My favorite sales books

favorite sales books

I hear the question “what’s your favorite sales book?” so often you’d think I would be tired of it, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I can’t pick just one book. Different books handle different parts of sales better, so I’ll give a recommendation based on a few different aspects of sales.

Note: There are so many good sales books out there, and they often contradict each other. While that can be intimidating to many sales reps (Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Why do they disagree?), I think there’s no such thing as a perfect sales methodology, so there can’t be a perfect sales book. Take parts from each book and combine it into something that works for you.

Life:

Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
I realize it’s unorthodox for me to start out with a book that’s not specifically about sales, this book taught me more about how to be a better employee, salesperson, manager, and person than any other book I’ve read. It should be the next book you read.

Sales Process:

The Challenger Sale by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon
This book does the best job of encompassing all the different components of sales that I’ve found. It uses a lot of statistics to back up the methodologies it presents. This book definitely benefits sellers from beginner to VP.

Sales Leadership:

Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge
This book won’t teach you how to deal with conflicting rep personalities or how best to motivate an underperforming rep. However, the sections on how to hire successful reps, train them to be rock stars, and provide them with great opportunities through demand gen are invaluable to a modern sales leader.

Sales Attitude:

How I Raised Myself From Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger
While this book has lost a lot of its luster over the years (there’s a whole section about how to organize your Rolodex), the first section, the one about Enthusiasm, still rings true today. If you don’t feel like learning how to sell insurance in the 1940s, there are large swaths that can be skipped — but don’t skip the enthusiasm part.

There you have it. Not a complete list of books I recommend, but these are the 4 most common books I tell people to read. If you have any that I missed, please email them to me: graham@quotapath.com. I’m always on the hunt for the next great sales book.

Bonus, non-sales book:

Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
Behind Extreme Ownership, this is my favorite all-around book. As someone who studied economics in college, I assumed that people act in a rational manner. You increase price and demand will increase. I can judge how much something I own is worth just as if I didn’t own it. Dan Ariely turns these assumptions on their head and does it with storytelling grace. I could probably find a way to make this book about sales, but it’s better if you just enjoy it for what it is.

All Articles

Related Blogs

top performing sales reps not in leadership, image with quote on it and four speaker photos
Leadership
How to Approach Top Performing Reps Who Don’t Want a Leadership Role

Your top sales performers are crucial to your organization’s success, yet retaining them is always tricky, with recruiters regularly slipping into their DMs. That’s why leaders must continuously give their...

revops agency image is light blue with RevOps Q&A in yellow including a photo of project36 founder Joe Birkedale
Leadership
When and How to Hire a RevOps Agency

RevOps is pivotal in aligning sales, marketing, and customer success teams to maximize revenue generation and operational efficiency. However, many organizations struggle with launching RevOps internally and often require external...

two people having a discussion at a work table. For blog "how and when to churn customers"
Leadership
How and When to Churn Customers & Prospects

As much as we want to mark every opportunity as “closed/won” and retain every customer, sometimes it makes more sense to cut ties than to overextend your team’s resources, workloads,...

Keep up with our content

Subscribe to our newsletter and get fresh insights monthly