Books help in expanding knowledge. The more you learn, the better you can perform when it comes to nurturing and converting sales deals.
In sales, you need to keep learning to excel and surpass competitors. So, take the help of various sales books to enhance your knowledge and brush up your skills. Learn various strategies to effectively manage sales and close deals faster.
Learning new exhausts the mind – Leonardo Da Vinci
25 sales books you must-read in 2020
Here is a compilation of top sales books that you should consider reading in 2020 to improve your performance and reach your sales goals.
1. 21.5 Unbreakable Laws of Selling
Author: Jeffrey Gitomer
If you have chosen sales as your career and are looking forward to achieving success in it, then this is the one sales book you must read.
Jeffrey Gitomer, a renowned sales trainer has shared some of his unbreakable selling laws in this book. If you align these powerful laws with your thinking and actions it can help you in being more efficient and effective. You will experience less friction, require less energy, and get better sales results faster.
Below is an outline of the laws stated by Jeffrey Gitomer in this sales book:
- Unbreakable law 1- Attract willing buyers
- Unbreakable law 2 – Think Yes!
- Unbreakable law 3 – Believe before you succeed
- Unbreakable law 4 – Employ humor
- Unbreakable law 5 – Build your own brand
- Unbreakable law 6 – Earn reputation
- Unbreakable law 7 – Be assertive and persistent
- Unbreakable law 8 – Demonstrate excellence
- Unbreakable law 9 – Deliver value first
- Unbreakable law 10 – Communicate in term of them
- Unbreakable law 11- Ask before you tell
- Unbreakable law 12 – Serve memorably
- Unbreakable law 13 – Exchange loyalty
- Unbreakable law 14 – Earn trust
- Unbreakable law 15 – Utilize voice of customers
- Unbreakable law 16 – Discover the why
- Unbreakable law 17 – Intend to achieve
- Unbreakable law 18 – Be perceived as different
- Unbreakable law 19 – Perform dynamically
- Unbreakable law 20 – Attract, engage, and connect socially
- Unbreakable law 21 – Earn without asking
- Unbreakable law 21.5 – Love it or leave it
If you want to take the easy way and rely on your fate then go to a fortune-teller. If you want to create a successful future in sales then learn more about each law by reading the book – 21.5 Unbreakable Laws of Selling.
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2. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
Author: Robert Cialdini
Persuading the prospects to spend their precious dollars in your product/service is surely a challenging task. However, the sales book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” written by Robert Cialdini, the leading scientist in the field of influence can help you.
It is one of the classic books on ‘influence’ that has been listed on the New York Times Best Seller. Robert Cialdini’s 30 years of research and 3-year program of study on what motivates people to change behavior had resulted in this highly acclaimed book.
This book explains the customer psychology of why people say “yes” – and how to apply these understandings.
After rigorous research, Robert Cialdini has identified the 6 key principles of persuasion:
- Reciprocity
- Scarcity
- Authority
- Consistency
- Liking
- Consensus
You can either read the book or if you are falling short of time then you can go through the blog “Drum-up sales with Cialdini’s 6 principles of persuasion” to learn about each principle.
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3. The Modern Seller
Author: Amy Franko
The sales economy is constantly changing. Buyers have changed the way they want to interact with your business. Modern mindset, skills, and tools are required to handle these smart buyers.
This is what even Amy Franko emphasizes in her book “The Modern Seller”.
She explains the factors behind the challenging new sales economy and how it has impacted the customer, sellers, and leaders.
Amy Franko is a well-acclaimed speaker, author, and expert in modern selling and sales skills. This expert has put her recent observation and lessons-learned as a sales consultant and trainer in this sales book “The Modern Seller”.
She explains five vital skill sets that are required to rise above the rest.
Today’s sellers and leaders need to have the following skillsets.
- Agile
- Entrepreneurial
- Holistics
- Social
- Ambassador
This book is filled with effective sales strategies and practices that you can use to succeed in today’s challenging sales world.
