Five Quotes To Help You Motivate Your Sales Team

There’s a reason why many bright and hardworking people fail when they try to be a salesperson. It’s a field where you’re going to encounter a lot of negativity and resistance, which is understandable because your job is basically to convince people to part with their money.

Some salespeople are naturally gifted at the art of selling, and can thrive even in the most stressful situations. But there are a lot of times when your sales team needs a boost. When that happens, here are 5 quotes that will help you boost morale:

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

There are individuals who were born with a natural charisma and a knack for selling. But it doesn’t mean that success is reserved for only those people. As an average person can be just as successful and just as good at selling, as long as they hone their determination and focus. In a lot of cases, an average man with enough focus can supersede an innately talented yet lazy salesperson. Help your salespeople focus on the goal. Give the clear key progress indicators, and help remove any distractions you can. When your sales team is focused, you will see results.

2. “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

If you have a salesperson who is frustrated because they can’t make a single sale, here’s a big secret that the best salesmen and women in history know. Make a prospect feel important and he’ll be more than willing to consider whatever you are offering. Applying this lesson is one of the stumbling blocks that novice salespeople encounter. Help them understand this concept:

Salespeople can get so focused on trying to sell to the person that they make the person feel unimportant; the prospect feels like he or she is just being used for a quick buck. But if you can make that person feel important, you’ll find that your pitches will be heard with more welcoming ears. Put yourself in the prospect’s shoes: if they feel important, they’ll listen. If they listen and trust you, you’ll make more sales.

 3. Business is like riding a bicycle. Either you keep moving or you fall down. – Frank Lloyd Wright

When a sale falls through, salespeople need to learn to dust themselves off and move on. If you linger too long on your failure, you could end up further demoralizing yourself and spiraling down into an even worse state. But if you keep moving and looking forward after each failure, sooner or later you will make a successful sale, and it’s only going to get better from there. Find the most successful salesman in history and it’s guaranteed that his history is full of failed sales. Those successful salespeople learn from their mistakes, don’t get discouraged, and move forward.

4. “It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.” – Warren Buffett

If there’s anyone who knows about selling, it’s billionaire entrepreneur and investor Warren Buffet. And what he’s learned throughout the years is that extraordinary results don’t really need you to do extraordinary things. Most of the time, it comes from simply doing your job to the best of your abilities.

When applied to selling, it means that you don’t have to stress over making the perfect pitch or going overboard with hard-selling. If you really believe in the product or service that you’re pitching, and you try your best, you’re going to make sales.

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

The common pitfall for many failed salespeople is a tendency to make excuses for their failures. Whether it’s blaming the customer, or the marketing leads, there’s always something else to blame. This achieves nothing. Take these people aside, and show them their weaknesses. Let them know you want them to succeed. Listen to them. Point them in the right direction. Making excuses does nothing but spiral into depression and self-pity. Tell them if they really want to close more deals or sell more products and services, don’t waste time making excuses. Learn from your failures and move on to the next sale.

What about you? How have you motivated your salespeople in the past?