The Best Books for Modern Sales Professionals

The Best Books for Modern Sales Professionals

@Brandon_Lee_09

If you search for sales books on Amazon, over 100,000 titles come up. I’m a big believer in education, and books are the best way to develop your craft. But where should you start?

Books Book Books!

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I’ve put together a list of my top sales 25 book, broken out into categories.

• Sales Process & Pipeline Generation• Sales Strategy & Frameworks• Sales Management• Cold Calling & Phone Prospecting• Account Based Sales

Top Books by Category

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Let’s dive in!

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Sales Process & Pipeline Generation

• Fanatical Prospecting• Amp Up Your Sales• New Sales. Simplified• SHiFT

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“There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay

to earn a high income.”

-Jeb BlountFanatical Prospecting

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Author: Jeb BlountAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 169 reviews) Best SellerHardcover: 304 pagesDate Published: October 5, 2015

Fanatical Prospecting

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Why You Need To Read This Book

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeb for the podcast that we host with Datanyze, and he was one of my favorite guests. He also happens to have one of the best books I’ve read recently for sales reps who need to prospect more effectively and generate more pipeline.


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What This Book Covers

In this book, Jeb covers how to leverage the Law of Familiarity to reduce prospecting friction and avoid rejection, how to use social selling to build relationships with prospects, a more effective script for cold calling, how to get more replies with cold emails, and some of the hottest new tools in the space.

Read this book if you’re a sales rep responsible for creating your own pipeline or an SDR looking to up your game.


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Author: Andy PaulAmazon Rating: 4.9 (from 39 reviews)Paperback: 240 pagesDate Published: November 26, 2014

Amp Up Your Sales

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This is another highly tactical sales book for reps who want an edge in selling, or for entrepreneurs setting up their own sales process. Andy, another good friend of PersistIQ and a guest on our podcast, explains that in order to get the edge in sales today, it’s not about what you sell. It’s about how you sell. Another sales veteran with years in the trenches, he uses his own experience to illustrate some of the points in the book.

Amp Up Your Sales

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Andy breaks his book into 8 parts: 1) simplifying your sales 2) accelerating your responsiveness 3) maximizing value 4) growing through follow up 5) amp up your prospecting 6) Qualification: doing more with less 7) mastering stories that sell 8) selling through customer service.

This is another must read if you’re looking to create more qualified pipeline or refining your own sales process. It’s also a good read for SDRs.

Amp Up Your Sales

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Author: Mike WeinbergAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 173 reviews)Paperback: 220 pagesDate Published: September 4, 2012

New Sales. Simplified

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Much like his book Sales Management. Simplified., Mike’s writing is very easy to read, and the concepts are further illustrated with stories and examples. I put this book in the same camp as Fanatical Prospecting and Amp Up Your Sales in terms of the problem it’s helping solve. The main differences are Mike provides more compelling stories (in my opinion) but covers less on social selling and tools/technology (a lot has changed in the 4 years since this was published).


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This is a great education on strategies for finding more and better prospects, creating your “sales story”, honing your cold calling skills, perception management, building rapport, managing your day, getting more meetings and having more productive and effective conversations.

Buy this book if you’re a rep looking for ways to differentiate in starting more conversation and closing more deals. SDRs will find value in this book too.


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Authors: Craig Elias and Tibor ShantoAmazon Rating: 4.7 (from 12 reviews)Paperback: 256 pagesDate Published: June 28, 2010

SHiFT

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If you’ve been at any sales conferences and seen a guy wearing a bright orange shirt, that’s most likely Craig! His book is dressed in the same bright orange. This book is all about using Trigger Events to close more deals. I was really impressed with the level of thought that the authors put on defining, identifying, and leveraging trigger events. Selling is all about timing, and this book breaks down everything you need to know about timing around major events.

SHiFT

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Craig and Tibor cover everything from conducting a Won Sales Analysis, to identifying trigger events that cause people to enter the window of dissatisfaction, how to become the emotional favorite to buyers, how to get more referrals, and how to gain more credibility.

