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.
Let’s paint a presales picture: Companies that optimize their presales strategy see a five-point boost in conversion rates, a 6% to 13% improvement in revenue growth, and a 10% to 20% shorter sales cycle. How can you reach this presales success? Start with this list!
This updated list is your secret weapon to raise your game and propel you to the top of the presales ladder. These handpicked books contain an arsenal of insights and strategies from the industry’s brightest minds.
Whether you’re a seasoned veteran or looking to start your presales career, 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.
It’s time to learn from the best of the best. These top presales books were written by industry experts and will help you sharpen your skills, from improving your presentation and communication skills to helping you get into more buyer-centric thinking.
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.
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.
Public opinion will tell you that 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Selling Is Hard. Buying Is Harder. is the definitive work on buyer enablement, a strategy that sees revenue teams give buyers the information and tools they need to decide to make a purchase on their own time and at their own pace. Essentially, your buyer sells themselves on your product. Put buyers in the driver’s seat and help solve today’s problem with overly complex sales cycles.
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 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.
Lifescale is all about self-discovery and growth, filled with scientific research and tools to help people overcome distractions and become happier and more productive. Discover techniques, exercises, and thought experiments that help you keep the chaos at bay and learn to embrace each day.
Digital selling today doesn’t look like how it did 10 years ago—or perhaps even just two years ago. This book introduces the concept of Insight Selling, allowing sellers to tap into their analytics and expertise to learn to not just sell a product but to provide value to buyers. Learn to navigate changing technologies, identify shifting market trends, and target customer needs.
Effective presales strategies boost everything from revenue to seller retention to customer loyalty. With these books, you’ll learn how the pros find presales success, giving you the insider knowledge you need to drive that success in your own company.
You might notice that many of these books talk about learning to think like a buyer. If we could impart one additional tip regarding presales, it would be this: buyer enablement should always be at the core of your presales strategy. In a world of increasingly more complex buying journeys, buyer enablement gives your customers everything they need to make it simple.
That drive is at the heart of Consensus. Consensus is the world’s first Product Experience Platform, offering buyer enablement tools that give your customers everything they need to have a stress-free buying, customer, and overall product experience.
Learn how Consensus can help you boost your presales buyer enablement.