalize the Golden Rule of sales that says: All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.
You just can't beat the person who never gives up.
Financial planners are salespeople. They are NOT teachers. Get your education from someone NOT getting a commission.
Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman - not the attitude of the prospect.
It's astonishing how many business owners are terrified of selling. Salespeople who see the most people a day are the highest paid regardless of the economy.
Thousands of salespeople are pounding the pavements today, tired, discouraged and underpaid. Why? Because they are always thinking only of what they want. They don't realize that neither you nor I want to buy anything. If we did, we would go out and buy it. But both of us are eternally interested in solving our problems. And if salespeople can show us how their services or merchandise will help us solve our problems, they won't need to sell us. We'll buy. And customers like to feel that they are buying - not being sold.
We have this myth that extroverts are better salespeople. As a result, extroverts are more likely to enter sales; extroverts are more likely to get promoted in sales jobs. But if you look at the correlation between extroversion and actual sales performance - that is, how many times the cash register actually rings - the correlation's almost zero.
Remodeling defies the principles of modern commerce. You shell out great sums of money to people over whom you have no authority or power, yet these same people are constantly insinuating that you're cheap. (It reminded me of medicine, another area where you shell out great sums of money to people over whom you have no authority or power, who make you feel guilty for questioning a bill.) Construction workers are the blue-collar version of the snooty salespeople at Gucci who make $8 an hour but look down on you if you balk at a $400 alligator wallet.
As a young designer explained to me bluntly: "Everyone upstairs is dumb," referring to the floor above the engineering lair at the 156 University office where customer support, administrators and salespeople sat. My first impulse was to laugh at his ridiculous, blithe dismissiveness, until I realized that it wasn't very funny.
Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.
I have observed several hundred salespeople who were taught to use deceptive practices like 'bait and switch' and encouraged to play negotiation games with customers. They were so stressed by this behavior that they suffered from a high incidence of alcohol and substance abuse, divorce, job-jumping, and low productivity. In the same industry, I have observed countless people who had been taught to sell with high integrity. Ironically, their customer satisfaction, profit margins, and salesperson retention were significantly higher.