You want to increase your sales, achieve higher earnings and progress in your career? It’s natural: you are a sales person. Here’s the thing… invest in yourself 1st, and the results will quickly follow.
Being a sales person is one of the most enjoyable, challenging and rewarding business tasks.
Selling and increasing revenues is critical to any companies’ growth.
There are many books written on or about sales. Many are great and deserve your time and attention if you want to increase your skills, ability and earnings.
Kash Hasan, Sales Director, GDS, recommends important books for salespeople that will help you produce the results that you and your company need.
These are classic books that will help you build your confidence, knowledge, earnings and career.
How to Master the Art of Selling
by Tom Hopkins
by Tom Hopkins
This is a book I 1st read while working for GDS in Australia a few years ago. It gives you an excellent grounding in some of the basic techniques and the ‘Champion’ mentality needed to succeed in sales. A great read, and one I refer back to time and time again. An invaluable, ‘must read’ for sales people of all levels of ability and experience.
How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie
Dale Carnagie’s all-time classic with great insight and tips from leaders of the past. It teaches us how to interact with people on personal and professional levels, getting along well with colleagues, achieving desired outcomes in your life and in the workplace, and improving your ability when dealing with people. 1st published in 1936, so the examples can be a bit dated. If you have a desire to learn and increase your ability to deal with people then this book is for you.
Dale Carnagie’s all-time classic with great insight and tips from leaders of the past. It teaches us how to interact with people on personal and professional levels, getting along well with colleagues, achieving desired outcomes in your life and in the workplace, and improving your ability when dealing with people. 1st published in 1936, so the examples can be a bit dated. If you have a desire to learn and increase your ability to deal with people then this book is for you.
The title is designed to provoke a reaction and it certainly does, although this book has nothing to do with intimidation and everything to do with winning and protecting yourself. The author is very forthright in his views, discrediting other success books of their time as ‘avoiding reality’ and ‘lacking the daring to tell it how it really is’. Fed up with the fantasy that most success books preach, Robert Ringer tells us how he sees it. Even though Winning Through Intimidation was written in the 70s, it still holds lots of valuable lessons that are useful today. It is a classic ‘must read’ for any salesperson. Ringer tackles some popular misconceptions and provides practical, timeless, reality-based advice.
Herb Cohen sees the world as a giant negotiating table where ‘negotiations’ are taking place in every encounter you have. Herb Cohen’s book examines negotiation as a process you can understand and predict, and more importantly as a practical skill that you can learn and improve on. Keep an open mind when reading this book as not everything you will agree with. Herb has a humorous style of writing, and the book does keep you entertained. Filled with lots of valuable advice and key points.
Brian Tracy Success Series 1
Brian Tracy Success Series 1 can be downloaded from iTunes for your iPhone, iPad or your Android device and feature the best segments across Brian Tracy’s 20 years of success training and bestselling audio books. It’s broken down into three parts…
1. The psychology of selling
2. How to master your time
3. Goals
Brian Tracy believes in the potential to change your life through the power of your mind.
"Our mind is the most valuable possession that we have. The quality of our lives is, and will be, a reflection of how well we develop, train, and utilize this precious gift."
I would strongly recommend that anyone who is serious about sales or getting on in life download Brian’s app or visit http://www.briantracy.com/ for more material. His audio books are a great way to start your day or to listen to while on your way to work to get yourself ‘super motivated’. The audiobooks are very easy to listen to, effective at developing a positive goal orientated mind set, and are packed with practical tips, advice and techniques that you can apply in your day-to-day work to improve your selling process.
If you work with me, these books are available on my desk. If not, they can be ordered directly from Amazon by clicking on the title. The list is by no means comprehensive and there are lots more great books that are definitely worth reading.
These four books are a fundamental cornerstone of any sales person reading list. They will certainly help you to understand more about the profession of sales, develop your technique, and help create the positive mental attitude that is the key to sales success.