Best Books on Sales

Over the next few weeks I will be asking our distributors what their favorite books on sales are. I hope this will be an interesting topic for both newbies and industry veterans. As a group, our distributors got to where they are because they were (and still are) extremely successful as sales people, so their recommendations should make for some interesting reading. I plan to read a few of the books myself.

So often when I ask people why they enjoy sales, they say something about how they like meeting new people, or that they like the variety and independence of being out of an office and visiting customers. That's nice for them and all, but it's rather shallow. If you like people, there are lots of jobs you can have... teacher, waiter, lawyer, nurse. It doesn't really answer the question why sales, in particular.

Sales is a profession and the best sales people commit to constantly improving their craft. Just like healthcare professionals earn continuing education credits, so salespeople should be constantly learning, improving, sharpening and updating their skills.

My recommendation is to check out Selling Power. They offer free newsletters by e-mail on a variety of topics, which alway contains really interesting and useful information. www.sellingpower.com

The first recommendation from one of our distributors is Execution, The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan and Charles Buck. Great title, isn't it? From the description on Amazon.com, it does not appear to be a book strictly on sales, rather achieving goals, which is very very important.

Results, not efforts, determine the worth of a salesperson. It's a salesperson's lot in life to be measured by the numbers they produce, as another one of our distributors says. You're only as good as your last month, laughs another. And off they go, after the next deal, the next sale, the next quota. Kind of exciting, isn't it?

If you have your own recommendations to share, please feel free to add to the list!