Sales books

Lisa Earle McLeod, Selling With Noble Purpose, Wiley, 2013

An excellent book for sales managers and senior business people that challenges traditional models and shows why and how to put purpose at the centre of how and why you sell.

Josiane Feigon, Smart Sales Manager, Amacom, 2013

An excellent and much-needed book on managing 'inside sales' (an evolution of 'telesales') in the modern era. All you need to know about handling the new generation of customers and employees to create an effective connected sales team.

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson, The Challenger Sale: Taking Charge of the Customer Conversation, Penguin, 2011 

A challenge in itself to relationship selling, this is a research-based but highly practical breakthrough book that shows a new and powerful way of business-to-business selling. 

Brian J. Bieler, The Sales Operator: Insider's Guide to Successful Selling, Little Falls Press, 2008

A book of wisdom from an experienced sales professional. Good, honest value, from cover to cover.

Lee B. Salz, Soar, Despite Your Dodo Sales Manager, WB Books, 2007

A book for real sales people who not only need to sell every day but also need to handle a sales manager who somehow sees the world differently.

Mark Benedict, The Method of Selling, CCB Publishing, 2007

A comprehensive practitioner book covering 70 different techniques that can be used in selling, from classic methods to unusual tips the author has discovered that even experienced sales people will find useful.

Anne Miller, Metaphorically Selling, Chiron Associates, 2004 

  A novel cut on sales, adding something new to the literature. Sales consultant Anne Miller has written a highly practical and readable book that will be of interest to sales people everywhere.

Michael Bosworth, Solution Selling: Creating Buyers in Difficult Selling Markets, McGraw Hill, 1994 

A solid book on selling in high-value situations, where the rewards are great but the buyers are very discerning.

Josh Costell, The Science of Sales Success: A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results, Amacom, 2003 

A surprisingly good book, different in its approach to many others with its focus on measuring the real value that you are getting from your sales activities, as opposed to a people-based focus. Particularly relevant for complex B2B relationship selling situations.

Kevin Daley, Socratic Selling: How to Ask the Questions That Get the Sale, McGraw-Hill, 1995 

Not the whole sales show, but a very useful addendum on the use of questioning methods that will lead your customer in the right direction. A handy addition for those of you who are looking for something new.

Joe Girard, Stanley Brown and Robert Casemore, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, Warner Books, 1986 

Sound advice from rags-to-riches practitioner famed for his Guiness Book of Records entry for car sales. One of the original classics.

Jeffrey Gitomer, The Sales Bible: The Ultimate Sales Resource, Wiley, 2003 

A comprehensive encyclopedia of selling, full of tips, tricks and sage lessons. Useful as a learning book or to dip into for ideas and inspiration.

Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Selling, Warner Books, 1988   

The classic on selling from the master sales trainer. Lots of fundamental stuff. As with most classics, the style is a little dated, but the basic message is sound. 

Donald Moine, Unlimited Selling Power: How to Master Hypnotic Selling Skills, NYIF, 1990

Describes the use of Eriksonian hypnotic language (popular in NLP circles) in selling situations. It raises an ethical question, of course, but so also do many other methods used. In the end, it's up to you.

Dan Kennedy and Daniel Kennedy, The Ultimate Sales Letter: Boost Your Sales With Powerful Sales Letters, Based on Madison Avenue Techniques, Adams Media, 2000 

Sales letters can be door openers or closers, so it is important to get this remote persuasion right. The Kennedys offer a 28-step (!) methodology for writing effective sales text.

G. D,. Kittredge III, There's a Fine Line Between a Groove and a Rut, WME Books, 2005

A straightforward and delightful book from sales educator George Kittredge III. Fundamental stuff for new people, a stern warning for experienced people and useful ideas for sales managers and trainers.

Stephen Schiffman, The 25 Sales Habits of Highly Successful Salespeople, Adams Media, 1994 

A handy little book of tips from this prolific author (only 130 pages). Particularly good for people new to selling and for those who are not keen on longer reads.

