Al Murray Quotes

Sometimes, if you get too close to a subject you can miss what’s most important.

If your doctor told you that you needed immediate surgery could you perform it yourself?

We must design how we wish to be perceived, and then we must work even harder to continuously recreate and re-evaluate that perception.

From today onward, you will learn how to become evangelical about the many ways you help people.

You should feel so driven to help the world that it would weigh you down if a single person received anything but the best.

To my shame, I had never thought to ask anything of the future, and yet woke each and every day embittered because it was never what I needed it to be.

I see what I have to become and I recognise the time it will take.

And by making that plan you have differentiated yourself from more than ninety percent of the population. You are one of the few, who has a clear direction, a decisive plan of action.

As soon as I can find the courage to put my plans to action, I will turn from being a “maybe man” into someone whose future success lies completely in his own hands.

Falling has become far more terrifying to me than rising.

Could trying your hardest, but never being quite good enough ever be acceptable to anyone? Is that what your dreams are made of?

I’ll record what I’ve learnt on the subject of what I sell. What it actually is means little to anyone other than me, but what it does and how it helps, means everything to those who require it.

How do I go about cataloguing my dreams?

Moving continuously forward doesn’t necessarily get us to where we want to be, just somewhere other than where we started.

It’s your own personal statement of who you want to become, based on how you wish to be remembered.

You know, I have never met a young man who recognises the true value in this exercise, and yet I have met hundreds of old men who wished someone had shared it with them in their youth.

I must turn myself around so that I am viewing life as my prospects see it. Only then can I start addressing their issues, help to prevent their pain, and advise on solutions to their problems.

No one ever reached the top of a mountain by digging underneath it.

Can a farmer plants his seeds and then demand the crops to grow before harvest?

If you put in the effort and focus towards a goal, you will get there quicker than most.

You cannot become something new without putting in the appropriate effort, can you? Just as a seed cannot grow into an ear of corn without the appropriate time, sunlight, water, and care.

I have set my mind to make sure I am prepared to accept success, whatever the trials ahead, whatever the work required.

So open questions to understand. Closed questions to confirm and gain commitment.

So you can speak, can you? Well, that’s going to stand you out from the rest of the crowd, isn’t it? No. Sorry, my boy. The ability to speak does not a salesman make

No, I’m afraid your overconfidence, as with most young men who dream of becoming successful, can quite quickly become the Achilles’ heel of your continued mediocrity

Did you sell to them or did you simply facilitate their buying from you, hmm? Very different scenarios, my boy, very different indeed.

You can’t know what you don’t know

Customers do not want a lecture from you and they certainly don’t want some juvenile in a bad suit forcing his wares upon them

Now you learn about the greatest tool available to any salesman. I’m going to give you an introduction into something that will help customers recognise the value of your offer all by themselves.

For some reason salesmen spend most of their time asking questions they already know the answers to. They rarely ask to discover anything new.

I am aware that it can be easily missed, but once you have the ability to uncover and clarify real needs – the things that really matter - you can discuss in detail how you meet each and every one

That’s what marks out the successful from the nearly-rans. Focusing on what makes people itch rather than continuously presenting an entire catalogue of scratches.

It’s not how I view being a salesman. It’s how I live being a salesman.

And then depression set in....

I wanted my sons to know that, whatever kinds of prayers we utter, not matter how wretched, God hears them, even when we pray badly.

Few ever found enlightenment in haste, and nobody will ever discover it in gibberish

I'm suspicious of people who don't like dogs, but I trust a dog when it doesn't like a person.

It is not triumph which defines a man, but tragedy. Triumph always brings out the best in men, but tragedy shows us what we are made of.

Darkness gives free rein to the mind's worst imaginings

People have within their own hands the tools to fashion their own destiny.

Focusing on Earning the Right will have an incredible effect on the success of every single sales call that you will make from this day on.

Solving the problem means helping the customer to understand why you’re the best person for the job

Everybody sells something to somebody every day, whether it’s a product, a service or just a case of making sure that they get their own way.

Asking the appropriate questions means understanding exactly what your customer is trying to achieve

Executing the solution means gaining customer commitment and delivering on your promises

Earn the Right - Ensure you put this chunk of Sales Tetris in place first and all the other pieces just take their own positions naturally.

The commitment gap is the massive distance between “yes” and “maybe

If customers don’t trust you to help them at the beginning of the sales process, they certainly won’t trust you with their money at the end of it.

Earning the Right is a commitment to be the sales professional that your customer really needs

The ability to close sales effectively has never been confined to the last few moments of the conversation.