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4. Fanatical Prospecting
Author: Jeb Blount
Effective prospecting is essential for filling your sales pipeline with quality leads.
Jeb Blount’s book, “Fanatical Prospecting” can be of great help for prospecting successfully.
In this book, Jeb Blount outlines his innovative approach to prospecting that works for real people in the real world with real prospects.
Below are a few highlights from the book
- Salespeople who ignore the call fail
- Adopt a balanced prospecting methodology
- The more you prospect, the luckier you get
- Know your numbers by managing your ratios
- Procrastinating, perfectionism and paralysis from analysis are the three P’s that’s holding you back
- Time is the great equalizer of sales
- Use your CRM like a CEO
- The four objectives of prospecting are
- Set an appointment
- Gather info and qualify
- Close a sale
- Build familiarity
The seven mindsets of fanatical prospectors:
- Optimistic and enthusiastic
- Competitive
- Confident
- Relentless
- Thirsty for knowledge
- Systemic and efficient
- Adaptive and flexible
If you want to get better at prospecting then do read this book. It offers high-powered strategies, techniques, and tools you require to fill your pipeline with high-quality opportunities.
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5. Sales EQ
Author: Jeb Blount
The modern buyers are smart and well informed, thanks to the plethora of information available on the internet. Grabbing their attention is surely not an easy task. Most of the top sales professionals are leveraging the new psychology of selling- SALES EQ, to keep prospects engaged and shape as well as influence their buying decision.
In the Sales EQ, Jeb Blount will take you on a journey into the behavior, traits, techniques, and secrets of the Ultra High Performers. How they live, execute the sales process and what makes them different from the average salesperson
Sales EQ addresses the human relationship gap in modern sales processes. Most of the sales-driven organizations aren’t able to succeed because many salespeople have never been taught the human skills required for effectively engaging the buyers at an emotional level.
This book will teach you how to use emotional intelligence to become an ultra-high performer.
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6. Heart and Sell
Author: Shari Levitin
Heart and sell is one of the best sales books, written by the renowned sales expert, Shari Levitin. In this book, she shows sales professionals how to blend the science of selling with the heart of human connections.
In Heart and Sell, Shari Levitin explains why emotions are important to the sales process. She wants sales professionals to embrace emotions instead of running away from them. Sales professionals who tap into their hearts engage deeply in the sales process. They take responsibility for their performance and the customers they encounter.
In this book, she offers a plethora of strategies that can be very helpful in increasing sales.
She has shared 10 universal truths in this book-
- Success starts with the growth equation
- Emotions drive decision-making
- Freedom lives in the -structure
- In sales, no never means no
- Trust begins with empathy
- Integrity matters
- Anything that can be told can be asked
- Emotional commitment precedes economic commitment
- Removing resistance takes persistence
- Looking for wrongs never makes your right
In addition, she also shares an interesting acronym – H.E.L.L so that you do not go into Sales Hell.
H.E.L.L stands for-
Habits
Ego
Lack of Knowledge
Laziness
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7. Sales Truth
Author: Mike Weinberg
Sales Truth is an amazing book written by the best selling author, Mike Weinberg. Through this impactful sales book, Mike offers a blunt wake up call to all the sales professionals to get past the noise and nonsense, so that they can start winning more deals.
Sales Truth slaughters many myths that are raging on in sales right now and focus on things that actually work. Mike Weinberg has shared a lot of helpful information supported by anecdotes, stories, and lessons learned from years of experience in this field.
This sales book will acquaint you with Weinberg’s proven, powerful principles that can help in mastering the fundamentals of professionals selling to create more lucrative opportunities.
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8. Agile Selling
Author: Jill Konrath
Agile Selling is a great sales book that can help you survive in today’s ever-changing sales world. This powerful book is written by the internationally recognized sales expert, Jill Konrath. In this book, she shared how developing a personal process of agile learning helped her get through her doubts, fears, and struggles.
In this book, she emphasizes on having an agile mindset that keeps you going through the challenging times in sales.