Thomas Stanley, Selling to the Affluent, McGraw-Hill, 1997 

A niche sales market, but potentially very lucrative (yet watch out for the misers who got rich by driving a hard bargain). The author of other books on how rich people think now turns his attention to how they buy. Very long but also very dippable and unique in its intelligent focus.

Harry Washburn and Kim Wallace, Why People Don't Buy Things: Five Five Proven Steps to Connect with Your Customers and Dramatically Improve Your Sales, Perseus, 2000 

An alternative study that looks first at why people don't buy and thence how to sell to them. Includes a derivation of three buyer types and how to respond to them.

Dave Kurlan, Baseline Selling, Authorhouse, 2006 

A solid and readable book about selling, based in the metaphor of playing baseball. Even if you're not a baseball fan, this offers very helpful information. If you love baseball and you sell, then this book is a must!

Richard Fenton, Go for No!, Fenton, 2005

A small book that is easy to read, but with a powerfully simple message: If you can enjoy rejection and hence make lots of sales calls, then you will win, big time. Delightfully contradictory sense.

Note: The book can also be obtained from http://goforno.com

Paul McCord, Creating a Million Dollar a Year Sales Income: Sales Success Through Client Referrals, 2007 

Quite simply the best book on gaining and using referrals. Detailed steps are given for an innovative process that takes referrals to a new and far more successful level. Highly recommended for everyone in sales, consultancy and any customer-interactive profession.

Bob Burg, Endless Referrals: Network Your Everyday Contacts Into Sales, New & Updated Edition, McGraw-Hill, 1998

A handy practitioner book based on the key principle that the best recommendation is a recommendation from a friend. Useful also for general networking outside of sales.

Jeffrey Fox, How to Become a Rainmaker: The Rules for Getting and Keeping Customers and Clients, Hyperion, 2000 

Commonsense and straightforward advice packed into short and to-the-point chapters about getting and staying close to your customers.

Anthony Parinello and Denis Waitley, Selling To VITO (The Very Important Top Officer), Adams Media, 1999

A very helpful book on that most awkward of tasks: getting to the person with real buying power. The first step on this path is, of course, getting past the determined and defensive PA. Then of course you have to persuade the impatient and distracted executive. Many helpful methods are offered in these difficult pursuits.

George Dudley and Shannon Goodson, The Psychology of Sales Call Reluctance: Earning What You're Worth, Behavioral Science Research, 1999

Many sales people find problems in making effective sales calls, whether they are cold calls or in calls to known customers. Dudley and Goodson have studied this phenomenon and developed ways to overcome it.. 

Paul S. Golner, Red-Hot Cold Call Selling: Prospecting Techniques That Pay Off, Amacom, 1995 

Good coverage of the full range of activities around cold-calling from an experience practitioner. 

 Stephan Schiffman, Cold Calling Techniques: (That Really Work!), Adams Media, 2003

  Relatively simple book on cold-calling getting appointments, plus other detail on various sales activities. Good for beginners and those of us who hate cold calling.

Sam Deep and Lyle Sussman, Close the Deal: 120 Checklists for Sales Success,  Perseus, 1999

Not just about closing but also covers the whole sales cycle. Useful in particular for its lists of things to remember. The books is associated with the Sandler Sales Jump Start training.

Joe Girard, Robert L. Shook, Robert Casemore, How to Close Every Sale, Warner books, 2002  

Traditional selling methods from one of the traditional authors plus a couple of his friends. Straightforward and solid.

Tom Hopkins, Sales Closing for Dummies, For Dummies, 1998

It might be easy to dismiss this book until you see the author. In fact it is a nice balance of the 'Dummies' easy-to-read style and Hopkins expertise. Lots of excellent stuff with a real focus on closing.

