Part of your toolset as a sales manager is a library full of great books that can help you or your team with advice and ideas. But, I know that finding the right sales book can be tough and overwhelming! I recently searched “sales” in Amazon.com’s book category and came up with more than 1.3 million results. That’s right, 1.3 million! I don’t have the time to read all those books, and I don’t have time to waste on books that don’t deliver. And I know you don’t either.
So, I created a cheat sheet for you. Below are nine books I recommend for your sales team to read in 2017. All of these books are new and written by trusted authorities — most of whom I know. I think every sales leader should ask their team to read these nine helpful, accessible and useful books. Think about starting a book club with your team! It’s an easy, affordable way to engage your team and take their skills to the next level.
So, without further ado, here’s nine books to add to your Kindle or bookshelf this year.
1. More Sales, Less Time: Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Today’s Crazy-Busy Sellers
Author: Jill Konrath
If you’re an overwhelmed sales leader with too-few hours in a day, then “More Sales, Less Time” can help you. Discover how to reclaim a minimum of one hour per day by eliminating major time sucks and changing the way you tackle e-mail and social media. Learn to free up time to focus on activities that have the highest impact on your sales results, such as preparing, researching, strategizing, and connecting with customers. Understand how to optimize your sales processes to eliminate redundancies and wasted time. Finally, this book will help you transform your mindset to incorporate new, more productive habits effortlessly, leverage your best brainpower, and stay at the top of your sales game.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”#timemanagement skills for #salesleaders with no time to waste” via=”no”]
2. The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need
“The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need” reveals how all salespeople can attain huge sales success through strategies backed by extensive research and experience. In this book, author Anthony Iannarino turns his focus to a question that’s been debated for at least a century: Why are a small number of salespeople in any field hugely successful, while the rest get mediocre results at best? The answer is simple: it’s not about the market, the product, or the competition—it’s all about the seller. And consequently, any salesperson can sell more and better, all the time. This one helpful book explains what all successful salespeople, regardless of industry or organization, share—a mindset of powerful beliefs and a skillset of key actions.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”Successful #sales is about the #salesperson. Anyone can #sell more and better, all the time” username=”AliceHeiman”]
3. Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling
Author: Jeb Blount
“Fanatical Prospecting” gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most significant activity in sales and business development—prospecting. The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and the cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect consistently. By ignoring prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently underperform. Blount outlines his approach to prospecting that works for real people, in the real world, with real prospects. Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”Don’t get caught with an empty #pipeline. Keep #prospecting to find #opportunities” username=”AliceHeiman”]
4. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance
Author: Angela Duckworth
In this instant New York Times bestseller, pioneering psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed—be it parents, students, educators, athletes, or business people—that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls grit. “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” teaches readers:
- Why any effort you make ultimately counts twice toward your goal
- How grit can be learned, regardless of I.Q. or circumstances
- How lifelong interest is triggered
- How much of optimal practice is suffering, and how much is ecstasy
- Which is better for your child—a warm embrace or high standards
- The magic of the Hard Thing Rule
Winningly personal, insightful, and even life-changing, Grit is a book about what goes through your head when you fail, and how that—not talent or luck—makes all the difference.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”Find your #grit with and become a better #salesleader.” username=”AliceHeiman”]
5. The Perfect Close: The Secret to Closing Sales – The Best Selling Practices & Techniques for Closing the Deal
Author: James M Muir
If you want to discover how to close sales using a practice that’s flexible, natural, and easy to learn and not pushy, then read this book. In “The Perfect Close” you will learn a closing method that is almost always successful. It’s zero pressure and involves only two questions. It’s a clear and straightforward approach that is flexible enough to use on every kind of sale at every given stage. It can be learned in less than an hour and mastered in a day. It is especially helpful for new and inexperienced salespeople and professionals who dislike the stigma of selling or find the sales process awkward or uncomfortable. If you are new to sales, make this the first book you read. It will teach you how to be effective immediately, as well as the rest of the steps in your sales process. If you are an experienced professional looking for ways to improve your performance, this book will help take your closing skills to a whole new level.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”A great guide for new #salespeople to learn #howto #close the #deal!” username=”AliceHeiman”]
6. Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High-Velocity Sales Machine
Author: Max Altschuler
“Hacking Sales” helps you transform your sales process using the next generation of tools, tactics, and strategies. Learn the most effective changes you can make, starting today, to evolve your sales and continually raise the bar. Walk through the entire sales process from start to finish, learning critical hacks every step of the way. Find and capture your lowest-hanging fruit at the top of the funnel, build massive lead lists using ICP and TAM, use multiple prospecting strategies, perfect your follow-ups, nurture leads, outsource when advantageous, and much more. Build, refine, and enhance your pipeline over time, close deals faster, and use the right tools for the job. This book is your roadmap to quick and efficient revenue growth.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”#sales tools, tactics and strategies for quick #revenue #growth.” username=”AliceHeiman”]
7. High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results
Author: Mark Hunter
As a salesperson, your pipeline is the key to your success. No matter what else changes, that remains the same. Top producers prospect—and they do it all the time. Sales expert Mark Hunter shatters costly prospecting myths, and eliminates confusion about what prospecting techniques work. Merging new strategies with proven practices, “High-Profit Prospecting” will help you find better leads and qualify them quickly, trade cold calling for informed calling and tailor your timing and message. You’ll learn to leave a great voicemail, craft compelling emails and use social media effectively. This book also teaches how to leverage referrals, get past gatekeepers, open new doors, steer clear of prospecting pitfalls, and connect with the C-Suite.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”Find #leads quickly and trade #coldcalling for informed calling.” username=”AliceHeiman”]
8. Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline
Author: Marylou Tyler
If B2B sales drive your organization’s success, you need to be an expert prospector to target, qualify, and close business opportunities successfully. This game-changing guide provides the immediately implementable strategies you need to build a solid, sustainable pipeline whether you’re a sales or marketing executive, team leader, or sales representative. You’ll learn how to target and track ideal prospects, optimize contact acquisition, continually improve performance, and achieve your revenue goals quickly, efficiently, and predictably. The book includes easy-to-use charts and e-mail templates and features full online access to sample materials, worksheets, and blueprints to add to your prospecting tool kit.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”Drive #B2B #sales with expert #prospecting and #closing tips.” username=”AliceHeiman”]
9. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Author: Cal Newport
Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It’s a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive 21st-century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep—instead, spending their days in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there’s a better way. In “Deep Work”, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. A mix of cultural criticism and actionable advice, “Deep Work” takes the reader on a journey through memorable stories and no-nonsense advice. It is an indispensable guide to anyone seeking focused success in a distracted world.
[Buy Now]
My Tweet Sized Two Cents:
[bctt tweet=”#sales tools, tactics and strategies for quick #revenue #growth.” username=”AliceHeiman”]
Each of these books offers a different set of tools and ideas that can help sales reps at every level. If your team reads one of these books, or all nine, they will walk away with a new perspective and ideas to help increase sales!
If you want guidance on how to take your sales team to the next level that can’t be found in a book, give me a call at 775-852-5020 or schedule an appointment with me.
Alice is nationally known for her expertise in elevating sales to increase valuation for companies with a B2B complex sale that have exceptional growth potential. She’s originally, from the widely known Miller Heiman Group. Spending her time strategizing with CEOs and their leadership teams to build the strategies that find new business and grow existing accounts is her passion. Her clients love her spirit and the way she energizes their sales organization.
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