Pick up this book if you’re on the front lines and need to break into larger accounts.

SHiFT

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Sales Strategy and Frameworks

• SPIN Selling• The Challenger Sales• Agile Selling

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“Successful people ask a lot more questions during sales calls than do their less successful colleagues. We found that these less successful

people tend to do most of the talking.

-Neil RackhamSPIN Selling

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Author: Neil RackhamAmazon Rating: 4.2 (from 289 reviews) Best SellerHardcover: 216 pagesDate Published: May 1, 1988

SPIN Selling

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This may be the oldest book on this list, but that speaks to its timelessness. Personally, I believe this book should be the cornerstone of all sales reps training. Huthwaite and Dr. Rackham’s research was the first real in-depth scientific look into the non-scientific art of selling, which forever changed the way we sell. Every sales rep must memorize chapter 4 of this book, then start to build out their own methodology as they take bits and pieces from other books and frameworks.

SPIN Selling

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By investing in this book, you’ll learn the stages of a sales call, a breakdown of classic closing techniques and their effectiveness, the right way to obtain commitment from buyers, how to uncover and develop needs, the SPIN framework (Situation, Problem, Implication and Needs-Payoff), and handling objections.

You MUST read this book if you are in sales. Period!

SPIN Selling

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Author: Matthew Dixon and Brent AdamsonAmazon Rating: 4.4 (from 394 reviews)Hardcover: 240 pagesDate Published: November 10, 2011

The Challenger Sales

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All good salespeople are aware of the consultative sale, but this takes it to the next level, adding a little more data and another layer of sophistication. The sales is not just about building a relationship and getting a buyer to like you. The most successful sales reps — the challengers — are able to push their prospects to think (usually contrary to their normal beliefs, hence the challenger) in a new way and teach them something new.


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The Challenger Sale will teach you the different types of sales reps, how Challengers will teach, tailor and take control in a sales situation, how to lead with your strengths while tactfully challenging the prospect’s assumptions, and how managers can be better coaches.

This is the perfect book if you’re in a closing role and frequently on the phone or face-to-face with prospects.


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Author: Jill KonrathAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 78 reviews)Paperback: 272 pagesDate Published: July 7, 2015

Agile Selling

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Jill’s book SNAP Selling gives sales reps tactics and methodologies to keep up in the rapidly change sales space. Today’s best sales reps are flexible, adaptable and, well, agile. This is not a new, ground-breaking methodology, but the tips and tactics are still highly valuable. Chapters are broken into small, easily-digestible pieces, so there are many of them (over 60).

Agile Selling

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Diving into this book, you’ll learn about time management tools, tactics to keep personal motivation high, how to gain creativity and break the monotony of your day, and gamification strategies for modern reps.

This book is perfect for reps who have been selling a while but need to get caught up with the modern time.

Agile Selling

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Sales Management

• The Sales Development Playbook• Sales Manager Survival Guide• Sales Management. Simplified• Sales Acceleration Formula• Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

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“Your career, your culture, and everyone else’s livelihood is depending on you. Let’s

not waste one more minute.”

-Trish BertuzziThe Sales Development Playbook

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Author: Trish BertuzziAmazon Rating: 4.9 (from 69 reviews)Paperback: 262 pagesDate Published: January 15, 2016

The Sales Development Playbook

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It’s been called, “The sales development Bible” by numerous sales leaders, and I won’t argue. Sales development may be one of the biggest innovations in the sales space over the last decade, and Trish is the perfect person to be writing the book on it. This is a true playbook with step-by-step tactics and strategies for building, managing and leading a modern sales team. This gets my award for the most actionable sales book that I’ve ever read.


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At a high level the 6 sections that Trish covers are 1) Strategy: A framework for aligning your sales model with market dynamics 2) Specialization: How to segment your prospect universe 3) Recruiting: How to find, hire and compensate good sales talent 4) Retention: How to engage, develop and motivate reps 5) Execution: How to properly conduct outbound sales 6) Leadership: How to be a good sales team leader, from establishing quota to performance metrics to building out our sales stack.

