200 Motivational Sales Quotes for 2024

We live in an era of constant stress. Social media and technology have created higher expectations of connectedness and activity levels. This is especially true for sales professionals.

Working in sales is a difficult endeavor. Therefore, any time you can get an extra edge via motivation, you should embrace it. So whether you are a sales rep, manager, or business owner, use the motivational quotes below to rise above daily challenges:

Why Sales Quotes are Useful

Sales quotes are more than mere platitudes. They are useful for several reasons:

Snap Out of Slumps: Everyone falls into slumps occasionally. Reading sales quotes can help put you back on the right mental track.

Reframe: When you lose a deal in sales, it can be demotivating. Sales quotes help you look at the situation from a higher, more positive perspective.

Controlling the Mental Landscape: Negative thoughts grow much easier than positive ones. Seed your mind with successful imagery and ideas so that your attitude will transfer over to your prospects.

Changing it Up: A large part of sales is studying your market and refining sales techniques. However, sales quotes are more of a creative, subjective type of input. Consuming inspirational quotes can keep your desire fresh.

Sales quotes are great food for the salesperson’s mind. When nothing else works, read this list of powerful quotes from successful individuals around the world:

Motivational Sales Quotes for 2023

1. “Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you’ll start having positive results.” – Willie Nelson

2. “The story is the heart of the sale.” – Matthew Pollard

3. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain

4.“Great sellers go into a meeting with multiple next-steps; this allows them to proactively respond if a plan does not unfold as planned.” – Tibor Shanto

5. “How you sell is more important than what you sell.” – Andy Paul

6. “Either run the day or the day runs you.” -Jim Rohn

7.“Dream big! 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

8. “Don’t expect to be motivated every day to get out there and make things happen. You won’t be. Don’t count on motivation. Count on Discipline.” – Jocko Willink

9. “Establishing trust is better than any sales technique.” – Mike Puglia

10. “Grit, in a word, is stamina. But it’s not just stamina in your effort. It’s also stamina in your direction, stamina in your interests. If you are working on different things but all of them very hard, you’re not really going to get anywhere. You’ll never become an expert.” – Angela Duckworth

11. “A goal is a dream with a deadline.” -Napoleon Hill

12. “There is no magic to closing. There are no magic phrases. Closing the deal is completely dependent on the situation.” – Alice Heiman

13. “If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey

14. “Sales enablement can’t be reactive. It has to be a full-blown strategy that’s woven into the fabric of the company.” – Roderick Jefferson

15. “If you are working on something that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs

16. “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

17. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” -C.S. Lewis

18. “True productivity comes from allowing yourself to make mistakes. Do so, and you’ll succeed more often than any ten perfectionists.” – Laura Stack

19. “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” -Thomas Edison

20. “If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything.“ – John Wooden

21. “I’m not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” – Stephen Covey

22. “You must expect great things of yourself before you can do them.” – Michael Jordan

23. “Don’t let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.” -John R. Wooden

24. “It’s no longer about interrupting, pitching and closing. It is about listening, diagnosing and prescribing.” – Mark Roberge

25. “I never lose. I either win or learn.” – Nelson Mandela

26. “Practice is just as valuable as a sale. The sale will make you a living; the skill will make you a fortune.” – Jim Rohn

27. “If you don’t give up on something you truly believe in, you will find a way.” -Roy T. Bennett

28. “Courage is not having the strength to go on; it is going on when you don’t have the strength.” – Teddy Roosevelt

29. “You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.” -Henry Ford

30. “Sometimes the most influential thing we can do is listen.“ – Bob Burg

31. “Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work, so most people don’t recognize them” – Ann Landers

32. “Sales are contingent upon the attitude of the salesman – not the attitude of the prospect.” – W. Clement Stone

33. “There are no limits to what you can accomplish, except the limits you place on your own thinking.” – Brian Tracy

34. “Great salespeople are relationship builders who provide value and help their customers win.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

35. “I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.” – Bruce Lee

36. “Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Addair

37. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” -Pablo Picasso

38. “Become the person who would attract the results you seek.” -Jim Cathcart

39. “When reps take the role of a curious student rather than an informed expert, buyers are much more inclined to engage.” – Jeff Hoffman

40. “What you focus on is what you get.” – Bob Burg

41. “To build a long-term, successful enterprise, when you don’t close a sale, open a relationship.” – Patricia Fripp

42. “If you don’t believe in what you’re selling, neither will your prospect.” – Frank Bettger

43. “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

44. “Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes but they don’t quit.” – Conrad Hilton

