Quotes & Sayings About Salesman
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Top Salesman Quotes

But the fascinating and unbelievable-but-true thing about Dr. Jefferson Jeffersonis that he was not a doctor of any kind. He was just an orange juice salesman named Jefferson Jefferson. When he became rich and powerful, he went to court, made "Jefferson" his middle name, and then changed his first name to "Dr." Capital D. Lowercase r. Period. — John Green

Happiness is being stuck in an elevator and discovering the ravishing blonde with you is a liquor salesman with a case of samples. — Johnny Carson

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

At one point my dad called me and said, 'You have always been a great salesman. I think it's time you come home and sell swimming pools.' — Courteney Cox

The group made the salesman aware in no uncertain terms that his tendency to avoid problem-solving by ignoring a problem in the hope that it would go away was in itself his major problem. — M. Scott Peck

The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store.
Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. — Sinclair Lewis

I've always had a bawdy sense of humor. My father was a traveling salesman and he would bring jokes home. He would say, "Honey, you can take this one to school, but you can't take that one to school." — Betty White

At the dealership, I pulled out the sieve and toyed with it threateningly. When the salesman was ready for me, I held it up, told him I was not a tourist and demanded a large discount. — Tahir Shah

I really enjoy theater. I just went to see 'Death of a Salesman,' and it knocked me on my ass. — Jason Reitman

Hezekiah Pendergast," Constance continued, "was the great-great-grandfather of Aloysius - and a first-rate mountebank. He began his career as a snake-oil salesman for traveling medicine shows and, over time, devised his own 'medicine': Hezekiah's Compound Elixir and Glandular Restorative. — Douglas Preston

If you think it's funny to make fun of the "used car salesman," you better only buy new and never sell your car. Just sayin. — Richie Norton

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer."
"What makes you think a writer isn't a drug salesman? — Kurt Vonnegut

The power of a successful salesman is not putting his hand in the customer's pocket to pull his money out. but rather manipulate the customer's mind to let him put his hand and happily pull the money and give it to you — Hisham Fawzi

In Britain, the idea one could go from blue-collar beginnings to the university was so far out, it was quite unthinkable. I took a variety of jobs to pay for tuition - from ice-cream salesman to night-club bouncer. Whatever earned the most money in the least time. — Norman Foster

I think people know Steve Jobs the showman. I think people know the guy who stood up and gave the keynotes. The magician. The salesman. — Ashton Kutcher

I worked a telemarketing job. I always worked those because I always knew how to talk to people and I always knew how to sell because my father was a salesman. He used to sell vacuum cleaners, payroll services to companies, so that was natural for me to go into sales. — Kanye West

The Bible was penned by men. The Epistles of Paul were penned by that evangelist salesman and his students, desperate to bring mystery and excitement into a quiet philosophy, turning it into a religion promising the secret of an afterlife, answers to questions that previously no one could answer. Always remember, words written by men have an agenda. Sometimes their agenda is for the better, but it's usually for the self, and that almost always leads down a dangerous path."
~Character Mark from The Awakening, book one of The Judas Curse series. — Angella Graff

He said when he went to sell a man a flue, he asked first about that man's wife's health and how his children were. He said he had a book that he kept the names of his customers' families and what was wrong with them. A man's wife had cancer, he put her name down in the book and wrote 'cancer' after it and inquired about her every time he went to that man's hardware store until she died; then he scratched out the word 'cancer' and wrote 'dead' there. "And I say thank God when they're dead," the salesman said; "that's one less to remember. — Flannery O'Connor

No hawk swooping down upon his prey, no stag improvising new detours by which to trick the huntsman, no dog scenting game from afar is comparable in speed to the celerity of a salesman when he gets wind a deal, to his skill in tripping up or forestalling a rival, and to the art with which he sniffs out and discovers a possible sale. — Honore De Balzac

