86 sales motivational quotes to inspire your sales team
Topics
Sales reps often face difficult clients, an array of objections or missed quotas – all of which can take a toll on motivation. You can boost your team’s motivation by improving sales tactics and strategies, but also by starting each day with a fresh perspective and a positive attitude.
As noted salesman and motivational speaker Zig Ziglar put it:
In your efforts to keep spirits high, something as simple as an inspirational sales quote is sometimes all a sales rep needs to refocus their energy and tackle the sales pipeline.
Whether you want to inspire your team to improve key performance metrics or overcome fear of rejection and make crucial sales calls, there’s a quote to help.
In this article, we’ll share motivational sales quotes on topics including sales and business, as well as aspirational quotes you can use to help your team reach quality performance and close deals.
Motivational sales quotes
“If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey
“Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh
“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
“Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
“Ninety percent of selling is conviction and 10 percent is persuasion.” – Shiv Khera
You have to drop your sales mentality and start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you. — Jill Konrath
“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
“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin
“Companies should be selling ideas more than benefits. Sell Ideas. Not stuff.” – Aaron Ross
“Make a customer, not a sale.” – Katherine Barchetti
“In sales, a referral is the key to the door of resistance.” – Bo Bennett
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates
“A-B-C. Always Be Closing.” – Blake in Glengarry Glen Ross
“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
“You don't compete on price. You compete on relationships.” – Patricia Fripp
"Honest and transparent content is the best sales tool in the world. Period." – Marcus Sheridan
“Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman, not the attitude of the prospect.” – William Clement Stone
“The sales compensation plan is Batman, the sales contest is Robin.” – Mark Roberge
“To me, job titles don’t matter. Everyone is in sales. It’s the only way we stay in business.” – Harvey Mackay
Want to Learn How to Influence Your Prospect’s Buying Decisions?
Motivational business quotes
“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
For a leader, getting results is more important than getting credit. – Bob Burg
“Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.” – Henry J. Kaiser
“80% of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen
“You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.” – Wayne Gretzky
“Don’t wish it were easier, wish you were better.” – Jim Rohn
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anais Nin
“Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” – Napoleon Hill
“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston 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
“By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.” – Robert Frost
“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
“Don't watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” – Sam Levenson
“Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone
“Goals allow you to control the direction of change in your favour.” – 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
General motivational quotes
“Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” – Vince Lombardi
“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
“The best revenge is massive success.” – Frank Sinatra
“Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” – John R. Wooden
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
“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
“Some men see things as they are and ask why … I dream of things that never were and ask why not?” – Robert Kennedy
“The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” – Bruce Lee
“If you were happy every day of your life, you wouldn't be human, you'd be a game show host.” – Gabriel Heather
“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
“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
10 inspirational sales quotes from Zig Ziglar, the king of sales quotes
No collection of motivational sales quotes would be complete without at least a few contributions from Zig Ziglar. The top-performing salesman devoted a big part of his career to sales training and has inspired generations of sales professionals.
We opened the article with an old favorite quote from Ziglar. Here are ten more of our top motivational thoughts from this sales legend.
“Statistics suggest that when customers complain, business owners and managers ought to get excited about it. The complaining customer represents a huge opportunity for more business.”
“If you aim at nothing, you will hit it every time.”
“For every sale you miss because you're too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you're not enthusiastic enough.”
“Every choice you make has an end result.”
“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”
“It’s easier to explain price once than to apologize for quality forever.”
“Remember that failure is an event, not a person. Yesterday ended last night.”
“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four-hour days.”
“If people like you, they’ll listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.”
“If you are not willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.”
Final thoughts
Sometimes a good sales rep just needs a little motivation throughout the sales process. A great sales manager will develop an effective sales strategy that includes encouraging sales team members to trust their skills and break out of their comfort zone.
Sharing inspirational sales quotes in your daily or weekly check-in emails can be a big boost to building teams and guiding your organization toward sales success.
Get Organized With Your Free Sales Pipeline Excel Template
Share your thoughts with our Community
Start or continue the conversation with like-minded sales and marketing professionals on our Community.
Join our Community
