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Selling

1. There’s a sucker born every minute.

  1. T. Barnum (1810-91) U.S. showman and circus entrepreneur. Attrib.

 

2. A best-seller is a book which somehow sold well simply because it was selling well.

Daniel J. Boorstin (b.1914) U.S. Pulitzer-prize-winning historian. The Image (1961)

 

3. In epochs when the cash payment has become the sole nexus of man to man.

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) British historian and essayist. Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1838)

 

4. Rather than comparing war to art, we could more accurately compare it to commerce, which is also a conflict of interests and activities.

Karl Von Clausewitz (1780-1831) Prussian general and military strategist. On War (1831)

 

5. Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich?

Bernard Cornfeld (1927-95) U.S. business executive. Title of book on sales techniques. Do You Sincerely Want to Be Rich? (1971)

 

6. The person who agrees with everything you say either isn’t paying attention or else plans to sell you something.

Sam Ewing (1920-2001) U.S. author. Quoted in Reader’s Digest (1989)

 

7. Retail has been described as selling things which don’t come back to customers who do.

Tom Farmer (b.1940) British chairman and C.E.O. of Kwik-Fit. Quoted in How to Manage (Ray Wild; 1995)

 

8. If you pump up your salesforce at a metting and tell them, “The most important goal is to make customers happy,” you can’t go back the next day and say, “Your quota just doubled so go out there and sell twice as much.”

Bill Gates (b.1955) U.S. entrepreneur, chairman and C.E.O. of Microsoft. Speech (September 1996)

 

9. We sell sex. It is never going to go out of style.

Bob Guccione (b.1930) U.S. magazine publisher. Wall Street Journal (1996)

 

10. Inequality of knowledge is the key to a sale.

Deil O. Gustafson (1932-99) U.S. real estate executive. Newsweek (1974)

 

11. Keeping dreams alive and trying to make them come true is crucial in the watch business. We’re in the business of selling emotional products.

Nicolas G. Hayek (b.1928) Swiss entrepreneur and founder of SWATCH. Sunday Times (London) (October 2000)

 

12. When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great marketer.

Lee Iacocca (b.1924) U.S. president of Ford Motor Company, chairman and C.E.O. of Chrysler Corporation. Quoted in Wall Street Journal (1999)

 

13. Unless you’re in the trenches every day, you don’t understand what issues are coming up.

Farooq Kathwari (b.1944) Indian entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Ethan Allen. Forbes (April 1998)

 

14. I just knew, even though I had not yet named the technique, that a gift with a purchase was very appealing.

Estee Lauder (b.1908) U.S. entrepreneur and cosmetics executive. Referring to the idea of giving a free gift with a purchase. Estee: A Success Story (1985)

 

15. If you don’t sell, it’s not the product that’s wrong, it’s you.

Estee Lauder (b.1908) U.S. entrepreneur and cosmetics executive. “As Gorgeous as It Gets,” New Yorker (Kennedy Fraser; 1986)

 

16. When you stop talking, you’ve lost your customer. When you turn your back, you’ve lost her.

Estee Lauder (b.1908) U.S. entrepreneur and cosmetics executive. “As Gorgeous as It Gets,” New Yorker (Kennedy Fraser; 1986)

 

17.A man’s success in business today turns upon his power of getting people to believe he has something that they want.

Gerald Stanley Lee (1862-1944) U.S. academic and writer. Crowds (1913)

 

18. If you don’t listen, you don’t sell anything.

Caroline Marland (b.1946) Irish former managing director of Guardian Newspaper. Management Today (September 1999)

 

19. I reckon the most important thing about selling is to give people what they think they want.

Caroline Marland (b.1946) Irish former managing director of Guardian Newspaper. Management Today (September 1999)

 

20. It is quite true that man lives by bread alone-when there is no bread. But what happens to man’s desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled?

Abraham Maslow (1908-70) U.S. behavioral psychologist. Motivation and Personality (1954)

 

21. Hierarchy of needs.

Abraham Maslow (1908-70) U.S. behavioral psychologist. Referring to Maslow’s classification of needs as a basis for selling and motivating. Motivation and Personality (1954)

 

22. Don’t sell customers goods they are attracted to. Sell them goods that will benefit them.

Konosuke Matsushita (1894-1989) Japanese electronics executive, entrepreneur and inventor. Quest for Prosperity (1988)

 

23. A salesman has got to dream, boy, it comes with the territory.

Arthur Miller (b.1915) U.S. dramatist. Death of a Salesman (1949)

 

24. For a salesman, there is no rock bottom to the life.

Arthur Miller (b.1915) U.S. dramatist. Death of a Salesman (1949)

 

25. He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoestring.

Arthur Miller (b.1915) U.S. dramatist. Death of a Salesman (1949)

 

26. Our sales representatives are like race car drivers. They can’t succeed without incredible co-operation from the support team back at HQ.

Doug Nelson (b.1944) U.S. regional vice president of Altria Group Inc. (formerly Philip Morris). “The Mavericks,” Fortune (June 1995)

 

27. It’s having a relationship with a community whereby you can give them more control over their lives by trading with them.

Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of The Body Shop. Quoted in The Adventure Capitalists (Jeff Grout and Lynne Curry; 1988)

 

28. Don’t ask the price it’s a penny.

Marcus Sieff (1913-2001) British president of Marks & Spencer. Referring to the origins of Marks & Spencer, where every product was priced at one penny. Don’t Ask the Price, George (1987)

 

29. The propensity to trade, barter and exchange…is common to all men and is to be found in no other race of animals.

Adam Smith (1723-90) British economist and philosopher. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

 

30. To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers.

Adam Smith (1723-90) British economist and philosopher. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)

 

31. I have heard of a man who had a mind to sell his house, and therefore carried a piece of brick in his pocket, which he showed as a pattern to encourage purchasers.

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) Irish writer and satirist. The Drapier’s Letters (1724)

 

32. You have to love the products if you are going to sell them.

Barbara Thomas (b.1947) U.S. banker. Management Today (October 1999)

 

33. I didn’t realize it then, but everything I ever needed to know about selling I was learning at my kitchen table: I was learning how to identify, find and keep customers.

Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation. “Make Someone Happy-Your Customer,” Inc. (1998)

 

34. Selling in short, is the core of any business, no more so than in catalog retailing, where an entrepreneur’s relationship is entwined directly with the customer.

Lillian Vernon (b.1927) U.S. entrepreneur and C.E.O. of Lillian Vernon Corporation. “Make Someone Happy-Your Customer,” Inc. (1998)

 

35. I like to dress egos.

Gianni Versace (1946-97) Italian fashion designer. Quoted in Guardian (London) (July 1997)

 

36. People do not buy much from a man who fails to command their respect.

William Wrigley (1861-1932) U.S. businessman and founder of Wrigley Company. “The Lowdown on Salesmanship,” American Magazine (Neil M. Clark; October 1929)

 

37. Real salesman stick until the buyer has used up his last “No.”

William Wrigley (1861-1932) U.S. businessman and founder of Wrigley Company. “The Lowdown on Salesmanship,” American Magazine (Neil M. Clark; October 1929)

 

38. The art of salesmanship can be stated in four words: Believing something and convincing others.

William Wrigley (1861-1932) U.S. businessman and founder of Wrigley Company. “The Lowdown on Salesmanship,” American Magazine (Neil M. Clark; October 1929)