Whenever I’m asked about sales success I always list three important skills: writing, reading, and listening. Today, I’m going to focus on reading and give you my current favorites.
1. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – I always list this book first. Influence is the core of every sale. Yet, many of the key elements and triggers that create influence aren’t intuitive. Many even seem silly, but they work—like magic! This is the book that unveiled that magic to millions. But, never fear it still works because each “Weapon of Influence” attacks the core of human psychology.
2. Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness – I still pick this book up routinely. I have read it many times, but I still grab it when I’m stuck or in a sales dip. You can literally open this book to any page and grab a tip that will help you in your very next sales conversation.
3. The Approachable Salesperson: 22 Daily Practices for Enabling Customers to Buy– My guess is you may have never heard of this one, but it’s one of my favorites. It’s written and self-published by Scott Ginsberg, the Name Tag Guy. The whole premise is increasing your approachability, which believe it or not is the biggest weakness I encounter in working with sales folks. We hide our phone numbers, emails, and addresses. We remain ignorant or self-righteous about social media. We generally are invisible to our market until we ambush them on the phone. Scott will make you an expert on approachability.
4. How To Win Friends and Influence People – Time for classics. This book is often attributed as the first best selling self-help book. Why it is the Godfather of self-help is logical—friends and influence are the cornerstones of any success in life. Get this. Read this. Practice this.
5. Think and Grow Rich – Another classic. There are a lot of similarities between the advice given in the How to Win Friends and Influence People and Think and Grow Rich, which should give you even more confidence this stuff is important to get.
There are so many awesome sales titles, but these are pillars that should be in any sales library. If there are any of these titles you haven’t read buy, read, and commit to implement one thing you learn this month.
Update: Do you only see 5 books here? Yep, I goofed. Here are the other 5 books to improve your sales.