Looking to brush up on your sales vocabulary? Check out our top sales terms and their definitions, and you can sharpen your communication skills in no time.
Sales books are resources focused on teaching salespeople valuable lessons about a range of sales topics, from prospecting and closing to management and metrics. Sales professionals read these books to learn new skills and principles that help them increase their conversions and advance in their sales careers. We’ve curated this list of the best sales books and split them up by role and responsibility so you can find the perfect book for your specific needs.
Here are the categories of the best sales books:
To determine our list, we combed through online book rankings and ratings, as well as interviewed top sellers to identify the best books for any skill level or need. To supplement your reading, also check out our articles on the best sales podcasts and best sales blogs for salespeople.
These books were written with prospecting sales reps in mind — the business and sales development reps and full sales cycle managing reps of the world. They’re full of information about cold calling, emailing, social selling, and qualifying, and they can help you create a repeatable process for booking meetings with high-quality leads.
In a time when buyers are particularly skeptical of a salesperson’s intentions, New Sales. Simplified. is an essential read. It teaches sellers a cold outreach strategy that starts the conversation with pain points, establishing trust and value from the first cold call or email.
If you’re looking for some tested prospecting tactics laid out step by step that you can use right away to start more conversations and book more meetings to help you surpass quota, Fanatical Prospecting will be a productive read for you. It’ll also help you dominate social media and turn LinkedIn connections into B2B leads.
Influence will give you psychological tactics to open more sales opportunities. Much of cold outreach revolves around catching someone’s eye, making them like you, and influencing a snap decision on their part, and this book deals with all of that.
These books are meant for reps in charge of managing and moving prospects to the finish line. They cover various sales methodologies like SPIN or Challenger selling and give you actionable tips for holding discovery, delivering pitches, giving presentations, handling objections, and, of course, closing the sale.
Besides revealing useful discovery tactics, Gap Selling also shares tips on how to better negotiate, overcome objections, and close deals. The problem-centric sales approach you’ll learn will enable you to form better relationships with prospects and close more deals.
Although Ziglar is often hailed as a guru, he's aware that he’s not all-knowing. So, Secrets of Closing the Sale also includes professional tips from 100+ of the most successful salespeople in the US. These tips give readers other perspectives from different industries and professions.
The Challenger Sale will help any seller, no matter their current methodology, come across as more confident to their prospects. The book will also key you in to your own sales personality and show you which of your deficiencies you should improve and which strengths you should use more often.
The shining element of SPIN Selling is the applicability of its strategy; sellers can easily take what they’ve learned into their next call and know what to do and what to ask to get the best results. After reading, you’ll know the perfect questions to ask prospects as they move through the stages of your sales process.
Pitch Anything is most useful for salespeople who are meeting with prospects on a daily basis, but its advice extends beyond the domain of sales. Knowing how to formulate a pitch can help you influence your friends to go see the movie you want, or help you persuade your child of the benefits of eating their broccoli. If improving your oratory and influence is important to you, read this book.
Required reading for any sales professional looking to grow as a closer, The Art of Closing the Sale will leave you more confident in your ability to take a contact from interested lead to customer. It’ll also prepare to overcome the most common objections prospects mention.
These books are useful for sales managers who must coach and lead a sales team to success. They don't just teach you how to manage your day-to-day management responsibilities like reporting, hiring, and training. They also teach you how to manage and positively impact the morale and performance of your sales reps.
Whether you’re new to the position or a sales management veteran, Sales Management. Simplified. will provide you with insights and ideas that you can bring to your team immediately. After reading, you’ll be able to immediately apply these management methods to your sales department. For instance, you’ll know how to do a productive pipeline review with a rep.
Cracking the Sales Management Code argues that any manager who wants to improve team performance can do so by learning how to effectively forecast and report on performance metrics. After reading this book, you’ll be able to accurately assess the reason you’re not hitting some of your sales goals, and fix it.
Managers of B2B sales teams can take what they’ve learned from The Challenger Customer and tweak their sales process and strategy accordingly so that their reps are spending time talking with the best possible leads. Managers will also learn how to equip these influencers with the knowledge and content they need to persuade their company’s decision makers.