You especially need to read this book if you’re scaling or restructuring your sales team.


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Author: David A BrockAmazon Rating: 5.0 (from 19 reviews)Paperback: 358 pagesDate Published: May 17, 2016

Sales Manager Survival Guide

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This book is pure gold. It came across my radar after talking with and hearing only positive praise from other top sales professionals. I’ve dog-eared, underlined, and scribble more notes in this book than I have in any book for a while. It’s a rather lengthy book (358 pages in 66 chapter) and pretty dense, but the content is timeless. He writes from experience, and his stories are short and to the point. The lessons are very comprehensive and thoughtful.


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He breaks the book up into nine parts: 1) The New Sales Manager; 2) Coaching is Your Job; 3) Accelerate Your Coaching Impact; 4) Recruiting, Interviewing, Hiring, and Onboarding; 5) Performance Management; 6) Tactical Business Management — Managing the Business Week to Week, Quarter to Quarter; 7) Sales Enablement: Equipping Your People to Sell; 8) Term Sales Management Issues, 9) Your Future as a Sales Manger

If you are in sales managing at any level (from new, 1st time managers to seasoned veterans), I highly recommend this book.


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Author: Mike WeinbergAmazon Rating:Hardcover: 224 pagesDate Published: October 21, 2015

Sales Management. Simplified

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This was one of those books that I just couldn’t put down, which is especially impressive because it’s a sales management book, not a graphic novel about vampires or wizards (I actually read zero fiction). It was very easy to read with advice and anecdotes all along the way.


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Some of the main topics that Mike covers in the book are implementing a simple framework for leadership, fostering a healthy and high-performing culture, conducting productive meetings, establishing an effective compensation plan, finding the right people for the right roles, retaining top talent, telling your sales story and mastering your calendar.

Buy this book now if you’re in a sales leadership role managing a team of more than a handful of reps.


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Author: Mark RobergeAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 123 reviews)Hardcover: 224 pagesDate Published: February 24, 2015

Sales Acceleration Formula

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Mark’s book is required reading for our new sales reps because it’s that good. The engineering degree from MIT was the perfect background for a leader who challenged the conventional methods of selling by utilizing metrics and processes to build a sales machine that sent the Hubspot team on a rocketship to the top. He literally engineered sales success at Hubspot.


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Mark breaks down his book into sections: 1) The Sales Hiring Formula 2) The Sales Training Formula 3) The Sales Management Formula 4) The Demand Generation Formula and 5) Technology and Experimentation.

If you’re building your sales team, this book is another must-read.


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Author: Keith RosenAmazon Rating: 4.7 (from 96 reviews)Hardcover: 352 pagesDate Published: March 14, 2008

Coaching Salespeople into Sales Champions

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The first of two books on this list by Keith Rosen is all about taking your existing sales force and coaching them into sales stars, along with some solid advice on how to cut the underperformers. What I love about Keith’s approach is that he doesn’t believe that Sales Champions are made using pressure and fear to perform better. If you’ve read management theory by Drucker or Carnegie, some of the concepts here won’t be new, but they’re always worth a refresher.


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Some of the most valuable takeaways from this book are universal principles of coaching, the biggest mistakes coaches make and how to avoid them, different styles of managing for different types of managers, how to conduct an effective coaching session, and how to turn around or let go of underperformers.

This book is perfect for any manager or coach of a sales team.


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Authors: Marcus Buckingham and Curt CoffmanAmazon Rating: 4.5 (from 545 reviews)Hardcover: 271 pagesDate Published: May 5, 1999

First, Break All the Rules

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This book came on my radar over 5 years ago, and it’s always been on my reading list. But when I finally read it, I regretted not reading it sooner. Based on findings from their in-depth study of great managers across a wide variety of situations, industries, and company sizes, the authors have delivered one of the most important books on people management. The management principles shared in this book are timeless and will help you build strong foundations for a healthy culture with your sales team.