In 1995, each cast at The Second City was made up of four men and two women. When it was suggested that they switch one of the companies to three men and three women, the producers and directors had the same panicked reaction. 'You can't do that. There won't be enough parts to go around. There won't be enough for the girls.' This made no sense to me, probably because I speak English and have never had a head injury. We weren't doing _Death of a Salesman._ _We were making up the show ourselves. How could there not be enough parts?_ If everyone had something to contribute, there would be enough. The insulting implication, of course, was that the women wouldn't have any ideas. — Tina Fey

In my world death was like a nameless and incomprehensible hand, a door-to-door salesman who took away mothers, beggars, or ninety year old neighbors, like a hellish lottery. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I did not think I could stand a Christmas at my parents' house, with a plastic tree and no snow and the TV going constantly. It was not as if my parent were so anxious to have me, either. In recent years they had fallen in with a gabby, childless couple, older than they were, called the MacNatts. Mr MacNatt was an auto-parts salesman; Mrs MacNat was shaped like a pigeon and sold Avon. — Donna Tartt

Actually, when I first started dabbling in photography, I was still working for my parents as a salesman. — Herb Ritts

My father is a retired army captain and banking software salesman, and my mother is an English teacher. — Jim Parrack

George paid for college by working for Cutco. Cutco is a company that makes and sells knives. Their salespeople go door-to-door. George Pinkman talked his way into peoples' homes with a big bag of knives and sold them potential murder weapons. Do I have to add that he was their top salesman three years running? I do not. — MaryJanice Davidson

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

So it's a strife here, in a way, between position - between the CEO and the top salesman; between the principal and the best teacher; between Miller Huggins, the manager, and Babe Ruth, the best baseball player who ever lived; between the person who can really do it, and the person who is in charge. Those are incommensurable excellences, and then and now they often come into conflict. So here - that is the rage within the rage, the conflict within the conflict, that Homer is interested in chronicling. — Timothy B. Shutt

I was always looking to be entertained. We lead such full lives and a lot of us don't lead very pleasant lives and don't like what we do ... My dad worked his whole life as a salesman and that wasn't what he really wanted to do. He looked forward to two weeks vacation every year and he used to say to me, 'Whatever you do, make sure you do something you really like so you don't just have your vacation to look forward to.' And I love movies. — Jerry Bruckheimer

By failing to read or listen to poets, society dooms itself to inferior modes of articulation, those of the politician, the salesman, or the charlatan. In other words, it forfeits its own evolutionary potential. For what distinguishes us from the rest of the animal kingdom is precisely the gift of speech. Poetry is not a form of entertainment and in a certain sense not even a form of art, but it is our anthropological, genetic goal. Our evolutionary, linguistic beacon. — Joseph Brodsky

Who was the greatest business man ever ... The greatest salesman? Advertiser? Who? ... It was Jesus ... Jesus was the founder of modern business ... he picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and forged them into an organization that conquered the world! — Paul Harding

After forty years of selling wholesale industrial deodorizing supplies, one establishment is forced to open its doors to the public.
In the lingo of the trade, a salesman explains why their large institution buyers have gone elsewhere.
Who wants to stand downwind of the League o' Nations every time some freshman with a bladder infection pulls a Nebuchadnezzar? — Ben Katchor

I had a father who was a traveling salesman. — Philip Seymour Hoffman

I had my fingers buried inside of her, my head rested between her thighs for over an hour and I could still taste her on my tongue. Phina could pretend all she wanted to, but I wasn't about to put up with that shit. I am man enough to admit that it stung a little when it was all over and she ushered me out of her house like I was a vacuum salesman and she had no use for what I was selling. — Tara Sivec

From 1965 to 1974, I served the best possible apprenticeship for an actor. I learned firsthand how a truck driver lives, what a bartender does, how a salesman thinks. I had to make a life inside those jobs, not just pretend. — Brian Dennehy

Let the mind come as it wants; just you don't go with it. The greatest salesman in the world cannot sell you if you don't buy. — Mooji

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

I'm not much of a salesman. I prefer the soft sell and the honest approach. — Marc Guggenheim

