Good Salesman Quotes & Sayings

Some salesmen think that selling is like eating - to satisfy an existing appetite; but a good salesman is like a good cook - he can create an appetite when the buyer isn't hungry. — George Horace Lorimer

The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts. — Andrew S. Grove

Livingston: Some aspects of business turned out to be less of a mystery than you had thought. What did you find you were better at than you thought? Graham: I found I could actually sell moderately well. I could convince people of stuff. I learned a trick for doing this: to tell the truth. A lot of people think that the way to convince people of things is to be eloquent - to have some bag of tricks for sliding conclusions into their brains. But there's also a sort of hack that you can use if you are not a very good salesman, which is simply tell people the truth. Our strategy for selling our software to people was: make the best software and then tell them, truthfully, "this is the best software." And they could tell we were telling the truth. Another advantage of telling the truth is that you don't have to remember what you've said. You don't have to keep any state in your head. It's a purely functional business strategy. (Hackers will get what I mean.) — Jessica Livingston

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. (This is not actually true. The raid to Hell is paved with frozen door-to-door salesman. On weekends, many of the younger demons go ice skating down it.) — Terry Pratchett

So I'm to duel with a snake-hope I can manage to be a good enough impersonation of a mongoose. — Nick Bantock

Beware of faking: people will believe you. People believe those who sell lotions that make lost hair grow back. They sense instinctively that the salesman is putting together truths that don't go together, that he's not being logical, that he's not speaking in good faith. But they've been told that God is mysterious, unfathomable, so to them incoherence is the closest thing to God. The farfetched is the closest thing to miracle. — Umberto Eco

He was not a good salesman, especially if selling himself. He didn't believe in boasting, and didn't like listening to others do it, either. He wanted to be recognized for his actions, not his words. "I don't know how to ask people to sponsor me," Zhou said. "It feels just like begging people for money. I can't do that. — Dan Washburn

Ever notice how amused people are when you point out one of their mannerisms or a funny quirk about them? They start laughing and getting happy because they're thinking, "People notice me! I'm relevent!" It's OK to have these instincts, but you have to suppress them a bit. There are 6 billion people here, so it's not all about you. You need to let other people talk for a while and pay attention to their world for a sec. — Lesley Arfin

It was late afternoon. This time tomorrow he would be somewhere on a good graveled road, driving his car past things that happened to people, quicker than their happening.
("Death of a Traveling Salesman") — Eudora Welty

I am not ashamed that I was once a vacuum-cleaner salesman, only that I was a *good* vacuum-cleaner salesman. — Robert Morley

You're good salesman,
if you make people buy
product they don't need. — Toba Beta

Engel's biopsychosocial model proposed that psychological and social factors could either protect a person from illness or increase his or her susceptibility to it. Such factors include a person's beliefs and attitudes, how supported and loved a person feels by family and friends, the psychological and environmental stresses to which one is exposed, and personal health behaviors. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

A good salesman knows you better than you know yourself. If you are Chinese, they will sell you yield. If you're European, they will stroke your sense of superiority. If you're an ambitious manager of an American pension fund, sitting on piles of money but bound by rules and regulations, they will find a kosher way for you to become the big swinging dick you always knew you were. And if you are an American hedge fund - a serious fund, not two guys and a Bloomberg - a smart salesman cuts the bullshit and both of you reach an understanding. — Katya G. Cohen

Johnny almost grinned as he nodded. "Tuff enough," he managed, and by the way his eyes were glowing, I figured Southern gentlemen had nothing on Johnny Cade. — S.E. Hinton

I worked as a telemarketer for an SAT-prep company. That was the worst of it, because I had to call people in post-Katrina New Orleans and offer them this very, very expensive SAT class. And I'm not even a good salesman. — Kate McKinnon

I have a definite talent for convincing people to try something new. I am a good salesman. When I'm on form, I can sell anything. — Brian Eno

As more Americans meet Mitt Romney, I think they'll see beyond the handsome exterior and see not just a good salesman, but a thoughtful (and, yes, conservative) leader. — Kathryn Jean Lopez

The classes of problems which are respectively known and not
known to have good algorithms are of great theoretical interest. [ ... ]
I conjecture that there is no good algorithm for the traveling
salesman problem. My reasons are the same as for any mathematical
conjecture: (1) It is a legitimate mathematical possibility, and
(2) I do not know. — Jack Edmonds

