Presales professionals, sharpen your pencils and brace yourselves for knowledge overload! We’re about to embark on a literary odyssey that will lead you to unprecedented sales prowess and career-defining wins.
This updated list is your secret weapon to raise your game and propel you to the top of the presales ladder. These handpicked books for 2024 contain an arsenal of insights and strategies from the industry’s brightest minds.
Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or a wide-eyed rookie, these gems will polish your skills, ignite your passion, and prepare you to take on anything your customers, competitors, or collaborators can throw at you.
Talk Like Ted by Carmine Gallo
Ted Talks are the new gold standard for presentations, and there’s plenty you can steal from that format for your own presentations. Experienced public speaking coach, Carmine Gallo, broke down hundreds of TED Talks and interviewed popular speakers and top researchers to find what makes these presentations so unique. He discovered nine elements every successful TED Talk has, and now he’s sharing them with you.
Naked Sales: How Design Thinking Reveals Customer Motives and Drives Revenue by Ashley Welch and Justin Jones
If you’re using traditional selling techniques, you’re leaving a big chunk of money on the table, even if you’re successful. But with a simple shift in perspective from thinking like a sales rep to thinking like a designer, you can rejuvenate your process creating new opportunities and building indestructible customer relationships. Thinking like a designer creates a naturally customer-focused approach that reduces sales cycles and creates more stratified buyers. Stop using Sales Thinking and start using Design Thinking.
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World by David Epstein
Public opinion will tell you if you didn’t master something as a child, you’ll never be able to excel in that area later in life. While we can’t all be Tiger Woods, we can still be successful in our chosen fields even if we start much later in life. Range details exactly why those who dabble in many focuses excel in many areas where super specialized individuals struggle. Having many interests, being unafraid to fail, and keeping yourself open to new experiences is the true key to success. We can’t all be child prodigies, but we can all be lifelong learners.
Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte
Does your audience leave presentations feeling inspired or just feeling tired? Unless you can get your audience to resonate with your message, they’re going to ignore what you have to say. Resonate explains how making a deep connection with your audience is simple if you treat it like a documentary. Documentaries are the perfect format for delivering information in a captivating and persuasive way. Leave behind boring presentations and make your next presentation resonate.
Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal by Oren Klaff
There’s a science to crafting a perfect pitch. In Pitch Anything, Oren Klaff shares his tried and tested formula for delivering a great pitch every time. Become a pitching master with the latest research in neuroeconomics and the STRONG pitching method. Stop using outdated methods and start using tactics that work.
Digital Body Language by Eric Dwawan
Humans rely on body language for context and understanding, so what do we do now that we’re all online? Communicating through a screen might have added some additional complexity to how we understand each other, but that inherent understanding isn’t lost completely. Digital Body Language breaks down the new social cues that have popped up in our now virtual world. Turn miscommunications into real communication.
The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
Our culture influences the way we communicate. Americans tend to be overly nice before delivering negative comments while Germans and Dutch are known for being brutally honest and getting right to the point. Knowing someone’s background and how they approach certain situations can help avoid misperceptions and confrontation. The Culture Map provides a tested model for decoding different cultures and having more productive conversations.
Think Like Your Customer by Bill Stinnett
To win customers, you have to think like your customer. Bill Stinnett found the biggest complaint he heard from clients was that the people selling to them just didn’t understand their business. Think Like Your Customer breaks down why it’s so critical to understand the inner workings of the industries you sell into and how you can use that information to create a winning strategy.
Ask More by Frank Sesno
It’s not just what you tell your customers, it’s what you ask them. Asking questions will help uncover information about your customers, but only if you ask in a systematic way. Ask More gives you insights into asking the right questions in any situation. With real-world examples from The Gates Foundation, Anderson Cooper, and Uber, you’ll master the art of asking the right questions.
The New Solution Selling by Keith M. Eades
The New Solution Selling is the groundbreaking sequel to Solution Selling. Expanding on the successes of its prequel, you’ll get updated philosophies, tools to increase pipeline, and management systems. This book is applicable to any industry and is performance-focused to help you achieve the best results.