Gary Karass, Negotiate to close: How to make more successful deals, Fireside, 1987 

A sales book that uses negotiation methods in the closing process. Useful crossover text. Easy style. 

Anthony Parinello, Getting the Second Appointment : How to CLOSE Any Sale in Two Calls!, Wiley, 2004

An excellent book that focuses on that difficult step of going from call one to call two, and in particular moving to a close in this step. 

Linda Richardson, Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use Customer-Focused Dialogue to Close Sales, McGraw Hill, 1997 

Comprehensive and straightforward toolkit for sales people from this big-company sales trainer. Particularly useful for people new to relationship selling.

Stephan Schiffman, Closing Techniques: (That Really Work!), Adams Media, 1999

A concise book on intelligent closing of sales from this prolific author and trainer. Straightforward in style. Includes variations such as cold calling.

Stephan Schiffman, Getting to 'Closed': A Proven Program to Accelerate the Sales Cycle and Increase Commissions, Dearborn Trade Publishing, 2002

Prolific author Schiffman describes his 'Prospect Management' system for managing sales and sales information. It uses a structured approach to persuade all of the different types of decision-makers that sales people meet. This is good one.

Zig Ziglar, Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale, Berkley Publishing, 1985

One of the original greats, with many different approaches to selling and closing. Although Ziglar's style may seem dated these days, there's much gold in these hills.

Gavin Ingham, Objections! Objections! Objections!, Gavin Ingham , 2004

A helpful and highly practical little book focused on objection-handling, stuffed full of practical ways of handling sales objections..

Jeff Beals, Selling Saturdays, CCB Publishing, 2007

A splendid and different book about selling. Beals spent three years interviewing college coaches and researching how they attract talent from high schools. It's a new take for sales people and a useful reference for any recruiters with a focus on top talent.

Jim Cathcart, Relationship Selling: The Key to Getting and Keeping Customers, Perigree, 1990 

A simple and readable book on getting close to customers. Not new but still solid and straightforward stuff.. 

Josh Costell, The Science of Sales Success: A Proven System for High Profit, Repeatable Results, Amacom, 2003 

A surprisingly good book, different in its approach to many others with its focus on measuring the real value that you are getting from your sales activities, as opposed to a people-based focus. Particularly relevant for complex B2B relationship selling situations.

Todd Duncan, High Trust Selling : Make More Money-In Less Time-With Less Stress, Nelson, 2003 

Duncan focuses in on the core area that is needed in relationship selling in particular (though it is useful in all sales). A solid practitioner book that includes a number of 'laws' for high-trust selling.

Robert L. Jolles, Customer Centered Selling, New York: Free Press, 1998 

A marvelous book for business-to-business sales people giving full details of the selling system used by Xerox. It challenges many of the more traditional sales techniques and even goes beyond modern approaches such as Neil Rackham?s SPIN Selling (which Jolles acknowledges as a significant influence). See also the review of this book.

Stephen Heiman and Diane Sanchez, The New Strategic Selling : The Unique Sales System Proven Successful by the World's Best Companies, Revised and Updated for the 21st Century, Warner Books, 1998 

Although not so 'new' now, this is an excellent and detailed book on relationship selling. Useful for large-company selling and particularly so as a sales book for non-sales people who find them in selling situations.

Jim Holden, Power Base Selling: Secrets of an Ivy League Street Fighter, Wiley, 1999 

Solid book on selling in tough sales environments, with a focus on the interpersonal and selling skills needed to develop strong relationships and 'power bases' within customer companies.

Sharon Drew Morgen, Selling With Integrity: Reinventing Sales Through Collaboration, Respect, and Serving, Berkley Publishing, 1999 

A good practice in one-off sales and a necessity in relationship sales, working with integrity is an increasing necessity. Discusses the 'Morgen Buying Facilitation Method' whereby the goal and approach of the salesperson is to help people get what they want, rather than sell them what the salesperson wants to sell.

