Great Sales Books: The Top 10 of All Time and What Each One Teaches

What are the great sales books every rep should read?

A great sales book changes what you do on your next call. That is our only test. Not how famous the author is, not how many people posted the cover.

Every book below is real, and we checked its author and publication year against the publisher or a reliable listing, linked in each entry. Here are our top 10 sales books of all time, followed by the best B2B sales books and a reading plan for beginners. For more on the habits that make reps great, browse our Mindset & Motivation section.

The top 10 sales books of all time, explained

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (1936)

Published by Simon & Schuster in 1936, it has sold over 30 million copies worldwide. It is not technically a sales book. It is a people book, which is why it works for sales.

What to take: become genuinely interested in the other person, use their name, and talk in terms of what they want. If you read one book on this list, read this one.

2. SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham (1988)

Rackham's McGraw-Hill book came out of a research program in which a team of 30 researchers studied 35,000 sales calls in over 20 countries. SPIN stands for Situation, Problem, Implication and Need-payoff, the four types of questions that move large deals forward.

What to take: in big sales, the rep who asks better implication questions wins. Pair it with our list of closing questions examples.

3. Influence by Robert Cialdini (1984)

Cialdini, a psychology professor at Arizona State University, first released the book in 1984 as Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. It lays out six principles: reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority and scarcity.

A revised, expanded edition, covered by ASU in 2021, added a seventh principle: unity. ASU calls the book a 5 million-copy bestseller. Use the principles to understand buyers, never to trick them.

4. The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson (2011)

Published by Portfolio on November 10, 2011, it is based on a study of thousands of sales reps. The headline finding: every rep falls into one of five profiles, and only the Challenger consistently delivers high performance.

What to take: teach the customer something new about their business, tailor it to them, and take control of the conversation. Essential for complex B2B.

5. Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss with Tahl Raz (2016)

Voss is a former FBI hostage negotiator. According to Publishers Weekly, he spent over two decades in that role before founding the Black Swan Group, and realized during a Harvard negotiation course that his hostage techniques worked in business.

The Harper Business book covers how to "confront without confrontation," read the other side's emotions, get good at saying no, and use a calm voice Voss calls "the late-night FM DJ voice."

What to take: slow down, name the buyer's emotion, and let them feel in control. It is the best book here for handling pushback. Practice it alongside our guide to objection handling for sales.

6. To Sell Is Human by Daniel H. Pink (2012)

Riverhead published it on December 31, 2012. Citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, the publisher notes that about 1 in 9 Americans works in sales, then argues the other eight are selling too.

What to take: selling is a human skill, not a trick. A strong first read for career changers who feel uneasy about the word "sales."

7. Fanatical Prospecting by Jeb Blount (2015)

Wiley published it in October 2015, with a foreword by Mike Weinberg. The book's thesis is blunt: "The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe."

What to take: prospect every day, across phone, email, text and social, on a schedule you protect. Pair it with our explainer on what cold calling is.

8. The Greatest Salesman in the World by Og Mandino (1968)

First published in 1968, it tells the story of Hafid, a poor camel boy who builds a life of abundance through ten scrolls. Readers are told to read each scroll three times a day for thirty days.

What to take: success is a set of habits you repeat. Short, old-fashioned and still on desks for a reason.

If you have ever felt that sales is something you do rather than someone you are, this is the book that flips it. It reads in an afternoon and sticks for years.

9. Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar (1984)

Fleming H. Revell published it in 1984. It is the source of Ziglar's most famous line: "You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want."

What to take: closing is the natural end of serving someone well, and conviction is contagious. Then sharpen the mechanics with modern closing techniques for sales.

10. The JOLT Effect by Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna (2022)

Portfolio published it on September 20, 2022. The authors analyzed more than two and a half million sales conversations and argue that once buyers intend to buy, their bigger fear is making the wrong choice.

What to take: when a deal stalls after a yes, the problem is usually indecision, not the competition. Reduce the buyer's fear of failure instead of pushing harder.

What are the best B2B sales books?

If you sell to companies, start with SPIN Selling, The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect from the list above. Then add these two:

• Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler (2011). As its subtitle says, it packages "the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com" into a playbook for building a repeatable outbound sales machine.
• The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge (Wiley, 2015). Roberge led HubSpot's sales team through its first 10,000 customers. Read it if you hire, coach or build a team.

Heading into tech sales? Our guide on how to get into software sales shows where these books fit in the SDR-to-AE path.

What are good sales books for beginners?

New reps need confidence and fundamentals before frameworks. These good sales books are short, practical and easy to start:

• Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer (Bard Press, 2004). Twelve and a half principles in a pocket-sized book. Publishers Weekly sums up Gitomer's focus as less about how to sell and more about why people buy.
• The Go-Giver by Bob Burg and John David Mann (Portfolio, 2007). A short parable about a young salesman named Joe who learns five laws: value, compensation, influence, authenticity and receptivity. The theme is putting the other person first.
• The Lost Art of Closing by Anthony Iannarino (Portfolio, 2017). Written for B2B sellers, it breaks the sale into ten commitments you earn along the way, such as "commit to change" and "commit to decide," so the final close isn't a cliff.

Are old sales books still worth reading?

Yes, with a filter. Carnegie wrote before email, and Mandino before the smartphone, but buyers still want to feel heard, and reps still need daily habits.

The tactics age. The psychology doesn't.

Where older books fall short is process. They won't teach you how to win over a five-person buying committee or run discovery on a video call.

That is why the list mixes classics with research-based books like The Challenger Sale and The JOLT Effect. Read the classics for character and the newer books for mechanics.

One more filter for any book, old or new: does the author show their work? Research, real examples and specific steps beat confident opinions every time.

Want to see a book like this put to work? Our Featured Closer Greg Pahel of Clever Closers uses the contrast principle from Influence to explain how buyers judge price.

In what order should you read sales books?

Here is a 90-day plan for a new rep. One book a month, one habit per book.

After that, choose by your gap. Stuck deals: The JOLT Effect.

Complex B2B: The Challenger Sale. Low energy: The Greatest Salesman in the World and our list of verified sales motivation quotes.

How do you get real value from a sales book?

1. Read with a call in mind. Pick one live deal and ask what the author would do with it.
2. Steal one line per chapter. Write it in your own words and use it on a call that week.
3. Teach it. Share one idea in your team meeting. Teaching forces you to understand it.
4. Track one number. Meetings booked, conversion from demo to proposal, average deal size. If the number doesn't move, the book was entertainment.

The best sales books all time lists rarely mention this, but reading is the cheapest raise you'll ever give yourself. The skills compound, and so does what they do for your family.

Which great sales books should you skip?

Skip anything that promises tricks to get a yes from someone who shouldn't buy. Manipulation might close a deal, but it costs you referrals, renewals and your reputation.

Also be careful with books that are mostly the author's legend. A good test: can you name one behavior you'll change after chapter one? If not, put it down.

Back in Charlotte, you pick three books from the pile: Carnegie, Blount and Rackham. By week six your calendar is fuller than your peers'.

By month three a buyer stops you mid-call and says, "Nobody's asked me that before." That is what great sales books do. They show up in the conversation.