45. “If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” – Seth Godin

46. “The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine

47. “Sellers who listen to buyers carefully and then give them the missing ingredients – those are the ones who stand out.” – Deb Calvert

48. “The one thing you’re putting off or dreading? That’s your brain telling you it’s the thing you need to do most and next. Get it done. Stop dreading. Do.“ – Nancy Nardin

49. “Success looks a lot like failure up until the moment you break through the finish line.” – Dan Waldschmidt

50. “Sales success comes after you stretch yourself past your limits on a daily basis.” – Omar Periu

51. “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.” -Zig Ziglar

52. “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” -Henry Ford

53. “Sales is an outcome, not a goal. It’s a function of doing numerous things right, starting from the moment you target a potential prospect until you finalize the deal.” – Jill Konrath

54. “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

55. “Approach each customer with the idea of helping him or her solve a problem or achieve a goal, not of selling a product or service.” – Brian Tracy

56. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Helen Keller, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” – H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

57. “Before LinkedIn and other social networks, in the sales world, ABC stood for Always Be Closing. Now it means Always Be Connecting.” – Jill Rowley

58. “You can’t give up! If you give up, you’re like everybody else.” -Chris Evert

59. “Excellence is not a skill. It’s an attitude.” – Ralph Marston

60. “The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.” -Walt Disney

61.  “You just can’t beat the person who never gives up.” -Babe Ruth

62. “What differentiates sellers today is their ability to bring fresh ideas.” -Jill Konrath

63. “All business is personal… Make your friends before you need them.” -Robert L. Johnson

64. “Beware of monotony; it’s the mother of all deadly sins.” -Edith Wharton

65. “I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done.” -Lucille Ball

66. “Confidence is 10 percent hard work and 90 percent delusion.” -Tina Fey

67. “You have to learn to keep your eyes on an ultimate goal. If you lose sight of that goal, you have to get out.” -Hamdi Ulukaya

68. “There’s never any guarantee that anyone will like you. So if anyone likes you at all, you’ve already won.” -Chelsea Handler

69. “You can only become truly accomplished at something you love. Don’t make money your goal. Instead, pursue the things you love doing, and then do them so well that people can’t take their eyes off you.” -Maya Angelou

70. “Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting.” -Christopher Morley

71. “I have never worked a day in my life without selling. If I believe in something, I sell it, and I sell it hard.” -Estée Lauder

72.“If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on.” -Sheryl Sandberg

73. “Never ever chase money. You should chase success, because with success money follows.” -Wilfred Emmanuel-Jones

74. “Be passionate and move forward with gusto every single hour of every single day until you reach your goal.” -Ava DuVernay

75. “Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.” -Vince Lombardi

76. “There have been so many people who have said to me, ‘You can’t do that,’ but I’ve had an innate belief that they were wrong. Be unwavering and relentless in your approach.” –Halle Berry

77. “No matter how many customers you have, each is an individual. The day you start thinking of them as this amorphous ‘collection’ and stop thinking of them as people is the day you start going out of business.” -Dharmesh Shah

78.“Winning is great, sure, but if you are really going to do something in life, the secret is learning how to lose. Nobody goes undefeated all the time. If you can pick up after a crushing defeat, and go on to win again, you are going to be a champion someday.” -Wilma Rudolph

79. “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” -Mark Hunter

80. “Knowing what must be done does away with fear.” -Rosa Parks

81. “I have stood on a mountain of no’s for one yes.” -B. Smith

82. “The biggest challenge in business is not the competition, it’s what goes on inside your own head.” – Barbara Corcoran

83. “Just don’t give up what you’re trying to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.” -Ella Fitzgerald

84. “Solve customer problems and make sure that the customer is representative of a large market and then you will have a pretty good formula.” -Melanie Perkins

85. “Success isn’t about how much money you make; it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives.” -Michelle Obama

86. “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

87. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” -Alice Walker

88. “If you want to make money, you have to help someone else make money.” –Russell Simmons

89. “If we are going to be part of the solution, we have to engage the problems.” -Majora Carter

90. “I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took an excuse.” – Florence Nightingale

91. “Instead of looking at the past, I put myself ahead twenty years and try to look at what I need to do now in order to get there then.” -Diana Ross

92. “If you don’t risk anything, you risk even more.” -Erica Jong

93. “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” – Wayne Gretzky

94. “High expectations are the key to everything.” -Sam Walton

95. “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

96. “The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” -Bruce Lee

97. “I thrive on obstacles. If I’m told that it can’t be done, then I push harder.” -Issa Rae

98. “The harder you work, the luckier you get.’’ -Mike Adenuga

99. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” -Winston Churchill

100. “Cherish forever what makes you unique, cuz you’re really a yawn if it goes.” -Bette Midler

