Five New Books All Sales Managers Should Read

Finding the right sales book can be tough and overwhelming. I recently searched “sales” in Amazon.com’s book category and came up with more than 1.3 million results. I don’t have the time to read all those books, and I don’t have time to waste on books that don’t deliver. And I know you don’t, either.

So, I created a cheat sheet for you. Below are five books (listed in alphabetical order by each author’s last name) I recommend for your sales team to read in 2017. These books are new and written by trusted authorities – most of whom I know. I think every sales leader should ask his or her team to read these nine helpful and accessible books. Think about starting a book club with your team! It’s an easy, affordable way to engage your team and take their skills to the next level.

1. Hacking Sales: The Playbook for Building a High Velocity Sales Machine

Author: Max Altschuler

This book helps you transform your sales process using the next generation of tools, tactics, and strategies. Learn the most effective changes you can make, starting today, to evolve your sales and continually raise the bar. Walk through the entire sales process from start to finish, learning critical hacks every step of the way. Find and capture your lowest-hanging fruit at the top of the funnel, build massive lead lists using ICP and TAM, use multiple prospecting strategies, perfect your follow-ups, nurture leads, outsource when advantageous, and much more. Build, refine, and enhance your pipeline over time, close deals faster, and use the right tools for the job. This book is your roadmap to quick and efficient revenue growth.

2. Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, E-mail, Text, and Cold Calling

Author: Jeb Blount

In this book, Jeb Blount gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most significant activity in sales and business development – prospecting. It’s a brutal fact that the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and the cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect consistently. By ignoring prospecting, many otherwise competent salespeople and sales organizations consistently underperform. Blount outlines his approach to prospecting that works for real people, in the real world, with real prospects. Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels.

3. High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results

Author: Mark Hunter

As a salesperson, your pipeline is the key to your success. No matter what else changes, that remains the same. Top producers prospect – and they do it all the time. Sales expert Mark Hunter shatters costly prospecting myths and eliminates confusion about which prospecting techniques work. Merging new strategies with proven practices, this book will help you find better leads and qualify them quickly, trade cold calling for informed calling, and tailor your timing and message. You’ll learn to leave a great voicemail, craft compelling emails, and use social media effectively. Hunter also teaches you how to leverage referrals, get past gatekeepers, open new doors, steer clear of prospecting pitfalls, and connect with the C-Suite.

4. The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need

Author: Anthony Iannarino

This book reveals how all salespeople can attain huge sales success through strategies backed by extensive research and experience. In this book, author Anthony Iannarino turns his focus to a question that’s been debated for at least a century: Why are a small number of salespeople in any field hugely successful, while the rest get mediocre results at best? The answer is simple: it’s not about the market, the product, or the competition – it’s all about the seller. And consequently, any salesperson can sell more and better, all the time. This one helpful book explains what all successful salespeople, regardless of industry or organization, share – a mindset of powerful beliefs and a skillset of key actions.

5. Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline

Author: Marylou Tyler

If B2B sales drive your organization’s success, you need to be an expert prospector to target, qualify, and close business opportunities successfully. This game-changing guide provides the immediately implementable strategies you need to build a solid, sustainable pipeline whether you’re a sales or marketing executive, team leader, or sales representative. You’ll learn how to target and track ideal prospects, optimize contact acquisition, continually improve performance, and achieve your revenue goals quickly, efficiently, and predictably. The book includes easy-to-use charts and email templates and features full online access to sample materials, worksheets, and blueprints to add to your prospecting tool kit.

Alice Heiman is founder and CSO at Alice Heiman, LLC. Alice works with business owners, from venture backed startups to 30-year-old family owned companies, to get consistent and sustainable sales growth. She has been helping companies increase sales for more than 20 years. She spent her early years at her family company, Miller Heiman, working with Fortune 500 companies like Fidelity Investments, Coca Cola, Dow, and John Deere Financial. She is the co-host of the Sales 3.0 Conference and is a certified Peak Performance Mindset trainer.