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The great Zig Ziglar once said, “You were born to win, but to be a winner, you must plan to win, prepare to win, and expect to win.” Preparing to win means continuously staying on top of the insight and strategies in your field – and who better to turn to than the experts that literally wrote the book on how to improve sales, delight customers, and win in any environment. Our 2021 list of Highly Recommended Sales Books brings you some of the best insight from some of the best experts in sales today. Whether you are a sales executive planning for a career in sales management, a first time sales manager, or a seasoned sales VP, these books will offer you the wisdom and perspective you and your sales team need to succeed.

This list is presented alphabetically by author, with no ranking implied.

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    Tech-Powered Sales: Achieve Superhuman Sales Skills

    In tough markets and with more and more people working remotely, creating quality sales pipeline in traditional ways is more challenging than ever. As sales technologies continue to evolve, developing technical quotient (TQ) is an essential element of sales success. In Tech-Powered Sales, sales superstars Justin Michael and Tony Hughes combine to provide practical guidance on how professional sellers can maximize results with an effective sales tech-stack to power-up sales effectiveness for outstanding results.

    Authors: Justin Michael & Tony Hughes

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    Selling the Cloud

    Selling the Cloud co-authors and enterprise software sales leaders Mark Petruzzi and Paul Melchiorre share insights from their 25-plus-year careers that benefit anyone in B2B sales. The book shares lessons not only from Mark and Paul, but also from well-known sales titans from companies like Salesforce, Oracle, Cisco, Microsoft, IBM, Zoom, SAP, and DocuSign. The book brims with strategies individuals and organizations can apply to boost sales performance, help customers succeed, and grow careers and businesses.

    Authors: Mark Petruzzi & Paul Melchiorre

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    Human-Centered Communication

    In the future, we'll do more virtual selling, not less. But the digital, virtual, and online spaces we need to connect and convert are noisier and more polluted than ever. Learn a new framework to break through, get attention, earn trust, create engagement, build relationships, and grow revenue. Join the authors of the bestselling book Rehumanize Your Business and nearly a dozen other experts from companies like Salesforce, HubSpot, and RE/MAX. Order the new book, Human-Centered Communication.

    Author: Ethan Beute & Stephen Pacinelli
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    Radical Relevance

    Sharpen Your Marketing Message - Cut Through the Noise - Win More Ideal Clients. Reach the right prospects at the right time with the right message. Strategies, and tangible tactics to:

    • Craft an irresistible message to attracts and convert ideal clients.
    • Create an irresistible and authentic “Elevator Pitch” that separates you from your competition.

    Radical Relevance is your road map to growing your business in a crowded and noisy marketplace.

 Be Relevant or Be Ignored!

    Author: Bill Cates
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    Sales Management That Works: How to Sell in a World that Never Stops Changing

    In this smart, practical, and research-based guide, Harvard Business School professor Frank Cespedes offers essential sales strategies for a world that never stops changing. Brimming with fascinating examples, insightful research, and helpful diagnostics, Sales Management That Works will help leaders build a great sales team, create an optimal strategy, track and accelerate ROI, build and manage a multichannel approach, set and test the right prices, and more.

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    Life by Design

    Imagine hiking the Inca Trail; flying a jet fighter plane; golfing the #1 golf course in the world, and the top 100 in the USA; visiting over 80 countries; and the list goes on. Jack Daly didn’t just imagine these things; he built the processes to enable him to experience those things he craved for. Well, imagine no longer! Jack Daly's Life By Design provides concrete methods for helping readers design and live their own best lives.

    Author: Jack Daly
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    Catapulting Commissions: Achieve Your Next Sales Goal

    The real difference between high performers and everyone else is they know how to focus on and strategically pursue their ambitions. Every salesperson has experienced the swing of the commission pendulum – going from being flush with cash to barely scrounging up enough to pay bills. In “Catapulting Commissions,” world-class sales expert Anthony Garcia leverages his two decades of sales experience and shares the 11 questions every salesperson must ask themselves to break that cycle.

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    Level Five Coaching System

    The Level Five Coaching System provides a structured framework for how sales leaders coach salespeople to improve the quality of their sales calls and drive greater performance. This system provides the frontline sales leaders the method, skills, tools, and resources to execute dynamic coaching. This book provides a step by step formula and specific "how to's" for any sized sales organization to improve win rates, reduce turnover, reduce ramp to productivity time, and meet and exceed your top-line revenue targets.