101. “Leadership belongs to those who take it.” -Sheryl Sandberg

102. “Nothing is impossible; the word itself says ‘I’m possible!'” -Audrey Hepburn

103. “Don’t settle for average. Bring your best to the moment. Then, whether it fails or succeeds, at least you know you gave all you had. We need to live the best that’s in us.” -Angela Bassett

104. “Whatever you are, be a good one.” -Abraham Lincoln

105. “Growth and comfort do not coexist.” -Ginni Rometty

106. “The road to Easy Street goes through the sewer.” -John Madden

107. “Life is short, and it’s up to you to make it sweet.” –Sadie Delany

108. “When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are.” -Oprah Winfrey

109. “There’s so much creativity in brokeness. Brokeness will have you making it work.”

110. “You can never leave footprints that last if you are always walking on tiptoe.” -Leymah Gbowee

111. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them yourself.” -Eleanor Roosevelt

112. “If they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” -Shirley Chisholm

113. “You can’t just sit there and wait for people to give you that golden dream. You’ve got to get out there and make it happen for yourself.” -Diana Ross

114. “Don’t try to do everything by yourself, but try to connect with people and resources. Having that discipline and perseverance is really important.” -Chieu Cao

115. “How you sell matters. What your process is matters. But how your customers feel when they engage with you matters more.” – Tiffani Bova

116. “Keep your sales pipeline full by prospecting continuously. Always have more people to see than you have time to see them.” – Brian Tracy

117. “Motivation will almost always beat mere talent.” – Norman Ralph Augustin

118. “The most unprofitable item ever manufactured is an excuse.” – John Mason

119. “The man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to see how much he can give for a dollar, instead of how little he can give for a dollar, is bound to succeed.” – Henry Ford

120. “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got.” – W. L. Bateman

121. “Ninety percent of selling is conviction, and 10 percent is persuasion.” – Shiv Khera

122. “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. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, drive through the other barrier. And after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.” – Seth Godin

123. “An effective process has the reps thinking in terms of ‘them’ as opposed to ‘us.’“ – Trish Bertuzzi

124. “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

125. “We must focus on purposes instead of just setting goals, for long-term vision is what keeps us from being frustrated by short-term failure.” – Dan Clark

126. ‘Without hustle, your talent will only get you so far.” – Gary Vaynerchuck

127. “Nothing will work unless you do.” – Maya Angelou

128. “There will be obstacles and there will be doubters. There will be mistakes. But with hard work, there are no limits.” – Michael Phelps

129. “Dreams don’t work unless you do.” – John C. Maxwell

130. “Great things are done by a series of small things done together.” – Vincent van Gogh

131. “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

132. “Work until your bank account looks like a phone number.” – Unknown

133. “I hated every minute of training, but I thought to myself, ‘Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’” – Muhammad Ali

134. “Be miserable. Or motivate yourself. Whatever has to be done, it’s always your choice.” – Wayne Dyer

135. “Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryun

136. “Action is the foundational key to all success.” – Pablo Picasso

137. “If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?” – Joe Namath

138. “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

139. “Value the relationship more than your quota.” – Jeffrey Gitomer

140. “Leaders foster collaboration by building trust and facilitating relationships. They strengthen others by increasing self-determination and developing competence.” – Deb Calvert

141. “Don’t sell life insurance. Sell what life insurance can do.” – Ben Feldman

142. “Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result.” – Oscar Wilde

143. “There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.” – Beverly Sills

144. “Business opportunities are like buses; there’s always another one coming.” – Richard Branson

145. “Prospecting – find the man with the problem.” – Ben Friedman

146. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in, and day-out.” – Robert Collier

147. “You have to drop your sales mentality and start working with your prospects as if they’ve already hired you.” – Jill Konrath

148. “Nobody likes to be sold to, but everybody likes to buy.” – Earl Taylor

149. “A fool with a (sales) tool is still a fool” – Jill Rowley

150. “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

151. “Fall down seven times and stand up eight.” – Proverb

152. “When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard”, I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?” – Sydney J. Harris

153. “I design, manufacture, distribute, and sell elevator buttons. I specialize in the fourth floor. And I don’t mean to brag, but I’m such a good salesman that I could sell one of my fourth-floor elevator buttons to the owner of a three-story building.” – Jarod Kintz

154.”Your expertise has tremendous value. You are offering your expertise, not asking to be hired.” – Leah Neaderthal

155. “In sales, a referral is the key to the door of resistance.” – Bo Bennett

156. “People trust more, listen more, buy more when they learn about you from someone they respect and trust.” – Jennifer Gluckow

