Even the most motivated sales representative will face times when they lack motivation and feel lost and like they’re getting nowhere.
It’s not easy being a salesperson. Every salesperson, regardless of the product they’re promoting and their enthusiasm to reach their goals, will face a lot of negativity from a lot of people.
Some leads will ignore them and shut them down immediately, while others will say some pretty nasty stuff. Salespeople are just human, after all, and all that negative energy can rub off on them.
Sometimes, they’ll feel as if the strategies they are using just aren’t working.
As a team leader, it’s your job to keep your team motivated and enthusiastic about what they do.
While there are many ways to motivate your salespeople, one very effective method is to use sales quotes to give them helpful sales ideas and inspire them to keep on going.
How To Use Sales Quotes To Inspire Your Team
You can send a new quote every morning to your team members by email or via your group chat, whether you use Slack or some other communication platform.
If you work with a team in person, consider writing the sales quote on a whiteboard or somewhere else it will be visible to all. You can also put it on a post-it note near the water cooler or coffee machine, or wherever your team hangs out.
The message in a quote might be subtle, but it can lift the mood and morale in the office. Quotes, especially from famous and influential people, have the power to shape people’s outlooks on life and the way they start the day.
Motivational Sales Quotes That Are Funny, Competitive & Uplifting
These funny and inspiring quotes from authors, writers, sales gurus, professionals, and other respected individuals can provide important insights to your sales team and make them more competitive. They include important tips and help your people look at marketing and sales differently.
I’d suggest switching up your daily quotes between sales quotes, resilience quotes, and motivational quotes (I’ll include the latter two in the sections after this one). That way, your sales team can get the best of all worlds, stay motivated, and improve their sales approaches at the same time.
Competitive Quotes About Making Sales
- “The best salespeople wonder what it would be like to be in the other person’s shoes. They know they can’t play that game unless they continually strive to train themselves in how we as human beings communicate.” — Bob Phibbs
- “Prospecting — find the man with the problem.” — Ben Friedman
- “The sales department isn’t the whole company, but the whole company had better be the sales department.” — Philip Kotler
- “There is no magic to closing. There are no magic phrases. Closing the deal is completely dependent on the situation.” — Alice Heiman
- “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
- “Hire sales people who are really smart problem solvers, but lack courage, hunger, and competitiveness, and your company will go out of business.” — Ben Horowitz
- “Great salespeople don’t have the ability to feel sorry for themselves.” — Barbara Corcoran
- “To succeed at selling a losing product, you must develop seriously superior sales techniques. In addition, you have to be massively competitive and incredibly hungry to survive in that environment.” — Ben Horowitz
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- “Start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.” — Jill Konrath
- “In business, if you can effectively sell the value of an idea, then it is easier to trade any valuable commodity.” — Wayne Chirisa
- “Establishing trust is better than any sales technique.” — Mike Puglia
- “To sell means to help. Find all the ways you can help your prospect.” ― Meir Ezra
- “Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
- “Keep yourself positive, cheerful and goal-oriented. Sales success is 80 percent attitude and only 20 percent aptitude.” — Brian Tracy
- “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman — not the attitude of the prospect.” — W. Clement Strong
- “A salesman minus enthusiasm is just another clerk.” — Harry F. Banks
- “In sales, a referral is the key to the door of resistance.” — Bo Bennett
- “A salesperson’s ethics and values contribute more to sales success than techniques or strategies.” — Ron Willingham
- “I have always said that everyone is in sales. Maybe you don’t hold the title of salesperson, but if the business you are in requires you to deal with people, you, my friend, are in sales.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Marketing is fundamental to what makes us human. Marketing is not solely about selling chewing gum, cars, cellphones, and tourist packages. Everything in life involves the process of marketing something to someone.” — Gad Saad
- “Don’t find customers for your product. Find products for your customers.” — Seth Godin.
