100 Sales Mantras For A Better 2014

Every salesperson has a unique touchstone, philosophy or set of inspirational sayings that he or she references for a boost of confidence ahead of a particularly important sales call.

Salesforce.com has bundled up 100 of them in an e-book it calls "100 Sales Tips for 2014." (You have to register in order to download the file.)

The e-book is loaded with insights gleaned from interviews with close to 70 sales experts – ranging from Mark Hunter, author of High-Profiting Selling: Win the Sales Without Compromising on Price, to Guy Kawasaki, the well-known venture capitalist, to Edward Hess, author of Grow to Greatness, Smart Growth for Entrepreneurial Business.

The 10 main topics covered are:

  1. Pricing
  2. Hiring
  3. Enablement
  4. Marketing
  5. Selling
  6. Motivation
  7. Performance
  8. Prospecting
  9. Data
  10. CRM

Here are my three personal favorites:

From Hunter, on Pricing – "If you can't land the customer at the profit margin your business plan is built upon, then that particular customers is not worth having."

From Hess, on Hiring – "In my entire study of 54 high-growth companies, no entrepreneur said they fired too fast. They all did the opposite. They hired fast and fired slowly, and it should be the reverse."

From Kawasaki, on Motivation – "Enchantment is the purest form of sales. Enchantment is all about changing people's hearts, minds and actions because you provide them a vision or a way to do things better. The difference between enchantment and simple sales is that with enchantment, you have the other person's best interests at heart, too."

I'm sure there's at least one tidbit in this e-book that could prove mind-opening for everyone — not just people with the word "sales" in their job description.