Top 8 Books for New Sales Leaders

Regardless of how long you've been a sales leader, without continuous sharpening, you'll wind up dull.

"What works in outbound sales has changed dramatically over the last ten years," says GTM leader and author, Joshua Garrison, "Those who fail to adapt are being left behind."

And, believe it or not, many of the today’s solutions are grounded in the fundamental practices nestled in between pages.

Here’s our list of some of the best books for sales leaders — straight from the minds of some of the most influential and successful sales leaders out there — and the reasons why we recommend them.

Mark them up, skim them, or read them cover-to-cover. 

Just don’t stop learning.

Sharpen your skill set with these 8 leadership books for sales professionals

1. “Outbound Sales” by Joshua Garrison, Karli Stone and Xier Dang

When the team at Apollo set out to write a book, we didn’t just want to create one of the best sales management books of the year. We wanted to write something that would help anyone become great at sales. 

While that may seem like a huge endeavor, we also had a leg up: data from over 500,000 active users to work with. Drawing on that data, we compiled our dream sales management book, complete with:

• Best practice cold email tactics
• Sales sequence examples, email templates, and scripts
• Voicemail tactics and practice routines
• Target benchmarks for emails, cold calls, LinkedIn, and conversion
• And an entire resource kit of materials to help you put it into action

Sales teams need new approaches to get better results. So we wrote this book to give it to them. Using insights from 250 million monthly email sends and 5.7 million monthly dialer minutes, it offers a modern framework for modern salespeople. 

👉 Snag your own copy of "Outbound Sales" on Amazon or Kindle.

(Or read it for free on the Apollo Academy!)

2. “Nuts and Bolts of Sales Management” by John R. Treace

One of the best books for new sales managers, this is an all-in-one read for sales leaders looking to implement best practices that drive high-velocity sales organizations. 

Exploring the “nuts and bolts" of a successful sales organization, it provides the comprehensive sales leadership development many sales reps miss out on, starting from the ground up — establishing core values and mission statements — but not stopping there. Offering strategies built over years of executive sales experience, Nuts and Bolts of Sales Management uncovers a deeper understanding of topics like:

• Effective sales forecasting
• Designing highly effective meetings
• Choosing and tracking the right metrics
• Developing a powerful sales culture
• And more

Why we love it:

In addition to reps needing to become masters of the buying process, Joe Barhoum also believes “one of the biggest challenges practitioners of sales enablement face is getting buy-in from the salespeople themselves.” Demonstrating a deep understanding of the concepts covered in Nuts and Bolts of Sales Management — then teaching salespeople how to apply the knowledge to their own selling motions — can earn that valuable buy-in.

The real-life examples and advice from this book will help you elevate your sales team with proven processes and win their trust. 

👉 Buy the book here.

3. “Sell with a Story” by Paul Smith

Well-told stories sell.

And this read provides you with all the ingredients for an effective sales story. Explore this book to learn how to choose the right story, craft a memorable, customer-centric narrative, and use those narratives to build rapport, address objections, and close deals. 

Sell with a Story itself does more than tell a story. It features practical guidance on how to get yours just right, with:

• Model stories

• Skill-building exercises

• Practical examples from Fortune 500 brands

“Treat storytelling like any other professional skill,” author Paul Smith writes. “If you invest the time to learn how to do it well, and then practice it, you can master it.”

Why we love it:

Stories are up to 22x more memorable than your average black-and-white facts and figures, it’s not surprising that they help build enthusiasm in prospects.

Sarah Brazier, one of the top-performing account executives when she worked at Gong, toppled her quota for four years straight using story telling in her pitches. 

From sales pitches and websites to video calls and emails, learning how to tell a winning story can increase buyer confidence, shorten the sales cycle, improve customer retention, and, ultimately, boost revenue.

👉 Buy it here.

4. “The Sales Leader's Problem Solver” by Suzanne M. Paling

As the founder of Sales Management Services, Suzanne M. Paling takes her two decades of sales management experience to present readers with the 15 problems sales leaders are likely to confront. It’s presented simply:

1. Identify the problem
2. Understand its causes
3. Come up with solutions

In the process, it gives you an arsenal of leadership strategies to help you confront common sales issues like poor prospecting performance and unmotivated sales reps.

Why we love it:

The best sales leaders uncover potential issues before they even pop up. 

They move their teams away from always “putting out fires” and set them up to strategically find solutions, all while building a framework to avoid the same pesky problems in the future.

This book provides a step-by-step guide to becoming a proactive problem solver, not a perpetual fire extinguisher.

👉 Here's where to purchase.

Bonus: If you’re looking for additional resources, check out this article on how to use problem-solving questions to lead a winning sales team.

5. “Gap Selling” by Jim Keenan

Jim Keenan is a known disruptor.

