My Top 10 Sales Movies

It's funny how my stream-of-consciousness writing keeps feeding on itself. While writing yesterday's article on hosting events - memories of some of the bus rides kept flooding back to me. One of the movies that were always a part of one team I was a contributor to was 'Tommy Boy' - and it got me thinking about great movies with a sales theme - or lessons. In a related topic one of my greatest regrets while teaching the Sales portion of Parker's cATCh class for many years was not finding the way and the time to incorporate 'Glengarry Glenross' into the curriculum. I always talked about it - but never made a class of recent graduates sit down and watch it.

So, I got to thinking ... what are my top 10 favorite movies that contain either a theme that is specifically around sales or some great lessons for someone in sales. So the beauty of this article format is: I can write about anything that I want! Today it's a simple Top 10 list (Letterman Style) with the sales connection I see and a link to a trailer (if I can find one) --- Enjoy - Comment - Let me know if you think I missed something!

10) Moneyball (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4QPVo0UIzc) - The lesson here is about being creative with fewer resources than your competitors, something most salespeople can relate to.

9) The Social Network (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lB95KLmpLR4) - Launching Facebook is absolutely a sales movie - taking Facebook from a college dorm room to a global juggernaut required understanding the target customer/audience intimately and delivering value that they appreciated.

8) Death of a Salesman (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQmTUFAf6o0) - The classic sad outcome sales movie.

7) The Pursuit of Happiness (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMOBlEcRuw8) - The anti "Willy Loman" Will Smith's character "Chris Gardner" is able to use sales to change his fortunes. It's a positive uplifting sales message movie.

6) Wall Street (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCctqbRrsBQ) - Gordon Gecko captures the Go-Go 80s and 'Yuppie' culture in this classic - really demonstrates the win-at-all-costs mentality that was common in that era. Not really a model for Solution Selling - but still a classic!

5) Jerry Maguire (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUd3gwaf0KQ) - Busting out on your own after a moral revelation - and building from the wreckage. "Show me the Money!"

4) The Wolf of Wall Street (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iszwuX1AK6A) - Another one that's the total opposite of the credible, trustworthy model that I promote - But, It's a ton of fun!

3) Tommy Boy (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9btKFrFhq28) - Just pure fun and a tradition from earlier in my career! "Brothers Don't shake hands, Brothers gotta hug"

2) The Founder (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AX2uz2XYkbo) - Milkshake machine salesman Ray Kroc sees an incredible business model at McDonald's, basically steals the business and turns it into a global empire. Really highlights some key values in putting in effort and persistence.

1) Glengarry Glenross (Trailer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2ofJqqsL5g) - For me, this is the ultimate classic - has shades of 'Death of a Salesman' - but just runs together better. "First prize is a Cadillac Eldorado, Second Prize is a set of steak knives, and third prize is you're fired" and "Coffee is for closers" - This movie gets the message across that your role is to generate the revenue.

I'd love some feedback! I haven't seen every movie with a sales-aligned theme - share some of your favorites in the comments!