Rick Page, Hope Is Not a Strategy : The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale, McGraw-Hill, 2003

Good sense on big sales for B2B salespeople from established sales trainer, including discussions on account management, organizational politics, etc.

Anthony Parinello and Denis Waitley, Selling To VITO (The Very Important Top Officer), Adams Media, 1999

A very helpful book on that most awkward of tasks: getting to the person with real buying power. The first step on this path is, of course, getting past the determined and defensive PA. Then of course you have to persuade the impatient and distracted executive. Many helpful methods are offered in these difficult pursuits.

Neil Rackham, SPIN Selling, McGraw Hill, 1996

An absolute classic (originally published in 1987 as 'Making Major Sales' which shows through massive research how classic sales techniques fail miserably in big-business, and that you can get greater success by asking a sequence Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-Payoff questions. See also the review of this book.

Neil Rackham, The SPIN Selling Fieldbook, Gower, Aldershot, UK, 1996

Leveraging the popularity of SPIN Selling, this helps you use the approach in practice with exercises and deeper tools and techniques around the famous four questions.

Tom Reilly, Value-Added Selling : How to Sell More Profitably, Confidently, and Professionally by Competing on Value, Not Price, McGraw Hill, 2002 

This is a confident book from this sales trainer on selling through focusing on the value for customers, which of course is a basic for most, if not all, relationship selling situations.

Linda Richardson, Stop Telling, Start Selling: How to Use Customer-Focused Dialogue to Close Sales, McGraw Hill, 1997 

Comprehensive and straightforward toolkit for sales people from this big-company sales trainer. Particularly useful for people new to relationship selling.

Jerry Vass, Soft Selling in a Hard World: Plain Talk on the Art of Persuasion, Running Press, 1998 

A straightforward, easy book on friendlier approaches to selling in various situations, with some interesting explanations of buying psychology. 

Benson Smith and Tony Rutigliano, Discover Your Sales Strengths: How the World's Greatest Salespeople Develop Winning Careers, Warner books, 2003 

Based on the long-running Gallup 'strengths' study, this is a research-based book rather than the more usual ones written by experienced sales people. The result is perhaps less 'motivational' but still extremely credible and adds valuable new insights even for hardened sales people and sales manager. Includes access to 'strengthsfinder' questionnaire on the web.

Anthony Parinello, Getting the Second Appointment : How to CLOSE Any Sale in Two Calls!, Wiley, 2004

An excellent book that focuses on that difficult step of going from call one to call two, and in particular moving to a close in this step. 

Frank Bettger, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, Simon and Schuster, 1992 

One man tells his story about transitioning from struggling beginner to successful salesperson. Fundamental nuggets that a new salesperson would benefit from learning. First published in 1947.

Frank Bettger, How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling, Simon and Schuster, 1992 

One man tells his story about transitioning from struggling beginner to successful salesperson. Fundamental nuggets that a new salesperson would benefit from learning. First published in 1947.

Joe Girard, Stanley Brown and Robert Casemore, How to Sell Anything to Anybody, Warner Books, 1986 

Sound advice from rags-to-riches practitioner famed for his Guiness Book of Records entry for car sales. One of the original classics.

Tom Hopkins, How to Master the Art of Selling, Warner Books, 1988   

The classic on selling from the master sales trainer. Lots of fundamental stuff. As with most classics, the style is a little dated, but the basic message is sound. 

Brian Tracy, Advanced Selling Strategies: The Proven System of Sales Ideas, Methods and Techniques Used by Top Salespeople Everywhere, Simon and Schuster, 1996

A 400+ page classic from the master, covering all parts of the selling process in detail, including the mental state of the sales person (which is a remarkably important part of the story).

Zig Ziglar, Zig Ziglar's Secrets of Closing the Sale, Berkley Publishing, 1985

One of the original greats, with many different approaches to selling and closing. Although Ziglar's style may seem dated these days, there's much gold in these hills.