Fifteen Must-Read Books that Will Improve Your Sales Performance

It’s easy to find “Best Sales Books“ lists. At the Institute for Excellence in Sales, we’ve read pretty much all of the important ones because many of the power books were written by past IES speakers: Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling, Jill Konrath’s Selling to Big Companies, Jeb Blount’s Fanatical Prospecting, The Challenger Sales/The Challenger Customer published by CEB now Gartner, and Mark Hunter’s High-Profit Prospecting.

Here are some others that should be in all sales professionals’ libraries because they are interesting, compelling and offer something new and different. Most the authors have graced the IES stage.

Alex Goldfayn: The Revenue Growth Habit: How to Grow Your Sales by 15% in 15 Minutes Per Day

Goldfayn gives very straightforward advice on simple, action-oriented things you should be doing each day to grow revenue. His suggestions are quite salient, prescriptive, and focused on doing smart activities that generate revenue, as compared to time wasters. He also outlines an easy-to-implement plan you can follow to get into action.

The sales speakers at IES encourage our members to take immediate actions that will make you better at professional selling. This book helps remove some of the hindrances to implementation.

Arnold Sanow: Get Along Better with Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere

Sanow is known as the “Get Along Guy,” based on the success of this book and the subsequent speaking opportunities it’s generated for him. His focus is to create enduring and mutually beneficial relationships with customers, co-workers, and even family members and he outlines dozens of ways to basically be a better person. As you sometimes hear, people like to buy from people they like. This book will make you become more likeable. (I hesitate to name names of people who should read this book.)

Bill Cates: Beyond Referrals.

Cates is a million-dollar speaker known as "The Referral Coach" by the thousands of financial sales professionals he helped become more referrable. In this entertaining and rich book, Cates offers many ideas to help sales professionals generate profitable referrals without begging or being too pushy. It’s perfect for sellers of financial services and more.

Colleen Francis: Non-Stop Sales Boom

A number of sharp, non-bull prospecting books have come out in the past few years. One of my favorites is this one from the Ottawa-based author. When Ms. Francis speaks at the IES, it’s clear she has a distinct intellect and this book comes across as a thinking-person’s prospecting guide. While she definitely covers the “you need courage side” of prospecting, she also clearly spells out the why and how as well.

David Hoffeld: The Science of Selling: Science-Backed Strategies That Will Help You Sell More

We frequently speak about the art and science of sales, however the percentage of science in the enterprise sales process continues to grow at a widening clip. Although many others have led the way in viewing professional sales as scientific endeavors, Hoffeld smartly grabbed the title. We’d like to see him expand the conversation. Perhaps “The Science of Sales Prospecting,” “The Science of Referral Building,” and “The Science of Cross-Selling” would be welcomed.

Jason Jordan and Michelle Vazzana: Cracking the Sales Management Code

Practical comes to mind when I refer to this book. In the foreword, Neil Rackham writes, “Cracking the Sales Management Code is about the practical specifics of sales management in the new era, and it fills a void." The book came along at the right time, as sales managers continue to struggle with sales excellence while customers try to self-serve.

John Asher: Close Deals Faster

Author John Asher is the top sales speaker at Vistage CEO peer groups worldwide. With a near encyclopedic knowledge of sales processes and methodologies, coupled with having trained tens of thousands of selling professionals around the globe, Asher hits on critical paths sales professionals should be taking for hastened sales success.

Lee Salz: Hire Right, Higher Profits: The Executive's Guide to Building a World-Class Sales Force

There are a lot of good sales management books out there – Mike Weinberg and David Brock’s come to mind – however we liked Salz’ book a lot too. He speaks frequently about how to differentiate yourself as a sales manager and he helps managers develop strategies for building a team that will last and be successful.

Lisa Earle McLeod: Selling with Noble Purpose

Many people might think that selling and noble purpose are oxymorons. Ms. McLeod explains why salespeople, who genuinely understand how they can make a difference for customers, consistently outsell their more quota-driven counterparts. Ms. McLeod followed this up with Leading with Noble Purpose.

Maribeth Kuzmeski: And the Clients Went Wild!: How Savvy Professionals Win All the Business They Want

Maribeth Kuzmeski might be the only author with a doctorate in sales on this list. This was one of the first books of real value that helped show how sales professionals should be using social media to best position themselves as value providers to their prospects. If you are using social media or it’s still a mystery to you, this is a must read.

Mark Hunter: High-Profit Selling: Win the Sales Without Compromising on Price

Before he published the popular High-Profit Prospecting, the author known as "The Sales Hunter" came to our attention with this page-turner. Hunter describes strategies that avoid price cutting and arduous negotiating that you'll regret. He also covers smart strategies to be successful in selling your customer on value, something that we all strive to do.

Nancy Bleeke: Conversations That Sell: Collaborate with Buyers and Make Every Conversation Count

The need for sales professionals to collaborate with prospects and customers continues to be a thread through these books. In this one, Ms. Bleeke discusses how sales people can have deeper, more meaningful conversations with customers to help each other find value in the relationship. Even if you feel you’ve got this covered, you will learn something new. Jill Konrath turned us on to this one.

Steven Gaffney and Colleen Francis, “Honesty Sells: How to Make More Money and Increase Business Profits.”

Steven Gaffney is known as "The Honesty Guy." In one of the first books on this topic, Gaffney and Francis propose smart strategies for developing open, honest and long-lasting relationships. Many salespeople erroneously believe selling relationships are based on commonalities, friendship and service. In this book, the authors show how deep-rooted honest communications – on both sides – will lead to long term, mutually beneficial commercial relationships. Both of these authors have been invited back for repeat speaking engagements with IES due to member demand.

Tim Sullivan: Collaborative Sales

I mentioned SPIN Selling in the introduction. Solution Selling, which is owned by Sullivan’s Sales Performance International, is also one of the enduring consultative sales methodologies in use by large companies around the globe. Using Solution Selling as the reference point, the book gives powerful insights into how the roles of customers, sellers and technology have changed and why collaboration is critical.

Tom Snyder and Kevin Kearns: Escaping the Price-Driven Sale.

Time and time again we hear how sales professionals are looking for solutions to avoid the low-price trap and figure out ways to sell on value. This is probably one of the most thoughtful and provocative books on this topic and most of its lessons are still quite pertinent. It was written by the leaders of the company that owned SPIN Selling. I’m surprised more people don’t reference this book in discussions such as this. I referred to Hoffeld’s book on the science of selling above. This tome treats selling as a science from the start. It's also mandatory if you'd like to learn how to ask better questions during the sales process.

IES has, fortunately, been an excellent conduit for outstanding sales speakers/authors to help grow your career. We will keep inviting in the high quality speakers to ensure you have plentiful resources to provide the highest level of sales for you personally and also with your company. Our schedule of 2018 speakers can be found here.

If you’re an author looking to get exposure for your book, Link in to me and let’s get the conversation started.

Since some of these books are not as well known, let me know in the comments if you’ve read any of these and your thoughts.