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In this book, you’ll learn how to find and keep the top talent, leverage compensations, benefits and promotions in the right way, the most efficient way to train employees and what to look for beyond hard skills in predicting success.

Every manager and HR personnel needs to read this book.


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Author: John WoodenAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 192 reviews)Hardcover: 302 pagesDate Published: April 26, 2005

Wooden on Leadership

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Being a huge sports fan, there are several other great books written by top sports coaches that I was tempted to include in this list — books from Bill Belichick, Bill Walsh and Phil Jackson. In this book, Coach Wooden outlines the mental, emotional, and physical qualities that are essential to building a winning organization, which are applicable to whether you’re building a basketball team or a sales team. Both professions require you to work hard in developing your skills, confidence, and competitive fire.


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The book is organized into 3 parts: 1) The Foundation of My Leadership, where the Coach explains his pyramid of success 2) Lessons in Leadership, in which he offers lessons and anecdotes from his professional career and 3) Lessons From My Notebook, which is filled with “notes, observations, reminders, suggestions, and lists of relevant goals and how to achieve them.”

This book is for you if you’re leading a team, need to motivate the troops, and/or love sports.


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Training doesn’t stop after onboarding.

Exams and certifications add predictability to sales trainings.

Establish this culture early on during your onboarding, and do not deviate from the plan.

Ongoing Training

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Cold Calling & Phone Prospecting

• Smart Calling• The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling• Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling

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“Businesses that react… are not nearly as successful as those who employ proactive hunting, or telephone prospecting, as part

of the mix.”

-Art SobczakSmart Calling

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Author: Art SobczakAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 131 reviews)Hardcover: 256 pagesDate Published: April 8, 2013

Smart Calling

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When I was an SDR, I was on the phone for 6+ hours per day. That wasn’t time blocked off for calls, that was actual talk time. I would have killed for this book. This is not a book where you can sit down and breeze through it in one reading. It’s a book where you need to read one section at a time, then go apply it, them come back later.

Smart Calling

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Art covers areas like creating a value proposition, gather intelligence to make your calls smart, using “social engineering” to get insight on your prospect, how to work with screeners, gatekeepers, and assistants, perfecting opening statements, minimizing resistance, getting a commitment for the next action, and stay motivated

You need this book if you’re an inside sales rep constantly on the phone.

Smart Calling

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Author: Keith RosenAmazon Rating: 4.6 (from 53 reviews)Hardcover: Paperback: 336 pagesDate Published: August 3, 2004

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling

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This book pairs well with Art Sobczak’s book Smart Calling if you just getting into sales and cold calling. While Art’s book is more situational and practical, Keith’s book is more process oriented. There’s not a whole lot of new information in this book, so if you’ve been on the phones for years, this may not be for you.


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Section one of his books covers preparation and the inner game of prospecting. Section two is about generating new business with systems and proper planning. Section three is about having better conversations. Section four covers getting returned calls and getting past the gatekeeper. And the final section is about how you can continue to refine your process.

Pick this up if you’re new to calling and need to hit your dials for the day.


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Author: Sam RichterAmazon Rating: 4.9 (from 74 reviews)Paperback: 312 pagesDate Published: July 9, 2009

Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling

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Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, literally. Once you get past the ugly cover and slightly misleading title, Sam Richter dives into how to prospect for cold calling. He doesn’t dive into how to call at all, but rather how to do the right research on prospects so that they’re warm and receptive once you do call them. Though it was written 7 years ago and the online landscape has, much of what Sam writes about is as valid today, if not more so.


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You’ll learn ways to access highly qualified lead lists, tips and tricks for leveraging search engines to prospect, use social networks to get more sales insights, how to access premium information resources at no or very low cost, how to massively increase your credibility with prospects and existing clients, and expert “Warm Call Scripts.”

Read this if you’re in inside sales and need to do a lot of outbound prospecting on your own.


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Account Based Sales

• Account-Based Sales Development Playbook • Whale Hunting• Selling to Big Companies• Dealstorming

“A new trend is emerging and changing the way B2B sales teams operate and individual reps sell. It’s time we start leveraging different technologies across the

stack and strategically hunt target accounts.”