Difficult to choose Ranbir Kapoor's best movie. He's truly a Rockstar, Salesman of the year and the one who steals the Tamasha. Deserves a Barfi! — Shikha Kaul

My faith, I mean, that's such a personal aspect that a lot of times, of course it's going to come out through the song. But at the same time, I'm not a religious salesman. I feel like God doesn't really need a salesman, and what these songs are are simply my interactions with this life and learning. I guess the bottom line is the songs are really honest, you know what I mean. That faith is going to come through. If the listener is looking for it, that's definitely a part of it. — Jon Foreman

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

I always just wanted to write and maybe direct. I'm really only interested in that. And yet the business that I'm in has forced me into being a salesman - that's the last thing that 17-year-old me would imagine I'd end up being. I'm uncomfortable trying to sell anything, but that's what you're doing every time you walk into a pitch. — Rob Thomas

Mitt Romney talks a lot about all the things he's fixed. I can tell you that Massachusetts wasn't one of them. He's a fine fellow and a great salesman, but as governor he was more interested in having the job than doing it. — Deval Patrick

It was the American middle class. No one's house cost more than two or three year's salary, and I doubt the spread in annual wages (except for the osteopath) exceeded more than five thousand dollars. And other than the doctor (who made house calls), the store managers, the minister, the salesman, and the banker, everyone belonged to a union. That meant they worked a forty-hour week, had the entire weekend off (plus two to four weeks' paid vacation in the summer), comprehensive medical benefits, and job security. In return for all that, the country became the most productive in the world and in our little neighborhood it meant your furnace was always working, your kids could be dropped off at the neighbors without notice, you could run next door anytime to borrow a half-dozen eggs, and the doors to all the homes were never locked
because who would need to steal anything if they already had all that they needed? — Michael Moore

A literary agent is nothing but a cheap salesman (or woman); while a writer is a cheap salesman (or woman) who also has to actually write the books. — John Hodgman

No self-respecting pitcher throws the same way to every batter and no self-respecting salesman makes the same pitch to every client. — Ray Kroc

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

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

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.

I have been working since I was 20, and I'm 38. I actually once averaged out what I had made over my professional life. I think I could have made that much as a waiter or an insurance salesman. You know, I spent so many years in my 20's making $10,000 a year. — Sebastian Junger

We have a product for sale called news, and I'm a salesman. — Shepard Smith

I can sell anything that I totally believe in, but I'm a horrible salesman of something I don't believe in. — Nick Woodman

Soulful Salesman (definition); "One who demonstrates expressive, sensitive, eloquent, moving, profound, meaningful, and heartfelt concern for his/her clients and customers. — Ronald Solberg

I thought at the time that I wanted to go into institutional sales, selling stocks and bonds to institutions. In those days, which was the 1960s, the institutional salesman was making about $100,000 a year. I thought that was just an enormous amount of money. — Henry Kravis

Look, you know i don't wanna come on ungrateful, but that warren report, you know as well as me, just didn't make it. You know, like they might as well have asked some banana salesman from des moines, who was up in toronto on the big day, if he saw anyone around looking suspicious/ ... — Bob Dylan

A telemarketer has as much right to force people to listen to a sales pitch as a door-to-door salesman has to force himself into a home. — Julie Ann Dawson

Nobody dast blame this man. You don't understand: Willy was a salesman. And for a salesman, there's no rock bottom to the life. He don't put a bolt to a nut, he don't tell you the law or give you medicine. He's a man way out there in the blue riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back - that's an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple spots on your hat and your finished. Nobody dast blame this man. A salesman is got to dream boy, it comes with the territory. — Arthur Miller

Don't pitch or shove your products down people's throat. Don't be a greasy salesman. Listen to your customer. — Timi Nadela

I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter. — Mary Quant

I was employed as a salesman, selling a marvelous tea that could cure all ills. Funny, don't you think? I have never lied so much in my life, I traveled all over the country, selling my miraculous tea to whoever would believe me. I never felt guilty about it. The tea didn't do any harm, I can assure you, and my words gave such hope to those who bought it that I reckon they might still owe me money, because hope is beyond price. — Jose Saramago