157. “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

158. “The difference between try and triumph is just a little umph!” – Marvin Phillips

159. “Chase the vision, not the money; the money will end up following you.” – Tony Hsieh

160. “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

161. “People who can close deals love life.” – Grant Cardone

162. “We cannot solve problems with the kind of thinking we employed when we came up with them.” — Albert Einstein

163. “Stay away from those people who try to disparage your ambitions. Small minds will always do that, but great minds will give you a feeling that you can become great too.” — Mark Twain

164. “Learn as if you will live forever, live like you will die tomorrow.” — Mahatma Gandhi

165. “Nature has given us all the pieces required to achieve exceptional wellness and health, but has left it to us to put these pieces together.”—Diane McLaren

166. “When you change your thoughts, remember to also change your world.”—Norman Vincent Peale

167. “Make a customer, not a sale.” – Katherine Barchetti

168. “Set your goals high, and don’t stop till you get there.” – Bo Jackson

169. “High-level buyers want to talk to people who know more than they do. They hunger not for information but insight.” – Barbara Weaver Smith

170. “Failure is not the falling down, but the staying down.” – Mary Pickford

171. “[Sales and marketing] have to start talking to each other. They’ve got to stop spilling each other’s beers.” – Ann Handley

172. “Companies should be selling ideas more than benefits. Sell Ideas. Not stuff.” – Aaron Ross

173. “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” – Milton Berle

174. “I’ve worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I will not let myself down.” – Mia Hamm

175. “A mediocre person tells. A good person explains. A superior person demonstrates. A great person inspires others to see for themselves.” – Harvey Mackay

176. “Hey, here’s a gourd!’ is not so different as, ‘Hey, here’s enterprise sales software!’ The language changes, but the humans are the same.” – Chris Pen

177. “I think the biggest mistake that salespeople make today is that they try to pretend they’re not salespeople.” – Irreverent Sales Girl

178. “The only thing that’s keeping you from getting what you want is the story you keep telling yourself.” – Tony Robbins

179. “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

180. “Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better. Don’t wish for fewer problems, wish for more skills. And Don’t wish for fewer challenges, wish for more wisdom. For things to change, you have to change.” – Jim Rohn

181. “Fear is the destroyer of dreams and the killer of ambitions.” – Jeffrey Benjamin

182. “Buyers do business with YOU, not with your company and not with technology.” – Joanne Black

183. “Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” – Steve Jobs

184. “Merely satisfying customers will not be enough to earn their loyalty. Instead, they must experience exceptional service worthy of their repeat business and referral. Understand the factors that drive this customer revolution.” – Rick Tate

185. “Every sale has five obstacles: no need, no money, no hurry, no desire, no trust.” – Zig Ziglar

186. “On any given Monday I am one sale closer and one idea away from being a millionaire.” – Larry D. Turner

187. “People don’t just buy your products that they can see; they buy your attitude that they can sense.” – Roxanne Emmerich

188. “No amount of pre-call planning is going to help close business if you aren’t able to ask for what you need in order to conduct business. It’s a classic case of working on the wrong end of the problem.” – Colleen Stanley

189. “Champions keep playing until they get it right.” – Billie Jean King

190. “The best sales questions have your expertise wrapped into them.” – Jill Konrath

191. “Selling is really about having conversations with people and helping improve their company or their life.” – Lori Richardson

192. “It ain’t over ’til it’s over.” – Yogi Berra

193. “People don’t buy because what you do is awesome. People buy because it makes them feel awesome.” – Tara Gentile

194. “You don’t need a big close, as many sales reps believe. You risk losing your customer when you save all the good stuff for the end. Keep the customer actively involved throughout your presentation and watch your results improve.” – Harvey Mackay

195. “Customers don’t care at all whether you close the deal or not. They care about improving their business. It’s easy to forget this in the heat of a sales cycle.” – Aaron Ross

196. “Never say more than is necessary.” – Richard Brinsley Sheridan

197. “Yes is the destination – No is how you get there.” – Andrea Waltz

198. “In the world of Internet Customer Service, it’s important to remember your competitor is only one mouse click away.” – Doug Warner

199. “I never see failure as failure, but only as the game I must play and win.” – Tom Hopkins

200. “Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. You want to get rich, but you don’t want to make cold calls. Make the cold call.” – Grant Cardone

Conclusion

It’s inevitable that in sales you will be knocked down occasionally. The key is to get up and keep fighting as soon as possible. So save this list in a handy place, then review it whenever you need that extra motivation to do difficult work.