So many great recommendations here for you @Pdtanner. A few I'll add (may not be completely in the sales category, but great for sales people IMO):
Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear
High Performance Habits: How Extraordinary People Become That Way by Breondon Burchard
The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller
The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks
The New Rules of Sales and Service: How to Use Agile Selling, Real-Time Customer Engagement, Big Data, Content, and Storytelling to Grow Your Business by David Meerman Scott
I'd also suggest listening to The Marketing Book Podcast with Douglas Burdett. It's more than marketing book authors, and Douglas has some amazing guestson to talk about the world of sales and marketing. It's a great way to hear the big ideas on these books and decide if you want to read them.
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Hi Preston, how are you doing? I like to read a lot and can share something about sales books. There are 4 categories of sales books and there is a best in class in each one. These 4 books are, IMHO the most important ones a person should read.
1. Psychology: Influence, by Robert Cialdini
2. Techniques: The Challenger Sale, by Matthew Dixon
3. Management: Cracking the sales management code, by Michelle Vanzella
4. Growth: Sales Acceleration Formula, by the one and only Mark Roberge
Before recommending a book, can you provide a little information about what you will be selling, a little about your experience before sales, and what made you decide to get into sales? I ask because recommending a book without knowing what type of sales you will be doing is like recommending a solution before you identify the challenge.
Welcome to the world of Sales! There are books I would strongly suggest. In both cases, what I found to be so helpful is that they are approachable and really easy reads. In both cases what I enjoy about them is that they put focus on the right aspect of how to sell and to do so with compassion. They prioritize the buyer and the importance of understanding what they need and want. This is often the polar opposite of what you see in many Sales books (in my opinion at least) that push the more traditional practices in Sales that rely on pressure, manipulation, and tactics. Both of these books are really great at making sure you don't learn bad habits from the start, but assuring you're selling in a way that customers can build trust in you to help them with their needs. They are "They Ask, You Answer" by Marcus Sheridan and "Building a Story Brand" by Donald Miller. Hope these are helpful for you and best of luck as you are beginning in this industry!
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CHRIS GRIMMETT HubSpot Strategy & Onboarding | RevOps Consulting
@Pdtanner Along with a few classics mentioned below that will always be worth the read, my top two are the same as those recommended by @chris_remotish - they are super relevant to the changes in how people buy today.
I didn't see a couple on the list that I also suggest:
Inbound Marketing - Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah, while not a typical "sales" book, if you want to understand HubSpot and Inbound, this is worth getting your hands on.
The Challenger Sale - highly recommend this once you get your feet under you, I wouldn't start here, but it should be on the list.
This HubSpot blog article is a great resource if you're looking for more insight to narrow down the choices.
Happy Selling!
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What kind of information are you seeking about Sales? How to do it or how to report on it?
CRM and SALES: I highly reccomend following Kyle Jepson (HubSpot) Videos on Sales to give you a great overview on Sales process within CRM and some other higher level on Sales.
SALES TECHNIQUES: I reccomend shadowing a top sales person. This is the best way to learn about how to sell AND understand what sales people need for tracking. Best skills you can learn here are how to listen, how to solve prospects problems.
Please feel free to hit me up with any questions. I have been a successful sales person and operations leader. cheers and welcome to the community!
Can't go far wrong with "How to Win Friends and Influence People", as a starting point.
There have been a million and one books published since Dale Carnegie wrote that, back in 1936, but I'd wager 90% of these make either explicit or implicit reference either to How to Win Friends or to the concepts it introduced.
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