99 Motivational Sales Quotes to Inspire Your Sales Team

At Sales Higher, our focus is on B2B lead generation. A lot of our time is spent on B2B lead prospecting, writing cold emails, and supporting business owners to sell more by getting in front of people who are interested in your solutions.

If there is one thing we know all too well is the hustle and grind that comes with sales. For every yes, there are dozens of no’s, unanswered emails, and deals stuck in the sales proposal stage.

And on those tough days, it helps to remind yourself that you’re not alone.

Some of the world’s greatest sales leaders, thinkers, and business owners have all faced challenges and failure. Despite these setbacks, it didn’t derail their road to success. 

In fact, it helped by creating resilience and perseverance.

 So the next time you feel overwhelmed and need to change your mindset, read this list of famous motivational sales quotes about success, failure, and everything in between.

99 Motivational Sales Quotes 

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

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

“You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”- Aristotle

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

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

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

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

“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

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

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

Growth and comfort do not coexist. -Ginni Rometty

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

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

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

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

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

“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

You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day. –Marian Wright Edelman

“You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” – Zig Ziglar

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

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

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

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

Remember, people don’t believe it when WE say it. They believe it when THEY say it “- Shari Levitin

“All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like, and trust.”– Bob Burg

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

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

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

“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

“All progress takes place outside the comfort zone.” – Michael John Bobak

“Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.” -Tony Robbins

“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.”- Bobby Unser

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

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Every email is an opportunity to test a different benefit or angle.” – Heather R Morgan

“Buyers do business with you, not with your company and not with your technology.”- Joanne Black

“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

“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

“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

“I got lucky because I never gave up the search. Are you quitting too soon? Or are you willing to pursue luck with a vengeance?” -Jill Konrath

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

“The questions you ask are more important than the things you could ever say.”– Thomas Freese

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Numbers alone won’t fix anything. But they will help you identify where the problem is.”- Steli Efti

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you surely don’t know what you’re doing.”- Edward Deming

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

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

“If you harness the power of innovation, you’ll surely convert sales complexity into a brutal competitive advantage.”– Tim Sanders

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

“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.”- Zig Ziglar

“You can’t propose a mutually beneficial business relationship until you can understand their business.”– Craig Rosenberg

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

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

“The customer doesn’t care about features, rather they care about solving their problems.”– Trish Bertuzzi

“Selling is essentially a transference of feelings.”– Zig Ziglar

“Selling is really about having conversations with people while helping them improve their company or their life.”- Lori Richardson

“Treat objections as requests for further information.” – Brian Tracy

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

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

“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

“Killer salespeople uncover true problems behind desired solutions.” – Aaron Ross

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we must do.” -Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

 “The most difficult thing is the decision to act. The rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process, is its own reward.” -Amelia Earhart

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

“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

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

“Stop saying ‘later.’ You WON’T do it later. Do it or decide not to do it.” – Chris Brogan

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

“Train your prospects to pay attention and to open and read emails that you send. Don’t encourage them to ignore or delete your messages because they are of inconsistent or no value to them.” – Bridget Gleason

“Far too often, salespeople get ahead of the prospect. They predict a close date based on their quota instead of on the prospect’s needs. The only way to know when a deal will close is to ask the customer.” – Alice Heiman

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.” —Charles Swindoll

“Selling through social channels is the closest thing to being a fly on the wall in your customers, prospects and competitors’ world.” – Jim Keenan

“A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week.” —George Patton

“Successful people ask a lot more questions during sales calls than their less successful colleagues.” – Neil Rackham

“Buyers don’t believe anything you have to say to them about your product or service until they first believe in you.” – Deb Calvert

“Humanize the sales process or perish.” – Steli Efti

“Don’t watch the clock; do what it does. Keep going.” —Sam Levenson

“You will attract way more buyers if you are offering to teach them something of value to them than you will ever attract by simply trying to sell them your product or service.” – Chet Holmes

“If you harness the power of innovation, you’ll convert sales complexity into a brutal competitive advantage.” – Tim Sanders

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

“Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough.” —Og Mandino

“Talking isn’t selling, and selling isn’t closing.” — Steli Efti

“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

“For every reason, it’s not possible; there are hundreds of people who have faced the same circumstances and succeeded.” —Jack Canfield

“I found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances, be more active, show up more often.” —Brian Tracy

“I have not failed; I have just found ten thousand ways that don’t work.” —Thomas Edison

Feeling Inspired?

There you have it.

A complete round-up of the best motivational sales quotes of all time. Bookmark this article for the next time you need some inspiration to get through a difficult deal.

Which of these quotes resonated with you the most? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let us know on our contact page.