- “If you don’t sell, it’s not the product that’s wrong, it’s you.” — Estee Lauder
- “Selling is not a pushy, winner takes all, macho act. It is an empathy led, process driven, and knowledge intensive discipline. Because, in the end, people buy from people.” — Subroto Bagchi
- “It is the cold that is dead — not the calling… I agree that no one should be “cold” calling anymore — meaning having a name & number, but lacking a compelling reason to call.” — Trish Bertuzzi
- “The premise of anything you do — whether it’s writing a song or any business — is ultimately that it hinges heavily on your belief in the thing that you’re doing and promoting and selling. It’s a reflection of who you are in a very deep way.” — Isaac Hanson
- “Ninety percent of selling is conviction, and 10 per cent is persuasion.” — Shiv Khera
- “Selling is helping people to do what they’re already inclined to do.” — Daniel H. Pink
- “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
- “Treat objections as requests for further information.” — Brian Tracy
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- “Sell the results, not the nuts and bolts.” ― Richie Norton
- “Jordan Belfort: Sell me this pen. Brad: Write down your name on that napkin for me. Belfort: I don’t have a pen. Brad: Exactly! Supply and demand, my friend.” — The Wolf of Wall Street
- “It is 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
- “All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.” — Bob Burg
- “Nobody likes to be sold to, but everyone likes to buy.” — Earl Taylor
- “People don’t buy because what you do is awesome. People buy because it makes them feel awesome.” — Tara Gentile
- “Don’t sell life insurance. Sell what life insurance can do.” — Ben Feldman
- “You don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customers when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation and watch your results improve.” — Henry Mackay
- “The buyer is always tuned in to one radio station: WIIFM (What’s In It For Me). The rest is filtered out as noise.” ― Steve Woodruff
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Funny Sales Quotes About Resilience
The following section focuses on quotes that talk about resilience, especially resilience in the sales world. Every salesperson will face days when they feel like giving up.
These quotes talk about having the resilience needed to be a successful salesperson. Some are said tongue in cheek and are quite humorous, while others take a more serious note.
The particular quotes in this section can help inspire your sales team to never give up and to keep fighting for their sales. Not all of them are from people you’d regard as sales professionals; for example, the first quote is from famous rapper Jay-Z.
Nevertheless, all of these quotes will likely hit a note with salespeople worldwide, regardless of which industry they work in.
- “I’m a hustler, baby; I sell water to a well!” ― Jay-Z
- “Put. That coffee. Down. Coffee’s for closers only.” ― David Mamet
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- “Every prospect you meet is a chance to create magic.” ― Yuri van der Sluis
- “For every sale you miss because you were too enthusiastic, you’ll miss a hundred because you weren’t enthusiastic enough.” — Zig Ziglar
- “There’s no lotion or potion that will make sales faster and easier for you — unless your potion is hard work.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
- “Live in such a way that you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip.” — Will Rogers
- “I sell blue sky and colored air.” — James Turrell
- “There is no prize in sales for second place. It’s win or nothing. The masters know this and strive for — they fight for — that winning edge.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
- “Before LinkedIn and other social networks, in the sales world, ABC stood for Always Be Closing. Now it means Always Be Connecting.” — Jill Rowley
- “On any given Monday, I am one sale closer and one idea away from being a millionaire.” — Larry D. Turner
- “The top salesperson in the organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Salespeople move the economy of a nation. Someone could have invented the most amazing invention that is going to be a revolution for a planet, but that product goes nowhere unless someone sells it to someone else.” ― Michael Delaware
- “Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” — Sam Levenson
- “Always set your goals higher than you could ever possibly reach. That way, when you barely fall short, you’re still better than everybody else.” ― Carson V. Heady
- “It’s like Forrest Gump said, ‘Life is like a box of chocolates.’ Your career is like a box of chocolates — you never know what you’re going to get. But everything you get is going to teach you something along the way and make you the person you are today. That’s the exciting part — it’s an adventure in itself.” — Nick Carter
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- “You’re a good salesman if you make people buy products they don’t need.” ― Toba Beta
- “There is no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make. Either you sell the client some stock or he sells you a reason he can’t. Either way, a sale is made, the only question is, who is gonna close? You or him? Now be relentless, that’s it, I’m done.” — Jim Young
- “Keep calm and sell on.” — Unknown
Uplifting Quotes To Motivate Salespeople
Sometimes, you need to provide your team with a boost and inspire them to give their all that day. Various things can make the atmosphere “tired” or depressed, including the weather.
