Aaron Levie Quotes

I still remember the five points of salesmanship: attention, interest, conviction, desire and close.

When one has the right swing and enthusiasm, selling is not unlike hunting, a veritable sport. To scare up the game by preliminary talk and to know how long to follow it, to lose your gain through poorly directed argument, to hang on to game that finally eludes, to boldly confront, to quickly circle around, to keep on the trail, tireless and keen, till you have bagged some orders, there is some satisfaction in returning at night, tired of the trail, but proud of the days work done.

Business school professors don't take selling seriously because they don't know how to sell. It's easy to talk about business theory and production time and just-in-time development. Selling is much more difficult.

Never let an engineer try to sell his stuff. It rarely works unless you are Akio Morita.

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

If you think of the typical Herbalife distributor and their level of sophistication, to this day I still don't understand the marketing plan - true story.

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.

We're obviously going to spend a lot in marketing because we think the product sells itself.

When I became proficient as a salesman I was invited to teach new hires.

Whether you're selling soft drinks, snack foods or a sport, all good marketers know it is important for every single person to want to buy their product.

We want a direct relationship with our customers. To build a business and sell products to them.

I was 20 years old. I had moved to Los Angeles from Columbus, Ohio. I was working as a piano salesman - a terrible piano salesman. I couldn't sell them. I could demonstrate them, but people wouldn't buy them from me.

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

Because you’re such a good salesman, and if you go work for a company, they’re going to use you as a salesman. If you’re going to be a salesman, you might as well be selling something worthwhile, like education

Resolve to be among the top 20% of salespeople who make 80% of the sales.

The notion that you would initiate a new product without preparing the way by persuasion and advertising and salesmanship is fantastic. It's an integral part of the system.

It is an inwariable rule with the dealers to praise the bad points and let the good 'uns speak for themselves.

If employees aren't satisfied, they won't promote the product we need.

The temptation to entertain instead of selling is contagious.

When you get $1 billion of free advertising, it's hard not to have anybody buy the product.

It's astonishing how many business owners are terrified of selling. Salespeople who see the most people a day are the highest paid regardless of the economy.

The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous.

Concentrate on the activities of prospecting, presenting and following-up; the sales will take care of themselves.

Confusion sets in when you're not sure if your product or service is bought or sold, or worse, if you are a salesperson just waiting for people to buy.

I'm someone who can provide an intellectual framework, but I can't tell people who are trying to sell Product X how to do that because I don't know, and I would be faking it if I attempted to step into that role.