Can I Say That?
Sales & Negotiation books
Reading for sales leaders, commercial teams and anyone who negotiates. It covers consultative and challenger-style selling (SPIN Selling, The Challenger Sale, Gap Selling), sales management, and negotiation and difficult conversations (Never Split the Difference, Getting to Yes, Crucial Conversations).
35 books3 foundation / essential1 recentFor sales leaders, commercial teams and founders
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Start here
Featured picks in Sales & Negotiation: good first reads.
Getting to Yes
Getting to Yes
Sales & NegotiationHow to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People
Sales & NegotiationInfluence
Influence
Sales & NegotiationAll 35 Sales & Negotiation books
Alphabetical by title, each with a short description. Open the details for related reads and courses, or go straight to Amazon.
Bargaining for Advantage
G. Richard Shell offers a strategic guide to negotiating, stressing that people should understand their own style and plan carefully, with attention to ethics and to the other side. For professionals and students seeking practical negotiation skills.
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Can I Say That?
A practical guide to inclusive language at work by Poornima Luthra, a communication specialist. It helps readers speak and write with more care across differences of culture and background, without freezing for fear of getting it wrong. Suited to managers, sales teams and anyone who talks with varied colleagues and customers.
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Conceptual Selling
A companion to Strategic Selling that concentrates on the conversation with the buyer: understanding the customer's own view of what they need and shaping the dialogue around it. Written for salespeople who want to sell by questioning and listening.
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Crucial Conversations
Offers tools for talking when stakes are high, opinions differ and emotions run strong. The authors show how to keep dialogue safe, stay focused on shared goals and turn disagreement into action. Helpful for managers, teams and families.
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Difficult Conversations
Written by members of the Harvard Negotiation Project, this book shows how to approach emotionally charged talks by separating what happened from feelings and questions of identity. It offers guidance for raising hard issues at work and at home.
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Exactly What to Say
Phil M. Jones offers short phrases and wording choices for sales and persuasion conversations, explaining how small changes in language can improve the response from customers. Practical for salespeople and customer-facing teams.
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Fanatical Prospecting
Jeb Blount makes the case that consistent prospecting keeps a sales pipeline full, and offers methods and discipline for finding new customers through several channels. Suitable for salespeople who struggle to generate enough leads.
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Gap Selling
Keenan argues that selling is about diagnosing the gap between a customer's current situation and the situation they want, then showing the value of closing it. A problem-focused approach for salespeople and sales teams.
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Getting Past No
William Ury offers a five-step strategy for dealing with hostile, stubborn or uncooperative counterparts, including keeping your composure, listening, reframing and building a path to agreement. It builds on the principles of Getting to Yes.
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Getting to Yes
Presents principled negotiation, a method that separates people from the problem, focuses on interests rather than positions, generates options for mutual gain and relies on objective criteria. Useful for negotiators, managers and anyone seeking agreements without damaging relationships.
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How to Win Friends and Influence People
Dale Carnegie sets out practical principles for dealing with people, such as taking a genuine interest in others, avoiding criticism and showing appreciation. Aimed at anyone who wants to build better working and personal relationships.
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Influence
Robert Cialdini examines the psychology of persuasion, explaining principles such as reciprocity, social proof, authority and scarcity that lead people to say yes. Useful for marketers, salespeople and anyone who wants to recognise attempts to influence them.
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Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play
A customer-centred approach to selling that favours honest early conversations to establish whether a real opportunity exists before effort is invested. Written for sales professionals who want a more open, collaborative relationship with buyers.
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MEDDICC
Andy Whyte introduces MEDDICC, a methodology for qualifying and progressing complex business sales opportunities, built around an acronym of the factors a deal needs. Intended for sales teams, managers and revenue leaders.
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Negotiation Genius
Deepak Malhotra and Max Bazerman present an approach to negotiation grounded in research, covering preparation, understanding the other side and building agreements that work for both parties. Suitable for professionals who negotiate regularly.
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Never Split the Difference
Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss explains techniques such as mirroring, labelling emotions and asking calibrated questions, built on what he calls tactical empathy. Applicable to business deals, salary discussions and everyday disagreements.
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New Sales. Simplified.
Mike Weinberg gives practical advice on winning new business, covering prospecting, sales messaging and approaches to conversations with potential customers. Directed at salespeople and owners who need to act proactively rather than wait for demand.
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Pitch Anything
Oren Klaff describes a method for pitching ideas and deals, built on controlling the frame of the conversation and holding the audience's attention. It draws on his experience raising capital and suits entrepreneurs, dealmakers and salespeople.
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Pre-Suasion
Focusing on the moments before a request is made, Robert Cialdini argues that directing attention and setting the right context can make people more receptive. Aimed at marketers, communicators and negotiators who want to prepare the ground.