These books are meant for the small business owners, VPs of sales, CROs, and other executives responsible for revenue growth. They teach you how to create and optimize the various high-level components that come together to create a successful sales department, such as a predictable lead generation process, solid forecasting, a sales tech stack, and more.
The Ultimate Sales Machine drives home the point that focus and consistency are key when you’re trying to grow your business. The book gives you the main few skills that a business exec or owner needs to hone in on to really make a difference in their bottom line, and teaches you how to routinely work on them.
After reading Secrets of Question-Based Selling, CEOs, VPs of sales, and other executives will have the power to craft a sales organization that’s focused on asking quality, revealing questions that make buyers trust you and see the value you offer. Execs will be able to train their employees to become relationship-building masters using the strategy in this book.
Salespeople who want to learn some fundamentals of the trade and gain an understanding of what it takes to become a successful salesperson will benefit from reading the following books. They deal with time management, relationship building, and becoming a fast learner.
A 101 course on the fundamentals of sales success, Little Red Book of Selling is the type of book a sales manager plops down on their new hire’s desk, confident that when applied, its lessons will help them meet or surpass quota.
To Sell Is Human is both enlightening and entertaining, making it a productive and fun place to start as a sales rep trying to understand the nature of sales. Readers will also learn counterintuitive techniques that defy common sales advice, like the six better alternatives to the elevator pitch.
Drawing from discoveries in neuroscience, anthropology, and other academic disciplines, What Great Salespeople Do is full of useful techniques that can help sales reps improve their communication skills. You’ll also learn how to build a collection of sales stories to draw from in each stage of your sales cycle.
Agile Selling gives you the methodology for consistently growing your sales skill sets and knowledge bases in this ever-evolving business world. With profound methods like brain recalibration and systemized feedback loops, you’ll have what it takes to become the most informed seller in your field.
Above all, The Go-Giver is a heartwarming and inspiring story that helps us salespeople remember the most rewarding aspect of sales: improving the lives of our customers. It will give you ideas for creating value for your customers throughout your professional relationship.
These books are meant for any sales professional looking to elevate their game. They cover topics like relationship building, negotiation, and sales psychology that can help salespeople of all positions and industries excel.
Never Split the Difference will not only make you a better salesperson, it will also give you the conversational framework you need to become more persuasive in any area of your life, whether that’s negotiating rent or a pay raise. Mirroring and other tactics will also make you a better conversationalist — one who's more capable of forming relationships with buyers.
Sell or Be Sold argues that selling is a way of life. Its application is everywhere, even in our own minds, when we try to sell ourselves on a new workout regimen or any decision. The more you understand this, and the more you practice the craft, the better career and life you’ll lead.
After reading The Psychology of Selling, any salesperson will likely find within themselves a burning desire to try out Tracy’s recommended tactics, since he delivers them with such an inspirational voice. You’ll want to test out the power of suggestion in your next sales meeting or begin tomorrow morning by plotting out the six sales goals he recommends setting.
Sales books can help you improve in many areas of sales. However, it’s important to remember that just reading isn’t enough to reap the benefits of books. You have to actually take what you've learned and test it out on the job. Learned a new cold calling script? Great, go try it. Only after application will this knowledge become solidified in your mind and start producing a book’s promised results. To learn more for your sales profession, check out our sales career page.
Check out our recent and related articles on the topic
Looking to brush up on your sales vocabulary? Check out our top sales terms and their definitions, and you can sharpen your communication skills in no time.
Sharpen your sales skills by listening to these best sales podcasts for any situation, which are organized by career stage and goals.
Find the best places to learn new or improve sales skills with our top sales blogs, including descriptions of each and who they serve best.
Looking for the best CRM for freelancers? Check out our list of the top six CRM solutions for freelancers in 2024 to get the best features for your business.
Looking for the best CRM email marketing tools? Check out our list of the top seven email marketing tools for 2024. Get the most out of your email campaigns!
Learn the differences between leads, prospects, and opportunities. Understand how to turn leads into prospects and opportunities.
Compare the seven best marketing CRM platforms to find the perfect fit for your business. Get started with CRM software and maximize your marketing efforts.
Freshsales and Salesforce are two popular CRM solutions. Compare features and more to decide which CRM is right for your business.
Lead generation is an important part of any successful sales strategy. Check out these 52 lead generation statistics to help you get ahead.