-Megan TonziThe Account Based Sales Development Playbook

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Authors: Brandon Redlinger and Megan TonziAmazon Rating: Just publishedebook: 43 pagesDate Published: May 17, 2016

Account-Based Sales Development Playbook

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A new trend is emerging in the sales space, a trend that is changing the way B2B sales teams operate and individual reps sell. It’s not actually an entirely new concept, but the language and implementation have changed. It’s called Account Based Sales Development (ABSD). Yes, this is shameless plug since I’m a co-author, but I honestly believe this is valuable knowledge that people need when implementing an account based sales development model.


@Brandon_Lee_09


This is ebook a strategic overview of ABSD that will teach you what account based sales development is and why it matters. It provides criteria on whether or not ABSD is the right approach for your team. Next, it covers how to prepare and align your organization. Then, the next section is about how to create, clean up and manage your database and track performance (KPIs and benchmarks). And the final section provides methodology & best practices for ABSD.

If you are getting started with Account Based selling, this is for you.


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Author: Tom Searcy and Barbara Weaver SmithAmazon Rating: 4.8 (from 32 reviews)Hardcover: 288 pagesDate Published: January 2, 2008

Whale Hunting

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Some people criticize the title, but the authors draw the analogy of the Inuit people hunting a whale being like a sales team going after a large account. Not just any account, but an account that would dramatically impact the bottom line for your business. There’s a lot written out there about how individual sales reps can increase sales, but this book shows you how a team can collaborate and work together.

Whale Hunting

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The phases for hunting whales are: 1) Pre-Scouting 2) Scouting 3) Planning 4) Hunting 5) Capture 6) The Big Show 7) Servicing 8) Understand the process.

Pick this book up if you’re selling to large enterprise accounts that require team collaboration.

Whale Hunting

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Author: Jill KonrathAmazon Rating: 4.7 (from 147 reviews)Paperback: 272 pagesDate Published: December 1, 2005

Selling to Big Companies

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Having read her other books, I almost skipped over this one because I thought it may be outdated, but I’m glad I picked it up. It focuses on a very specific problem that sales reps and teams face — how to get conversations started with these big companies.


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Part one covers what is required of those who attempt to sell to “big(ger)” companies. Part two expands on building a foundation for what eventually should become a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective system for effective selling. And part three is all about executing and launching your campaign.

Read this book if you’re a rep or a manager deploying an account based sales model.


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Author: Tim SandersAmazon Rating: 5 (from 21 reviews)Pages: 242Date Published: February 23, 2016

Dealstorming

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Although Tim never explicitly states that this book is for people going after larger deals, the reason I put this under account-based sales is the general principles align very closely with how a sales team operating in an account based approach works. Dealstorming is a problem-solving technique helps position organizations as trusted advisors and can deliver high-value solutions. This book offers great insight into how a sales rep can create a structured, scalable, and repeatable process that can break through any sales deadlock.

Dealstorming

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This book is broken up into 3 sections: 1) The Case for Sales Collaboration, where the issue of how large, more complex deals are currently handled 2) The Dealstorming Methodology of organize, prepare, convene, execute, analyze and report 3) Tools for Innovation, where he outlines some useful tools for building a process and nurturing relationships.

This is great for reps dealing with large, complex sales.

Dealstorming

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“Read 500 pages ever day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up like

compound interest.”

-Warren Buffett

@Brandon_Lee_09

This list is only valuable if you do something with it!

If you want to learn how to read this entire list in the next 6 months, start by reading this blog post.

Start Reading!

@Brandon_Lee_09

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Other Resources

If you liked this SlideShare, you may also like our deck on

The Top 10 Podcasts That Every Salesperson Needs To Be Listening To

mailto:http://www.slideshare.net/BrandonRedlinger/top-10-podcasts-every-salesperson-needs-to-be-listening-to



The Best Books for Modern Sales Professionals

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