Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer With The Little Red Book of Selling, Jeffrey Gitomer has created a real-world, practical, and fun book that salespeople will love and profit from. Salespeople want answers. That’s why the Little Red Book of Selling is short, sweet, and to the point. It’s packed with answers that people are searching for in order to help them make sales for the moment – and for the rest of their lives. Excerpt: When you’re in a slump, you begin to press for orders instead of working your best gameplan (which is: “sell to help the other person,” and let your sincerity of purpose chine through). When you have the pressure to sell, the prospect senses it, and backs off.
Presentation Zen by Garr Reynolds To be great in sales, you need to be a presentation master. Presentation Zen is not a technical manual for PowerPoint, but a guide from a communications expert on how to create striking presentations that will leave any audience rapt. Excerpt: Both Steve Jobs and Bill Gates use slides to complement their talks. The biggest difference, however, is that Jobs’s visuals are a big part of his talk.
The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling by Keith Rosen SalesHQ featured author Keith Rosen has written the quintessential book on cold calling: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Cold Calling. Of course you’re no idiot, but cold calling is one of the most challenging tasks for any salesperson. Excerpt: I often hear salespeople use the word “prospecting” and the phrase “cold calling” synonymously. To eliminate any further confusion as you move deeper into this book, let’s draw a distinction between the two…
Sales 2.0 for Dummies by David Thompson with Elaine Marmel As part of the first Sales 2.0 conference held in October 2007, Genius.com CEO David Thompson wrote a quick guide for integrating social media with the sales process, Sales 2.0 for Dummies. With the proliferation of online communities like Facebook,
Thompson shows you what Sales 2.0 is (and can be) and offers 10 ways to boost your 2.0 abilities. Excerpt: A great source of new business is your current customer base. Effectively maintaining and cultivating your existing customers is an enormous Sales 2.0 opportunity for any company.
How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or just starting out, How to Master the Art of Selling is a classic – an indispensable source of information that includes the five essential steps to successful selling. Guaranteed to give you the edge you need to excel in today’s competitive business environment, Master the Art of Selling is for anyone who is ready to realize their goals and fulfill their highest potential. Excerpt: I am not judged by the number of times I fail, but by the number of times I succeed: and the number of times I succeed is in direct proportion to the number of times I fail and keep trying.
Selling the Invisible by Harry Beckwith Harry Beckwith was an advertising and marketing man, but the lessons he lays out in Selling the Invisible are essential for any successful salesperson. He argues that people do not buy products for their features, but for the way their company does business. Excerpt: The problem wasn’t that the story had no appeal. It was that the story was just a story to the editor because he had never heard of Hellenic Adventures. How could he be sure the company was real and viable, his trust in me notwithstanding?
The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy Brian Tracy’s The Psychology of Selling isn’t going to make you an expert on Freud, but it will help you change the way you think about sales. With visualization techniques and tried and true sales advice, Tracy will teach you how to take command of your mind and also your customers.
Attitude 101 by John C. Maxwell Attitude 101, part of the 101 series, is a short read but for someone looking to be a sales leader it is a good desk reference to remind you that your attitude, as much as anything else, can determine your success. Excerpt: Value people. Praise effort. Reward performance. I use that method with everyone. I even use a form of it with myself. When I’m working, I don’t give myself a reward until after the job is finished. When I approach a task or project, I give it my very best, and no matter what the results are, I have a clear conscience.
Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Zigler Make ’em say YES! All of us are involved in selling every day. Whenever we present a product or a principle, inform a client, or instruct a child, we are engaging in the art of effective persuasion. In Secrets of Closing the Sale, Ziglar explains proven, practical sales techniques all of us can use every day. Excerpt: Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.
Secrets of Question Based Selling by Thomas Freese Do you want to read Secrets of Question Based Selling? Have you tried opening every statement with a sentence? If you haven’t, Thomas Freese thinks you should. He lays out every stage of a selling process that begins and ends with a question. Excerpt: The “kill ’em with customer service” closing mentality isn’t restricted to department stor clerks. It’s alive and well in large account corporate sales, insurance sales, medical sales, technology sales, and many other types of selling.