Say whatever you want. But the United States has a kickass military and really good bullshit marketing people. If this country was a person it would be a used car salesman with a flamethrower. — Richard Jeni

You've got pretty good taste." She pulled out a suit, looked at it, put it back, pulled out another. "I can remember, you always wore good suits, good-looking suits, even before you were rich."
"I like suits," he said. "They feel good. I like Italian suits, actually. I've had a couple of British suits, and they were okay, but they felt ... constructed. Like I was wearing a building. But the Italians - they know how to make a suit."
"Ever try French suits?"
"Yeah, three or four times. They're okay, but a little ... sharp-looking. They made me feel like a watch salesman."
"How about American suits?"
:Efficient," he said. "Do the job; don't feel like much. You always wear an American suit if you don't want people to notice you. — John Sandford

Because you're such a good salesman, and if you go work for a company, they're going to use you as a salesman. If you're going to be a salesman, you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education — Randy Pausch

The good lawyer is the great salesman. — Janet Reno

Being a salesman and an actor were not that dissimilar: It is a good lesson in covering up your feelings. No one wants to buy from someone who looks depressed. — Dougray Scott

That is why no amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party that inflicted those bitter experiences on me. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin. They condemned millions of first-class people to semi-starvation. Now the Tories are pouring out money in propaganda of all sorts and are hoping by this organised sustained mass suggestion to eradicate from our minds all memory of what we went through. But, I warn you young men and women, do not listen to what they are saying now. Do not listen to the seductions of Lord Woolton. He is a very good salesman. If you are selling shoddy stuff you have to be a good salesman. But I warn you they have not changed, or if they have they are slightly worse than they were. — Aneurin Bevan

The only trouble was, I wasn't with a group of my peers. Who are my peers? [ ... ] And there I was with a dismal coven of repentant soaks
a car salesman who had fallen from the creed of the Kiwanis, an Jewish woman whose family misunderstood her attempts to put them straight on everything, a couple of schoolteachers who can't ever have taught anything except Civics, and some business men whose god was Mammon, and a truck-driver who was included, I gather, to keep our eyes on the road and our discussions hitched to reality. Whose reality? Certainly not mine. So the imp of perversity prompted me to make pretty patterns of our discussions together, and screw the poor boozers up worse then they'd been screwed up before. For the first time in years, I was having a really good time. — Robertson Davies

If we truly believe in the power of cultural institutions to impact communities and engage authentically with social justice issues, if we believe in museums' capacity to bring about social change, improve cultural awareness, and even transform the world, than we must also believe that our internal practices have an impact, and must act according to the changes we seek. — Monica O Montgomery

The devil is a cross between a really good used-car salesman and a game-show host, but with a lot more style and charm.There's a little Cary Grant thrown in there too. — Ray Wise

When you're dealing with machines or anything that you build, it either works or it doesn't, no matter how good of a salesman you are. — Marc Andreesen

But on a utilitarian level, I realize that to try to accomplish the greatest good for the greatest number of people, sometimes we have to become salesmen for what we believe, and part of being a salesman is being effective. — Moby

And go to San Francisco! It's one of the twelve most interesting cities in the world. California has immense contrasts - the utmost wealth and the most hideous squalor. But there's beauty and interest everywhere. — Oliver Sacks

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
SO I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
-Kurt Vonnegut "A man without a country" p. 132 — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

When we sit thoughtfully pondering in a quiet place and the Spirit speaks to us, there will come into our hearts and souls the things that are truly our greatest desires, those things that are more important in the long run than anything else. Away from the appeal of the world, that greatest desire usually relates to relationships with family and with the Lord. And when that priority is in place, then we begin to plan our lives with purpose. We begin to have goals that cause us to live with anticipation. — Ardeth Kapp

Behold the complacent salesman retailing the Good and True.
One can even buy a so-called Religion, which is really but common
morality sanctified with flowers and music. Rob the Church of her
accessories and what remains behind? Yet the trusts thrive marvelously,
for the prices are absurdly cheap,
a prayer for a ticket to heaven,
a diploma for an honorable citizenship.Hide yourself under a bushel
quickly, for if your real usefulness were known to the world you would
soon be knocked down to the highest bidder by the public auctioneer. — Okakura Kakuzo