A light, inspiring quote can brighten up the environment and get people pumped.
The quotes in this section aren’t exclusive to sales or marketing. Nevertheless, they do provide a boost of inspiration and motivation and can help salespeople get motivated to continue working, cold calling, or doing whatever else they’ve got on the agenda.
You’ll notice that a lot of these quotes revolve around not accepting failure or defeat and continuing on even if you experience failure many times. That’s especially important for salespeople, because they face failure and rejection on a constant basis.
The reality is that most leads won’t turn into sales. These quotes can uplift your salespeople and show them the bright side of things.
- “Do one thing every day that scares you.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt
- “The major difference between successful and unsuccessful people is that the former look for problems to resolve, whereas the latter make every attempt to avoid them.” — Grant Cardone
- “Accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward. If you want to fly, you have to give up what weighs you down.” ― Roy T. Bennett
- “Either run the day or the day runs you.” — Jim Rohn
- “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” — Thomas Edison
- “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” — Francis of Assisi
- “Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’!” — Audrey Hepburn
- “You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” — Walt Disney
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- “Out of difficulties grow miracles.” — Jean de la Bruyere
- “Quality performance starts with a positive attitude.” — Jeffrey Gitomer
- “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” — Colin Powell
- “It always seems impossible until it’s done.” — Nelson Mandela
- “You will never win if you never begin.” — Helen Rowland
- “Quality is not an act, it is a habit.” — Aristotle
- “Without hard work, nothing grows but weeds.” — Gordon B. Hinckley
- “All that is necessary to break the spell of inertia and frustration is this: Act as if it were impossible to fail. That is the talisman, the formula, the command of right about face which turns us from failure to success.” — Dorothea Brande
- “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” — Elon Musk
- “Success is often achieved by those who don’t know that failure is inevitable.” — Coco Chanel
- “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” — Lyndon B. Johnson
- “If you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride — and never quit, you’ll be a winner. The price of victory is high, but so are the rewards.” — Bear Bryant
- “Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don’t turn up at all.” — Sam Ewing
- “Today is always the most productive day of your week.” — Mark Hunter
- “Opportunities don’t happen. You create them.” — Chris Grosser
- “High expectations are the key to everything.” —Sam Walt
- “Those who make excuses, don’t make progress.” ― Amit Kalantri
- “It’s not necessary to fear the prospect of failure, but to be determined not to fail.” — Jimmy Carter
- “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” ― Winston S. Churchill
- “Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you would rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, drive through the other barrier. And after you have done that, do it again the next time.” — Seth Godin
- “Don’t take it personally.” — Grant Olsen
- “Notice the difference between what happens when a man says to himself, I have failed three times, and what happens when he says, I am a failure.” — S. I. Hayakawa
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- “Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.” — Jim Rohn
- “Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” — Og Mandino
- “If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” — Tom Stoppard
- “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding on the 20th.” — Julie Andrews
- “Whenever you see a successful person, you only see the public glories, never the private sacrifices to reach them.” — Vaibhav Shah
- “Remember that failure is an event, not a person.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Try not to become a man of success. Rather, become a man of value.” ― Albert Einstein
- “Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” ― Winston S. Churchill
- “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” — Calvin Coolidge
- “Before success comes in any man’s life, he’s sure to meet with much temporary defeat and, perhaps, some failures. When defeat overtakes a man, the easiest and the most logical thing to do is to quit. That’s exactly what the majority of men do.” — Napoleon Hill
- “No matter what you’re going through, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it may seem hard to get to it, but you can do it and just keep working towards it, and you’ll find the positive side of things.” — Demi Lovato
- “Success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has overcome.” — Booker T. Washington
- “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long-run, I say! — success will follow you, precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.” ― Viktor E. Frankl
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Wrapping It Up
There are many more quotes that your sales team might find helpful and informative. Goodreads and BrainyQuote are two great resources for finding quotes on any topic or for any purpose.
Experiment with using quotes to uplift and engage your sales team, and you will likely see positive results — don’t underestimate the power of a quote to lift spirits and spur people on.
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