    Author: John Hoskins
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    A Mind for Sales

    Sales is about solving pain and creating gain for your customer. A Mind for Sales is the guide you need to develop a success mindset and the habits required to break through to a whole new level of sales performance. You'll discover what top performers do to prepare for the week and how they handle issues thrown in their way. Everything is backed up with examples of how real people make it happen. At times, you will find A Mind for Sales in your face and controversial. That is very intentional. Sales is not for the faint of heart. Sales is about making an impact and influencing others.

    Author: Mark Hunter
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    Sales Enablement 3.0 Is Both an Art and Science!

    There are no magical silver bullets or single approach that will guarantee that you will be successful! There is, however, a formula just like any other success process, program, or tool that requires a combination of practical application, trial and error, mixed with a lot of conversations with Sales leaders to understand their wants, needs, and expectations. This book will provide you with a blueprint that will help you to navigate the twists and turns that will ultimately lead you to designing, deploying, measuring and iterating a world class sales enablement organization.

    At its core Sales Enablement 3.0 is an innovative approach focused on increasing sales productivity through a systematic, personalized, and collaborative approach designed to support buyers that will fuel the conversation economy!

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    The Science of Hiring Quota Busting Sales Teams

    During our two years of research for this book, it became clear the hiring process is highly flawed from the beginning. It's the lack of understanding the actual job, poorly written ads, misplaced ads, ignoring Glassdoor ratings, bias in the process, poor interview skills, misused assessments, and lousy onboarding. Inside The Science of Hiring Quota Busting Sales Teams, you will learn how to hire stronger salespeople and why there is a huge gap between what science knows and what businesses do.

    Author: Andy Miller
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    Outbounding: Win New Customers with Outbound Sales and End Your Dependence on Inbound Leads

    There are no two ways about it, outbound selling can be intimidating even to the most senior rep. Yet that same intimidation around cold calling and outbound sales can be transformed into confident success … if you have the right tools at your disposal.

    Outbounding equips sales people with the knowledge, training, and road-tested sales tactics to raise the success rate (and even the enjoyment level) of their outbound sales.

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    The Introvert's Edge to Networking: Work the Room. Leverage Social Media. Develop Powerful Connections.

    One of the biggest myths that plagues the business world today is that our ability to network depends on having the “gift-of-gab.” The truth is, introverts make the best networkers... when armed with a plan that lets them be their authentic selves. In this paradigm-shifting book, Matthew Pollard, an introvert himself, draws on over a decade of research and real-world examples to provide an actionable blueprint for introverted networking. You’ll discover how to:

    · Overcome your fear and discomfort when networking
    · Turn networking into a repeatable system
    · Leverage your innate introverted strengths
    · Leverage the power of virtual and social networking

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    Smarketing - Sell Smarter, Not Harder

    One of the burning questions Sales and Business Leaders are asking is: "How can we achieve more?"

    The latest book "Smarketing - Sell Smarter, Not Harder" by international Sales Acceleration Specialist Peter Strohkorb answers this very question.

    It is a must-read for CEOs, Sales, Marketing and Business Leaders as it outlines a proven methodology to significantly boost sales results and marketing performance across the board, including actionable techniques and real client examples.

    Now available on Amazon.

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    The Human Sales Factor: The Human-to-Human Equation for Connecting, Influencing, and Closing the Deal

    There's a science to getting others to buy from you—a secret only the best sales professionals know: selling isn't really about moving a product or service. It's about moving people. Whether you’re a seasoned professional trying to pitch the next great idea—or maybe you just want to get better at persuading others—the #1 WSJ bestseller, The Human Sales Factor: The Human-to-Human Equation for Connecting, Influencing, and Closing the Deal is for you.

    Author: Lance Tyson
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    The Six Habits of Highly Effective Sales Engineers

    The Six Habits will forever change the way technical presales professionals think about and approach their job. Written in an easy to consume style, the book begins by challenging the reader to accept that “We are in Sales”. It walks through six fundamental habits, that when followed, produce consistent, predictable results – victory. For early-career presales professionals, and those new to the profession, this is must-read material. Even experienced SE’s applaud the book for helping them “better organize the tools in their tool box”.

    Author: Chris White

Note: This list is sponsored and is organized in alphabetical order; no priority or ranking is implied.