My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time. — Al Franken

Librarian like Stewardess, Certified Public Accountant, Used Car Salesman is one of those occupations that people assume attract a certain deformed personality. — Elizabeth McCracken

I took her dress over to the closet and hung it up. It was funny. It made me feel sort of sad when I hung it up. I thought of her going in a store and buying it, and nobody in the store knowing she was a prostitute and all. The salesman probably just thought she was a regular girl when she bought it. It made me feel sad as hell- I don't know why exactly. — J.D. Salinger

Yet behind all of the populist hot air, and the big shot persona, is a man who is very cunning. As a real estate mogul worth billions, a man like Donald Trump knows how to relate to an audience better than a politician. He has to as each transaction he is working on can increase his personal wealth. Moreover, he doesn't have the time to make the connections while trying to close a deal that an average politician does. He has to, as a salesman, become expert at being a "five minute friend". Every move has to count in building a credible connection that will get him to, and beyond, the closing table. — Robert Montgomerie

Tom was anxious about whether he could keep his job at the hospital or would have to go on relief, he exclaimed, "If I could not support my family, I'd as soon jump off the dock." That is, if the value of being a self-respecting wage-earner were threatened, Tom, like the salesman Willie Loman and countless other men in our society, would feel he no longer existed as a self, and might as well be dead. — Rollo May

Times change. The farmer's daughter now tells jokes about the traveling salesman. — Carey Williams

I learned something in the juice isle, and that is, I don't know what's going on with cranberries, but they're getting in all the other juices. Whoever the salesman for cranberries does a great job. He's showing up everywhere. Hey what do you got? Apples? Well let's put some cranberries in them; we'll call it cran-apple - go fifty fifty. What do you got? Grapes? What about cran-grape? What do you got? Mangos? Cran-mango! What do you got? Pork chops? Cran-chops! — Brian Regan

The most unusual salesman I ever met is a fellow who made a modest fortune purveying lightning rods. But he suddenly lost interest in his work. He got caught in a storm with a bunch of samples in his arms. — Shelley Berman

The book salesman should be honored because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most. — Confucius

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

If you're a salesman, you have to deal with yourself the way you are. Not how you'd like to be.
If you don't have what it takes, you can waste a lot of time asking yourself "How can I get what it takes?" The question you should be asking yourself is, "Is there something else that takes what I have to offer?" Because if there's something you can succeed at, just the way you are, you won't have to waste a lot of time trying to change yourself. Which you're never going to be able to do, anyway. — Helen DeWitt

I'm not a drug salesman. I'm a writer. — Kurt Vonnegut

Success does not judge one man for being worthy above another. Success doesn't choose you because of your family name or existing wealth. — Chris Murray

If you're subjected to enough great salesmen and salespitches and marketing concepts for long enough - like from your earliest Saturday-morning cartoons, let's say - it is only a matter of time before you start believing deep down that everything is sales and marketing, and that whenever somebody seems like they care about you or about some noble idea or cause, that person is really a salesman and really ultimately doesn't give a shit about you or some cause but really just wants something for himself. — David Foster Wallace

I come from a wonderful family. My mother was a pianist and my father was a salesman. They were very middle-class, very middle-Western. — Charles Kimbrough

When getting help with money, whether it is insurance, real estate or investments you should always look for a person with the heart of a teacher, not the heart of a salesman. — Dave Ramsey

They were growing up in the golden age of comic books. Comic strips, or "funnies," had begun appearing in the pages of newspapers in the 1890s. But comic books date only to the 1930s. They'd been more or less invented by Maxwell Charles Gaines (everyone called him Charlie), a former elementary school principal who was working as a salesman for the Eastern Color Printing Company, in Waterbury, Connecticut, when he got the idea that the pages of funnies that appeared in the Sunday papers could be printed cheaply, stapled together, and sold as magazines, or "comic books." In 1933, Gaines started selling the first comic book on newsstands; it was called Funnies on Parade. — Jill Lepore

