Sales Tactics Quotes

Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket.

I hate when dealers talk to me. I love dealers - they're some of our favorite people in the art world. But I hate if they do a sales pitch on me. I can't stand it.

A master salesman is one who takes the offensive and never the defensive sale of an argument, if argument arises.

The difference between rape and seduction is salesmanship.

Your product should sell itself, but that does not mean you don't need salespeople.

I marketed pens - on the phone. But the beauty of the gig was that you had to call these strangers and say, 'Hi, how ya doing?' You made up a name, like, 'Hey, it's Edward Quartermaine from California. You're eligible to receive this grandfather clock or a trip to Tahiti.' You promise them all these things if they buy a gross of pens.

What we see is what they're trying to sell us.

The marketing of anything is full of exploitation and lies and hype.

What the advertiser needs to know is not what is right about the product but what is wrong about the buyer.

I arrived at my hut in Beverly Hills just in time to keep real estate men from plotting off and selling my front yard. They will sell you anything or anybody's in the world as long as they can get a first payment... It used to be only Iowa that was out here but now they have three or four adjoining states interested and they are here, too. Real estate agents - you never saw as many in your life; they are as thick as bootleggers.

If you take sales presentations and brokers of commercial real estate and businesses... I'm 70 years old, I've never seen one I thought was even within hailing distance of objective truth.... 'incentive-caused bias,' causes this terrible abuse. And many of the people who are doing it you would be glad to have married into your family compared to what you're otherwise going to get.

There's no such thing as 'hard sell' and 'soft sell.' There's only 'smart sell' and 'stupid sell.'

Selling cookies helped me to realize that you needed to have a certain way to communicate with people. You also needed business skills. You knew you needed to sell a certain amount of boxes, so that gave me some business sense.

I don't find the business easy. The moment you start talking about the business, you start sounding like someone in Spinal Tap.

I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.

Pressure selling is firmly rooted in American economic life, and I'm sorry it is, for it should not be necessary. Some people think part of the panic following 1929 was due to too much pressure in selling.

I think skilled salesmen have the ability to work out who you are and pick out aspects of your personality. They almost manipulate you, in a way, to make you buy their product.

It's easier to force feed people than it is to give 'em what they want. It makes more money.

The first page sells this book. The last page sells your next book.

It never ceases to amaze me that companies will spend thousands of hours and millions of dollars teaching people 'how to sell,' and not one minute or not $10 on 'why they buy.' And 'why they buy' is all that matters.

In the 1972 election campaign the citizen would be the victim of the most sophisticated sales blizzard ever inflicted on any voting population anywhere.

A Realtor is an old fashioned Real Estate man with a neck tie. A Real Estate man sold you what you wanted, a Realtor sells you what you don't need. A Real Estate man showed you what you could raise on the land, a Realtor tells you what you can build on it.

Candor compels me to admit that I have no conclusive research to support my view that jingles are less persuasive than the spoken word. You'd run like hell if a salesman came to your door and began singing at you. Why do it in advertising?

The salesman knows nothing of what he is selling save that he is charging a great deal too much for it.

No one tells salesmen what they can and can't do.