The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino
Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World offers a spiritual philosophy of salesmanship, which involves a message of honesty and believing in what you are selling. Excerpt: Beginning today, treat everyone you meet as if they were going to be dead by midnight. Extend to them all the care, kindness and understanding you can muster, and do it with no thought of any reward. Your life will never be the same again.
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie Dale Carnegies classic best seller was first published in 1937. More than 70 years later it is still the go-to-guide for developing advanced “people skills.” Carnegie’s key message was that only 15% of business success comes from professional ability, the rest from you “ability to express ideas…and to arouse enthusiasm.” Excerpt: My guess is—and this is only a guess—that after writing that letter, Lincoln looked out of the window and said to himself, "Just a minute. Maybe I ought not to be so hasty.
Covert Persuasion by Kevin Hogan Though salespeople don’t pride themselves on tricking customers, Kevin Hogan’s Covert Persuasion still provides invaluable insights into buyer motivation and how purchasing decisions are made. You can make the most logically persuasive case to a prospect on why he should buy, but reason isn’t driving him. Excerpt: We like people who we think are just like us. We become quick friends. We trust and follow our friends. We all have a deep desire to be liked. This is why friends will often dress in very similar clothes, travel in the same social circles, and even drive similar cars.
The Definitive Book of Body Language by Barbara Pease We all know that our body language can convey as much, if not more, information than the words coming out of our mouths. For salespeople, Barbara Pease’s The Definitive Book of Body Language provides two guides in one: how to master your own body language and how to read your clients’.
Excerpt: Body language is an outward reflection of a person’s emotional condition. Each gesture or movement can be a valuable key to an emotion a person may be feeling at the time.
9. Mastering the Complex Sale Prior to this book, much of the business world believed that a good salesperson can "sell anything to anyone." Author Jeff Thull, however, lays out the gradual process by which a salesperson can help customers clarify their needs, understand their alternatives, and make the internal changes required to buy a solution that will change their entire business.
8. The Psychology of Selling
Selling is more that just strategy and politics--it's the practical application of psychology in a business context. In this seminal work, Brian Tracy lays out the inner motivations of both buyers and sellers, explaining how they interact to create opportunities for both parties. Insightful and essential.
7. Strategic Selling
This is the masterwork when it comes to understanding how a company's sales strategy--and the execution of that strategy-can make or break a business model. Authors Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman (along with their amanuensis Tad Tuleja) detail the best practices of successful firms, showing how and why their strategies have worked.
6. Perfect Selling In this quick read, author Linda Richardson encapsulates, in a very simple and straightforward fashion, the entire sales cycle. She simplifies where other sales books complexify, making it clear that there's no reason that any reasonably intelligent person can't move a sale forward. It's perfect for entrepreneurs and professional salespeople alike.
5. How to Master the Art of Selling
It's difficult to overestimate the enormous influence that Tom Hopkins has had on the world of sales. He was the first to recognize that what's now considered commonplace: that selling is primarily a process of managing your own fears and focusing on what the customer needs.
4. The Greatest Salesman in the World
In addition to being a groundbreaking business book (See Top 10 Most Influential Business Books), Og Mandino's classic helps the reader discover the positive "why" behind selling, reframing the act of selling from something that's manipulative to the act of helping other people achieve their dreams.
3. Secrets of Closing the Sale
There's a reason why Zig Ziglar's death last November generated an outpouring of tributes from nearly every corner of the business world. It's been said that all successful people "stand on the shoulders of giant." For the world of sales, Zig was the ultimate giant, the pioneer who laid out the basic principles on which all sales technique and training is based.
2. The Little Red Book of Selling I like to think of Jeff Gitomer as the "Seth Godin" of the sales world. Jeff has a knack for distilling complex business issues down to their essence, and then explaining exactly how to use that essence to make yourself more successful. Note: this book was tied for second place with Gitomer's other classic work, The Sales Bible.
1. Spin Selling Finally, this is the book that turned selling from an art into a science. While other sales books are heavy with anecdotes and assumptions, Neil Rackham examined hard evidence of actual sales performance and codified what works--and what doesn't--in real world sales situations. A must read for everyone who sells.
The Closers The keystone of Gay's world-famous series of books, first published in 1980, is a complete reference on closing sales and a guide to new sales presentations in today's marketplace. Not a beginner's manual or self-help book, this classic is designed to help master closers brush up and study total closing procedures.
Jim Pickens