In Agile Selling, you will discover numerous strategies and insights into how you can be an agile seller.
In this informative book, you’ll learn how to:
- Rapidly absorb new information
- Leverage an agile mindset
- Master new skills quickly
- Tap into crucial sales habits
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9. Crushing Quota
Authors: Michelle Vazzana, Jason Jordan
Well, every sales manager has expectations from their sales teams. If you are managing a sales team, you might have surely given your sales reps some targets.
However, have you given them proper coaching for achieving those sales targets?
If not, then here’s a sales book that helps in giving effective coaching for crushing the sales quota.
Crushing Quota is a book by best-selling authors Michelle Vazzana and Jason Jordan that will help you in developing your own sales-coaching program that delivers profitable results.
This informative book is based on research surveys rather than on opinions. It teaches you how to develop the best coaching approach for your sales reps using research-based practices. This book helps you in coaching the right things, in the right way at the right time. It provides best practices for structuring and conducting sales coaching.
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10. The Challenger Sale
Authors: Matthew Dixon, Brent Adamson
The Challengers Sales is a research-based book by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson. It introduces us to an effective selling model- The Challenger Sales model.
The Challenger Sales Model is a sales approach where the sellers teach their prospects, tailor their sales process, and take control over the sales conversations.
Through the book, you can learn how to become the Challenger- an effective salesperson who isn’t afraid of taking control and who wins sales by teaching the clients.
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11. Pitch anything
Author: Oren Klaff
If your sales pitch isn’t strong enough it will fail to grab the prospect’s attention and you will lose the deal. Oren Klaf shares innovative methods in his book “Pitch Anything” to help you make winning pitches.
Oren Klaff presents an acronym STRONG that stand for
Setting the frame
Telling the story
Revealing the intrigue
Offering the prize
Nailing the hook point
Getting a decision
Following this sequence can help in creating a great sales pitch.
According to the author, creating and presenting a great pitch isn’t an art but simple science.
In this book, Oren has focused on the disconnect between the message and the receiver.
The way you pitch something and the way the opposite person perceives it is often different. He further explains it is all because of the way our brain works. He has given many interesting tactics and strategies that can help you in pitching anything to engage and persuade your audience.
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12. Triangle Selling
Authors: Hilmon Sorey, Cory Bray
Triangle Selling is a sales book by Hilmon Sorey and Cory Bray. These authors have experience of working with thousands of sales professionals and hundreds of companies worldwide. They created this book with an aim to leverage what they’ve seen effective at its core into an easy-to-adopt set of tools for engaging buyers effectively.
They want salespeople to know. “Where they stand” “Why” and “what to do next: throughout the sales process. “What these salespeople need to say for moving their deals forward or disqualify them”
Hilmon and Cory have introduced us to Triangle selling in this book.
There are three aspects to the triangle selling that are as follows:
Reason: What will move the prospect to buy?
Resources: What must be accessed, navigated, or changed in order to buy?
Resistance: What obstacles will be encountered in the buying process?
The authors have stated interesting acronyms in the book like:
H.E.L.P: To maintain momentum between meetings
- Highlight your conversation
- Educate your prospects
- Leverage your network(for their benefit)
- Predict the future (to prevent deal blockers)
G.R.O.W; To ensure pilots turn into deals
- Gather political resources
- Roll out pilot
- Organize a communication cadence
- Win a larger deal
Triangle selling empowers sales professionals to quickly adapt to the necessary fundamentals for fueling revenue growth.
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13. Buyer-Centered Selling: How Modern Sellers Engage & Collaborate with Buyers
Authors: Thomas Williams, Thomas Saine
Buyer-Centered Selling is an excellent output of the collaborative efforts put by Thomas Williams and Thomas Saine. In this informative sales book, the authors provide many strategies for the sellers to help the buyers address the eleven dilemmas that are likely to slow down and hinder the buying process.
The authors speak about how buying and selling is changing in the digital era and why sellers should consider a different approach to engage the prospects.