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Sales EQ
Jeb Blount applies emotional intelligence to selling, explaining how managing your own emotions and reading those of customers can help in complex sales. Written for salespeople who want to build trust and handle pressure in conversations.
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Sales Management. Simplified.
A guide for sales managers by Mike Weinberg, focused on leading and coaching a sales team and holding people to account. It concentrates on practical management habits rather than theory.
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Secrets of Closing the Sale
Zig Ziglar explains how to bring a sales conversation to a decision, offering a range of closing techniques and advice on the attitude needed to use them well. Suited to salespeople who want practical, motivational guidance.
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Sell with a Story
Paul Smith makes the case for using stories in selling, showing salespeople how to structure and tell accounts that help prospects understand and remember a message. Aimed at sales professionals and managers who want to communicate more persuasively.
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Smart Calling
Art Sobczak gives practical advice on telephone prospecting, aiming to make cold calling less daunting through preparation, better opening statements and ways of engaging people quickly. For salespeople who rely on the phone to generate leads.
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SPIN Selling
Neil Rackham reports on research into a large number of sales calls and describes a questioning method built around situation, problem, implication and need-payoff questions. Best suited to salespeople handling large or complex deals.
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Strategic Selling
The authors present a method for selling to large accounts where several people influence the decision, showing how to map those influences and plan the sale. For salespeople working on complex, high-value deals.
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The Challenger Customer
A follow-up to The Challenger Sale that turns to the customer side of complex purchases. It argues that selling to a group of buyers means finding and equipping the people who push for change. For business-to-business sellers and sales leaders.
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The Challenger Sale
Based on research into high-performing sales reps, this book describes a seller who teaches customers something new, tailors the message and takes control of the sale. Aimed at sales leaders and reps in complex business-to-business selling.
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The JOLT Effect
Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna argue that customer indecision, rather than rival suppliers, is a major cause of lost deals, and propose a method for helping hesitant buyers move forward. Useful for sales teams working on stalled opportunities.
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The Lost Art of Closing
Anthony Iannarino argues that closing is not a single moment but a series of commitments won across the whole sales process, and shows how to earn them. Aimed at salespeople who struggle to move deals to a decision.
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The New Strategic Selling
A framework for managing large, complex sales that involve several decision-makers, helping salespeople analyse the buying influences inside a customer's organisation and plan their approach. Suited to business-to-business sales teams and managers.
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The Psychology of Selling
Brian Tracy offers practical techniques and a positive mindset for selling, covering prospecting, building rapport and closing. The emphasis is on customers' motivations and the habits of effective salespeople. Suits new and experienced sellers alike.
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The Qualified Sales Leader
John McMahon shares lessons from a career in sales leadership, aimed at people who run sales teams and want a more disciplined approach to managing deals and performance.
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The Transparency Sale
Todd Caponi argues that sellers earn trust by being open about their product's weaknesses as well as its strengths, drawing on how consumers read online reviews. A case for honesty in sales conversations, aimed at customer-facing professionals.
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To Sell Is Human
Daniel Pink argues that most people spend much of their working lives persuading or influencing others, so selling in a broad sense is part of nearly every job. He offers ideas on attunement, buoyancy and clarity, and writes for professionals outside sales.
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Courses to go with Sales & Negotiation reading
Turn the ideas into skills with self-paced video courses. Each shelf shows the books it pairs with.
Udemy courses
Sales training
Courses on practical selling skills and sales management.
Browse Sales training coursesUdemy courses
Negotiation
Courses on preparing for and running better negotiations.
Browse Negotiation coursesUdemy courses
Prospecting & B2B sales
Courses on B2B prospecting and account-based selling.
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Common questions
- How many Sales & Negotiation books are on this list?
- This page lists 35 Sales & Negotiation books, 3 of them marked Foundation / Essential and 1 marked Recent / New thinking.
- Which Sales & Negotiation books should I start with?
- Good first reads are the featured picks: Can I Say That? by Poornima Luthra, Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury & Bruce Patton, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and Influence by Robert B. Cialdini.
- Who is this Sales & Negotiation reading list for?
- Sales leaders, commercial teams and founders.
- Are there courses to go with these Sales & Negotiation books?
- Yes. This page lists 3 Udemy course shelves for Sales & Negotiation: Sales training, Negotiation, and Prospecting & B2B sales. Udemy links are affiliate links: we may earn a commission if you enrol, at no extra cost to you.
- How are the books chosen?
- The Business Reading Room curates its library by topic and groups titles into collections: Foundation / Essential, Core / Recommended and Recent / New thinking.
- Where can I buy these books?
- Each book links to Amazon through an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Editions, formats and prices are shown on Amazon.