He busts through the traditional strategies many sales teams still rely on, teaching salespeople how to “sell to the gap” — that is, the gap between what buyers have and what they want. 

This book challenges widely held sales beliefs that have been holding sellers back for decades (e.g. “closing is the skill of strong salespeople” and “price is the main reason why sellers lose sales”) and gives open-minded sales leaders a fresh outlook for 21st-century sales success.

Why we love it

Problem-centric selling is an indispensable part of sales leadership and Jim teaches you “how to do it with empathy and critical thinking, rather than overly pushy tactics,” notes one reviewer.

Gap Selling gives you a framework for better understanding customer problems and objections and gives you the tools you need to recommend solutions.

👉 Buy it here.

6. “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves

In sales, emotional intelligence can often be the differentiator between success and failure. 

This book has a lofty goal, then, setting out to increase the emotional intelligence of its readers. It guides you in becoming an emotionally intelligent leader who knows how to communicate with your employees and make them feel valued. 

To accomplish that, it gives readers 66 — yes, that’s right, 66 — strategies to help increase your emotional quotient (EQ) through four core skills:

1. Self-awareness
2. Self-management
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship management 

Why we love it:

This book takes a “step-by-step” approach for increasing your EQ. It helps you set goals and track them as you work on the skills that will add to your emotional intelligence.

It even comes with an EQ quiz! Take the test before you read the book, then again when you’re finished, to see exactly how much your emotional intelligence has grown.

👉 Start reading.

7. “The Science of Selling” by David Hoffeld

This read aligns your sales strategies with how your prospects naturally think about purchasing.

Using numerous psychological studies and professional voices, it gives sellers a practical toolkit for engaging buyers and moving deals forward, exploring topics neutralizing objections and reducing the sway of competitors. “There have been thousands of scientific studies focused on understanding the behaviors that generate influence. This has transformed the process of influencing others from an art to a proven science,” author David Hoffeld writes.

Thankfully, though, you don’t have to sift through all of that research to learn how to put the science to work — because Hoffeld already has.

Why we love it:

This is one of our top sales management books because, unlike a lot of “self-help” books, The Science of Selling uses hard and fast evidence rather than anecdotes and subjective advice. It includes proven ways to help your sales teams:

• Improve objection-handling skills by uncovering root issues
• Engage buyers' emotions to make them more receptive
• And ask questions that align with the way our brains process information

👉 Buy your copy.

If you’re someone who actively seeks out data-backed sales practices in their day-to-day, visit the Apollo Academy. It’s full of modern advice on what works — straight from the experts.

8. “Sales Leadership” by Keith Rosen

Keith Rosen says it best, “The key to being a great leader is understanding what your people want and expect from you, but more importantly, why they want it.” 

Here, he gives you the tools to understand your own people’s why, and for aligning it to your company’s mission. Using the L.E.A.D.S coaching framework, Rosen teaches readers how to ask more questions, give less advice, and build trust and accountability. All so you can:

• Boost sales, productivity, and efficiency
• Improve forecast accuracy and win deals faster
• Turn around your underperformers in less than a month 
• Create team alignment and buy-in

Why we love it:

Beyond sales, the principles created in this book apply to various leadership scenarios. Really, it’s just about learning how to lead people — how to inspire people to be the best versions of themselves and develop a ruthless focus on shared goals.

As one reviewer stated, "You’ll work less, have more fun, and truly empower more people, to accomplish more for themselves, their families, and ultimately your organization.”

👉 Snag a copy here.

The best leaders are strong learners

Before you hit “purchase”, we want to leave you with a few quick tips for getting the most out of these sales books:

• There’s more than one way to read. You don’t need to finish a book from cover to cover or sit for hours of uninterrupted reading to learn and grow. You can scan through books for relevant bits and pieces, read summaries or commentaries, or download an audiobook for your next morning walk.
• Try annotating. Marking up your book or document keeps you active and awake. Write down your thoughts or reactions to help you remember the ideas of the author and set the foundation for action.
• Satisfice your reads. To satisfice is to seek a solution to a problem that achieves acceptable results, rather than seeking a solution that receives optimal results. Don’t misunderstand; you want to achieve optimal results eventually, but no need to be a perfectionist. Looking for a good solution and testing it is the better way to find out what works and what doesn’t.
• Put your knowledge into action. You’ll only see the results if you apply the knowledge. Internalize what you read, discuss ideas with your peers, and use what you learn to create better sales processes, better salespeople, and a better you.

Don't just read about sales success. Create it. 

Start with Outbound Sales for tactics you can apply — like, immediately. It comes with data-backed strategies, sales sequence examples, email templates, scripts, and more — so you and your team can close more deals using a scalable framework. 

Grab your copy now, leave a review, and let us know what you think.