This impactful book is like a training module that outlines step-by-step what you need to do for working more effectively with buyers.
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14. Hacking Sales – The Playbook for Building a High-Velocity Sales Machine
Author: Max Altschuler
The traditional sales methods fail nowadays in capturing the interest of modern buyers. Besides, sales is evolving at a great pace; you can call it a sales acceleration era. A more effective approach is required to stay ahead of the sales evolution.
Hacking Sales is an informative book by Max Altschuler that shows you how to build a fully streamlined sales engine using next-generation tools, tactics, and strategies.
This sales book will help you do the following things:
- Build a pipeline in a repeatable and scalable manner that can be refined and enhanced over time
- Close deals faster and nurture lead properly
- Take advantage of all of the new technologies that make selling more efficient
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15. The Pirate’s Guide to Sales
Author: Tyler Menke
To become the best you need to learn from the best. This is why Tyler Menke interviewed the high-level leaders and turned what he learned into a sales book called “The Pirates Guide to Sales: A seller’s Guide for Getting from Why to Buy.”
In this book, Tyler brilliantly blends years of selling concepts with real-world experiences in a framework that anyone can easily learn.
This book will take you on an interesting journey where you’ll learn many strategies and tactics to improve sales and boost business growth.
The best thing about this book is that every chapter commences with an excellent anecdotal story that ties to the chapter concept, with some pirated tips in the middle and the chapter ends with real-life examples. You surely won’t get bored reading this book.
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16. The Seller’s Challenge
Author: Thomas Williams, Thomas Saine
B2B sales have always been challenging. There are many obstacles that salespeople face while selling. In the book “The Seller’s Challenge” written by Thomas Williams and Thomas Saine, you’ll find many practical pieces of advice to handle some of the most difficult challenges encountered in B2B sales.
This book highlights the 10 biggest challenges of b2b sales.
With the help of this book you will find answers to the following questions:
- What is the best way to sell to the multiple buyers that are within every complex sales?
- What is the best way to research, plan, and execute a sales call that moves the buying process forward?
- How do I influence buyers who are already strongly committed to a different course of action?
- Why is my sales call bombing out? What is the root cause and how can I fix it?
- What is the best way to address gatekeepers and how can I leverage them to gain access to executive buyers?
- Why is the status quo my #1competitor and how to create an effective strategy to compete against it?
- When should I participate in a request for a proposal and how can I build a strategy that overcomes the limitation of the dysfunctional RFP process?
- Why is selling to committees so hard and what is the best way to develop and execute a committee-focused sales strategy?
- How do I manage and collaborate with procurement in a way that creates success?
- What is the best way to manage prices and discount demands?
This sales book provides best practices and real-life examples to help salespeople craft action plans that improve productivity and drive success.
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17. Outbound Sales, No Fluff
Author: Ryan Reisert, Rex Biberston
Outbound Sales, No Fluff is a book written by two millennials, Ryan Reisert and Rex Biberston, who have sold something this decade. This book is like a step-by-step guide for modern sales professionals to build a successful and repeatable outbound sales process.
The authors share some amazing framework, knowledge, and skills to fill the sales pipeline with high-qualified opportunities. No rant, and no product pitches, it’s all practical advice that you will get to read in this book. It is a great book to get better at outbound sales.
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18. The Transparency Sale
Author: Todd Caponi
Nowadays buyers do their research and read various reviews before purchasing any product. They try to dig and find all the pros and cons to ensure they are making the right decision. They expect the sellers to be honest and maintain transparency during the decision making process.
In the book, “Transparency Sale” The award-winning sales leader, Todd Caponi shares his hard-earned secrets for engaging potential buyers with honesty. He emphasizes on understanding the buying brain to get the deal you want while delighting the customers with the experience they expect. The author shows us how radical transparency can help in gaining the trust of your prospective buyers for converting them into paying customers.
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19. Objections
Author: Jeb Blount
No matter what you sell, you are ought to face objections on the path to deal closure.
So is there a way to get past the “NO”?
