Selling Ice To An Eskimo Quotes

I take a deep breath and put on my best smile. You could sell ice to Eskimos, my dad always says, and looking at this crowd, I think I'm going to have to be quite the salesman.

I became a door-to-door IBM salesman in 1963, a job I had for six years. But most everyone thought it was a bad idea. Door-to-door salesmen were lower than used-car salesmen or attorneys.

I worked for Marshall Field. That’s the World Book Company. And it was straight, up and down the line. No trade-ins, no deals, no dis- counts, no gimmicks, and we hired mostly teachers and preachers and housewives. So it was straight as an arrow. It was a great job. Pure selling. No wheeling and dealing. World Book, no deals. No trade-ins, no discounts, no gimmicks, nothing — cash. Cash. Money up front.

You know, if you’re selling in the living room and they’ve got a bible on the table, they’re probably down in the heart, and we’ve got to hold their hands and pray about this, you know. You’ve got to observe the situation where you’re at. I’ve prayed with many people, all these ultra religious Pentecostal people, ‘I can’t do it without the Lord.’ ‘Well, I feel the same way,’ I say. ‘Let’s talk about that.’ We’ll hold hands and pray. You know, ‘Yeah, the Lord’s telling me you ought to do it,’ you know.

We had several Startenders who could not only sell ice to Eskimos, but also convince them to pick up snowmaking machines and air-conditioners, not to mention bathing suits and outdoor swimming pools.

President Sebastian was the newly elected school president of Buchanan. He’s an easygoing kid with a smile that’ll make you trust him with your life. He’s also a bit of a smooth talker, which is probably why he won the election so easily. They say he can sell ice to Eskimos. None of the other candidates even had a chance. He’s awesome at sports, has a cheerleader girlfriend, is getting an A plus plus in social studies, has never needed braces, has a thick head of hair, owns two dogs, and somehow has tons of money. He’s the perfect sixth grader.

Jason smiled. He could sell rice to the Chinese, ice to the Eskimos, and white American children to Angelina Jolie if he had to.

He could sell snow to an Eskimo. --Overheard in a Real Estate Office

My search for professional/personal harmony led me down the path of asking the wrong question. The question isn’t, “What can I give up today to have what I want tomorrow?” The reality of life is that winning costs. It takes a tremendous amount of dedication and effort. The key question here is, “Are the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards worth the price you have to pay?” There is no right or wrong answer, just ebbs and flows. Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers and Geoff Colvin’s Talent is Overrated are different riffs on the same theme. In theory, it takes approximately 10,000 hours of hard, dedicated practice to get to a level of expertise in any field. It takes the right focus, the right practice and most of all, commitment. Cloud technology today is as ubiquitous as kids having cell phones. However, five years ago it was like the feeling shared by a new married couple. There was a lot of hope and promise but you weren’t sure how it was going to play out. Here’s where it got really interesting. Try selling hope and promise to a highly-regulated global bank with massive footprints in Canada and the USA after the financial crisis of 2008. Selling ice to Eskimos in December would have been easier. That’s the challenge we were up against. I had just moved to Toronto from Chicago. I enjoyed working with my new customer. I was whipping my team into shape. I could now openly indulge in contraband (Cuban cigars). Life was good. God bless Canada! Peter was the cloud specialist on my team. We were partners in every sense of the word. Together, we developed a sales strategy and campaign to sell cloud services to this financial services firm in Canada. Together we pushed the envelope and our teams to achieve the impossible.

In a courtroom I can sell ice to Eskimos

There’s an old saying that says that if you’re good at sales, you could sell ice to an Eskimo. But that’s not fair, why would you waste an Eskimo’s money on something they don’t need! Keep your integrity. Never sell something to someone that isn’t right for them.

Lloyd, from the above newspaper story, could have gone through this entire book and nothing in here would have worked for him. Why? Because he would be targeting newspapers, a dying market. That being said, having a great market is an advantage. But you can be in a normal market that’s growing at an average rate and still make crazy money. Every market I have been in has been a normal market. You just don't actually want to be selling ice to eskimos.