Lists

• https://www.saleshacker.com/best-sales-books-complete-list/
• https://www.brainshark.com/ideas-blog/2018/july/best-sales-books-read-2018
• https://blog.hubspot.com/sales/the-most-highly-rated-sales-books-of-all-time
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-best-b2b-sales-books-manuel-hartmann/

Books

Marketing

I think about marketing in stages. First, you have to define the problem you are trying to solve which then becomes the category you want to dominate. You build a website and start to try get some leads. From there you begin to dial in product/ market fit and then start to shift to more personalized marketing. If you are doing B2B, you move to account-based marketing. The books below follow that path.

• Play Bigger . I think one of the keys of building a company as getting crystal clear on the problem you are trying to solve; this is in essence thinking about the category you want to create or dominate. Play Bigger is all about category creation--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Inbound Marketing: Attract, Engage and Delight Customers. This is the HubSpot story and approach. At the time it was revolutionary in terms of how to capture and then manage prospects via digital marketing (primarily). Solid recommendations. And then spend time on Hubspot’s site reading their content. LOTS of great insights.--recommended by Randy Wootton, +1 from T.A. - love this book too.
• Predictive Marketing. Personalized marketing is a buzz term. This book is very good at breaking down the data/analytics and strategy you need to inform a personalized marketing strategy--recommended by Randy Wootton
• The one to one future--Peppers and Rogers popularized 1:1 marketing. Read If interested in one of the most influential books on what became personalized marketing. I read it in 1997 and it changed my life--literally--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Account-based Marketing. Written by the founders of DemandBase, the biggest account-based marketing tech company--actually just bought Engagio the next biggest competitor. Pete Isaacson, their CMO, is one of the nicest and smartest people I know--recommended by Randy Wootton

Sales

They don’t teach Sales in Business School. In fact, I don’t think you can really learn about sales from a book. However, as you build a sales team it is important to build a “sales system” with specific focus on methodology, clarity around activities and coaching, reinforced by comp models. The books below offer some ways for thinking about sales approach and building sales teams and sales managers.

• GAP Selling (Keenan, a friend of T.A.) - recommended by T.A.
• Sales Acceleration Formula (Roberge) - ex Hubspot guy, good blend of demand gen and sales - recommended by T.A., Doug and Randy
• Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on it (Voss) - recommended by Doug Schulze
• Pre-Suasion: Channeling Attention for Change (Cialdini) - recommended by Doug Schulze
• Birth of a Salesman. As someone who found sales late in life, I found this book just fun to read for the historical perspective and as way to frame what makes a great sales person today--recommended by Randy Wootton
• The Challenger Sell. There are lots of great sales methodology books and programs out there. I found the Challenger methodology, as outlined in this book the easiest/best for B2B sales. At the end of the day, you need to find the “commercial insight” the challenges a prospects worldview and helps frame the conversation in terms of value v/s price.--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Spin Selling. Another solid methodology book. I was super impressed by the data-based approach used to inform very tactical recommendations for sales calls, etc.--recommended by Randy Wootton
• The Sales Acceleration Formula--written by SVP of Worldwide sales at Hubspot. Good practical frameworks/recommendations--recommended by Randy Wootton
• You Can’t Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike at a Seminar. I think the Sandler System is the best practical step by step system for teaching people how to sell.The book is an introduction and then if you are inspired by it, you can get your sales team into the training program in Seattle. Think of it as outsourced “sales readiness”.--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Close the Deal. Another book based on the Sandler system.Inside sales (both inbound and outbound) is hard. Days are filled with 99 “no’s” for 1 “yes”. I liked this because it has ~120 specific “plays” that you can use with an inside sales team trying new/different plays each week or as you are coaching them. --recommended by Randy Wootton
• Compensating the Sales Force. You will never get sales comp right. However, this book is a great tool for thinking about the levers you can pull--recommended by Randy Wootton
• The New Strategic Selling - Classic book from Miller-Heiman on selling. Ask most sales leaders how they learn to sell, and they will all respond Miller-Heiman.
  
  

GTM Strategy

• Traversing the Traction Gap. I worked with the author of this book and Geoff Moore who heavily influenced the thinking here. Very powerful framework for building a company by focusing on 4 frameworks (product, revenue, people and systems)--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Scaling the Revenue Engine. Tom Mohr, the author, is a business coach and worked with Geoff Moore and Bruce Cleveland (author of Traversing the Traction Gap). Tom’s focus is on the revenue engine--the connection b/w product marketing, demand marketing, inside sales, account management. Solid recommendations for building this “engine”--recommended by Randy Wootton

Sales/Marketing Leadership

• The Sales Coach’s Playbook. The key to sales is “knowing what to say, knowing what to show and knowing what to do”. This comes from great sales managers who know how to coach through the process. The Sandler system has a great sales manager framework. This book is part of that corpus--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Becoming a manager. The hardest transition in any function is moving from an IC seller to a sales manager.  You have to unlearn everything that made you great as an individual contributor. This manager transition has similar dynamics for every function, but Linda Hill writes a great book using lots of Sales examples. I took class with her at HBS and she was really inspirational--recommended by Randy Wootton
• Leadershift. Not a book solely about sales leadership, but a good book for first-time Founder thinking about how to make that shift from being a great entrepreneur to a great leader. Plus, this is a solid introduction to Maxwell, who has many good books.--recommended by Randy Wootton.
  

Sites and newsletters

https://www.saleshacker.com

https://growthhackers.com/posts

https://modernsaleshq.com/ - Modern Sales Pros

https://revenuecollective.com

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Aggregated by T.A. McCann

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