My dad never graduated high school. He was a printing salesman. We lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. We weren't rich - but we felt secure. — Al Franken

After I've done the salesman bit, I like to be quiet and retreat, because that's whereI write from. I'm a sort of quiet little person. — Kate Bush

If a vacuum cleaner salesman rings your front door, he will be selling HIMSELF first. The vacuum cleaner is secondary. — Gene Simmons

My wife - to-be and I went to see my father. Only he could answer the two questions before us: Shall we get married now? Shall I begin the practice of law, or continue being the successful wine salesman I had become, working my way through law school? — Emanuel Celler

If a man attains a high station in life, it is because he has acquired or was blessed with native ability as a salesman. Schooling, college degrees, intellect, brilliancy, are of no avail to the man who lacks the ability to attract the cooperative efforts of others, thus to create opportunities for himself. — Napoleon Hill

A bad salesman will automatically drop his price. Bad salesmen make me sick. — Danny DeVito

Well, I liked it - that was the main thing. I liked it, but I didn't think of it in terms of a career. I didn't really know; I didn't really think about it. One thing just led to another until finally I quit my job as a salesman and found myself working as a photographer. — Herb Ritts

The salesman waited silently on the other side of the counter. Suddenly, his silence felt like all the reasons I might need a knife to begin with: as a counter against fear and contempt and scorn and judgment and accusation; something I could put between myself and the world, the world's perceptions of me, and my perceptions of myself. — Peggy Shinner

How can this be your car? (Nick)
Well, I wrote a really big check that didn't bounce to the dealer and then the most amazing thing happened ... the salesman gave me the keys and let me take it home. It was like magic. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

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

I was born in Springfield and raised in West Springfield. My father ran a dry cleaning business and was a salesman. — Mike Scully

He's liked, but he's not well liked. — Arthur Miller

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

He suddenly felt tremendously happy. He could always go back to being a shepherd. He could always become a crystal salesman again. — Paulo Coelho

You've never been a whiner, Margo."
"I could give lessons.It's time for me to grow up, take responsibility,be sensible."
"Talk to life insurance salesman," Josh said dryly. "Apply for a library card.Clip coupons."
She looked down her nose. "Spoken like a man born with not only a silver spoon but the whole place setting stuck in his arrogant little mouth."
"I happen to have several library cards," he muttered. "Somewhere."
"Do you mind? — Nora Roberts

Oh, certainly, 'The Wings of Death' is not amusing," ventured Mrs. Leveret, whose manner of putting forth an opinion was like that of an obliging salesman with a variety of other styles to submit if his first selection does not suit. — Edith Wharton

It's the opening line of a football game returned for a touchdown. Or fumbled.
It's what orange juice is to breakfast, the first minutes of a blind date, a salesman's opening remarks.
It sets the tone, lights the stage, greases the skids for everything to follow.
It's the most important part of everything you'll ever write because if it doesn't work, whatever follows won't matter. It won't get read.
It's your opening paragraph. And enough can't be said about its importance.
Seduction. That's basically what leads are all about--enticing the reader across the threshold of your book, novel or article--because nothing happens until you get 'em inside.
And you literally have only seconds to do it because surveys show that eight out of ten people quit reading whatever it is they've started after the first fifty words. — Lionel Fisher

He did not like illness, he distrusted it, as he distrusted the road without signposts.
("Death Of A Traveling Salesman") — Eudora Welty

When she got to Eileen Reilly, Eileen turned red and said, "I would rather not say." This astounded me, for her father was a handsome, charming salesman at Home Savings Shoes on Main Street - Stan the Shoe Man, my mother affectionately called him. But his daughter had absorbed some disappointment - his, or her mother's - and did not want to speak of how he earned his living. Perhaps that was the moment I learned this as a source of personal shame, or observed the possibility of it. — Lorrie Moore