The document profiles 10 of the greatest salespeople of all time, including Dale Carnegie, John H. Patterson, David Ogilvy, Mary Kay Ash, Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Barragan, Joe Girard, Meg Whitman, Steve Jobs, and Thomas Edison. It provides a brief overview of each individual's background and their impact and innovations within the field of sales.

1. 10
GREATEST SALES
PEOPLE OF ALL TIME
W W W . C L O S I N G P A G E . C O M

2. 01
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D A L E C A R N E G I E
The son of a hardscrabble Missouri farmer, Carnegie
began his career selling products and correspondence
courses to ranchers. He eventually landed in New York
City, where he began to offer a series of public speaking
classes that were frequented by many budding
salespeople. His landmark book How to Win Friends and
Influence People instructs readers to become more
effective communicators who focus on fostering healthy
team dynamics. Carnegie was also ahead of his time in
exhorting his followers to pursue work-life balance.

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J O H N H . P A T T E R S O N
The founder and CEO of the National Cash Register
Company was known to be a stern control freak. He was
also the father of modern sales training. He was among
the first entrepreneurs to organize sales-training programs
and retreats. His company provided salespeople with
scripts, and encouraged them to view the sales cycle as a
four-stage process that identified the milestones as the
initial approach, the proposition, the product
demonstration, and closing the deal.

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D A V I D O G I L V Y
The legendary advertising executive who created iconic
campaigns for Hathaway, Dove, Schweppes, and Rolls-
Royce began his career in sales, moving cooking stoves
door to door. He was so successful the company he
worked for asked him to write an instruction manual
that it then distributed to other members of its sales
force. Filled with timeless advice, it became a cult
classic. Among his tips: "The worst fault a salesman can
commit is to be a bore. Foster any attempt to talk
about other things; the longer you stay the better you
get to know the prospect, and the more you will be
trusted."

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M A R Y K A Y A S H
A successful salesperson in Dallas, Ash quit her job in
1963 because, she said, a man whom she had trained
was promoted above her at twice the salary. She
planned to write a book, but her notes became instead
a business plan for a beauty and cosmetics company
that relied on women to sell merchandise to their
friends and acquaintances through direct sales
(otherwise known as multilevel marketing). She also
pioneered the use of sales incentives, turning her
company's signature pink Cadillacs into a sign of
women's economic self-sufficiency.

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Z I G Z I G L A R
One of the leading motivational speakers in recent
years, Ziglar has helped shape the modern vocabulary
of sales as much as any other sales expert. In particular,
he encourages salespeople to commit to a lifetime of
learning and training; to be extremely shrewd when it
comes to setting (and thereby exceeding) goals and
quotas; and to maintain a heightened level of
motivation by constantly visualizing success.

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N A P O L E O N B A R R A G A N
The founder of 1-800-Mattress was a genius at using
technology to open new sales channels for his Simmons and
Sealys. He was one of the first and most successful adopters
of the 1-800 number, correctly predicting that consumers
would be perfectly willing to have mattresses delivered to
their homes sight unseen. Soon after the advent of e-
commerce, he registered the domain name mattress.com,
and derived significant online sales at a time when few
retailers were thinking about the Web. Fun fact: The
Ecuadorean-born Barragan got his start in 1950s Colombia,
selling beer and soda from the back of a burro.

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J O E G I R A R D
However, occasionally it’s not questionable tactics or a new
invention that pushes someone to the top of the sales game,
it’s hard work. Joe Girard is the world’s best car salesman, and
this isn’t a self-appointed title – he was recognized by the
Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s number one
after selling a staggering 13,001 cars in just 12 years. Aside from
things like attaching a business card to his tip when paying a
restaurant bill and encouraging waiters to visit him when they
next need a new car, Girard’s secret was simple. He put the
hours in and reaped the rewards. The average car salesperson
hands out around 500 cards a year while he dealt out an
average of 16,000 per month.

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M E G W H I T M A N
Margaret Whitman (1956-) is most famous for her tenure
at eBay, where it rose from a $4 million a year company
with 30 employees to an $8 billion a year firm
employing more than 15,000. The eBay business model,
of course, is that it's a vehicle for millions of people to
sell millions of products, with eBay taking a commission
on each sale. As a result, Meg Whitman, is responsible
for more sales taking place than possibly any human
living or dead. Even so, when Whitman tried to sell
herself as a political candidate, she failed, despite
spending $178.5 million.
Margaret Whitman (1956-) is most famous for her tenure
at eBay, where it rose from a $4 million a year company
with 30 employees to an $8 billion a year firm
employing more than 15,000. The eBay business model,
of course, is that it's a vehicle for millions of people to
sell millions of products, with eBay taking a commission
on each sale. As a result, Meg Whitman, is responsible
for more sales taking place than possibly any human
living or dead. Even so, when Whitman tried to sell
herself as a political candidate, she failed, despite
spending $178.5 million.

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S T E V E J O B S
One man who probably doesn't need an introduction is
Steve Jobs. It may not be fair to label the creator of the
IPOD/PAD/PHONE/WATCH solely as a Salesman -
However it can't be argued that he was the one to push
the brand to the market and contributed massively to its
current position as the world's largest company. Nobody
really needs 10,000 songs in their pocket but jobs made
us believe that we did, and needed to do it with style.
The secret to this was that he truly believed in the
product he was selling which allowed consumers to buy
into his vision.

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T H O M A S E D I S O N
Like Jobs, it takes a highly revised view to label Thomas
Edison exclusively as a salesman, however his work to
promote the widespread use of his Direct Current (DC) power
distribution method over his rival's Alternating Current (AC)
means he surely falls into this category. He understood the
importance of carving out a niche for his invention in the
market and his awareness of his competitors was perhaps
what set him apart. Edison was so keen to disparage AC that
he secretly paid the designer of the first ever electric chair to
utilize this method in order to promote the idea that it was
somehow deadlier than DC. While his methods were perhaps
slightly immoral. It's hard to deny that he knew how to get
ahead from his competitors.

12. THANK YOU
FOR READING.