In the sales book “Objection”, Jeb Blount, acquaints you with the hard truth of what’s really holding you back from reaching your sales goals.
In this book, Jeb Blount shares stories, examples, and lessons that teach a powerful human-influence framework for getting past the – NO. You’ll learn a new psychology for turning-around objections and get techniques for managing today’s well-informed and skeptical buyers.
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20. Discover Questions
Author: Deb Calvert
Discover Questions is a great book by Deb Calvert that reveals findings from buyer research on how to use questions to gain trust and form strong bonds with the potential buyers.
This book gives a fresh perspective on the questioning process.
With this informative book, you can create value for your prospects and connect with them in a better way. You’ll find anecdotes from actual sales calls in this book, that will show you exactly how to be more effective in all the stages of the sales process.
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21. Sales Enablement
Authors: Tamara Schenk, Byron Matthews
Sales Enablement is a research-based book written by Tamara Schenk, Byron Matthews. You’ll find sales enablement best practices and step-by-step approaches for implementation alongside expert advice.
The authors have given examples of real-world companies and highlighted the steps one must take to achieve the desired sales results. This book is a perfect guide on sales enablement for any sales professional who wants to drum-up their sales and boost revenue.
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22. Sales Differentiation
Author: Lee Salz
Bad mouthing your competitors won’t help in differentiating your solution. There are better ways to do it.
Sales differentiation by Lee Salz is a great book that teaches you how to differentiate your solution in ways that are more meaningful to your buyers.
The book is divided into two parts: what you sell and how you sell it. Lee Salz shares a lot of examples, stories, charts, and graphs to show you how to differentiate your solution and provide value to your prospects.
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23. The Lost Art of Closing
Author: Anthony Iannarino
Most of the sales professionals face difficulty in closing. Due to which they lose many lucrative deals and fail to meet their sales quota.
In the book, “The Lost Art of Closing” Anthony Iannarino shows a different approach to handling the most difficult phase of selling, ie – closing. He emphasizes on the 10-step process for converting skeptical prospects into paying customers.
Here are the 10 commitments that are necessary for closing
- The commitment of time
- The commitment to exploring
- The commitment to change
- The commitment to collaborate
- The commitment to build consensus
- The commitment to invest
- The commitment to review
- The commitment to resolve concerns
- The commitment to decide
- The commitment to execute
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24. To Sell Is Human
Author: Daniel Pink
Dan Pink in his book, “To Sell is Human” offers a fresh look at the art and science of selling. The author shares some of the best practices to improve your sales as well as life. The book powerfully describes the various shifts in the modern reality of sales.
The author describes the principles of attitude (ABC: attunement, buoyancy, and clarity, rather than the older sales formula ‘always be closing’). He also gave three principles of action (pitch, improvise, and serve). In this book, Pink offers practical insights into modern selling.
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25. The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need
Author: Anthony Iannarino
Here’s another interesting book by the sales expert Anthony Iannarino. The sales expert has boiled down everything he has learned and tested in this informative book that explains what all successful sellers, regardless of industry or organization share: a mind-set of powerful beliefs and a skill set of key action including:
- Self-discipline: The art of “me management”
- Optimism: “A positive mental attitude”
- Caring: “The desire to help others”
- Competitiveness: “A burning desire to be the best”
- Resourcefulness: “Finding a way or making one”
- Initiative: “Taking action before it is necessary
- Persistence: “ Breaking through resistance
- Communication: “Listening and connecting”
- Accountability: “Owning the outcomes you sell”
- Mastering the mind: “Mastering the mind-set elements to create influence”
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Wrapping up
We hope this list of books will help you in improving your sales. Each book on this list has something to offer that can help you in getting better at selling. Besides these books, there are various sales tools that can help you in managing and improving your sales. With a tool like Salesmate CRM, you can streamline your sales process. It is one one the best CRM software that can help you in managing, nurturing, and converting your deals into sales.
The post 25 sales books every sales rep must-read in 2020 appeared first on Salesmate.
