Best Sales Book I've Ever Read

The best sales book I've ever read is called How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling by Frank Bettger. Frank Bettger was a guy in the early 1900's who went from playing professional baseball for the St. Louis Cardinals to selling life insurance. This is the best sales book I've ever read for many reasons.

This book is an autobiography of his story of how he started out in sales, not being good at it, almost quitting, to how he was eventually the one of the highest earning life insurance sales rep in the nation. Although this story occurs in the 1900's, the sales principles in this book is timeless, universal and has helped millions of sales rep become successful in sales. I'm not the only successful sales rep who thinks this is the best sales book they've ever read.

Teaching Through Story

One of the reasons I think this is the best sales book ever in the history of sales is because Frank Bettger teaches us the basic principles of a successful sales rep by using his own story of failure. This sales book is a testament to how anyone can succeed at sales if they follow certain principles.

In addition, Frank Bettger teaches through story. Just like a picture is worth a thousand words, a story helps people grab principles in a way that a straight informational book can. When Frank Bettger is talking about the pain of rejection or the depression of not hitting your sales goals, everyone can feel and identify with how that feels. When Frank Bettger talks about how his persistence helped him get deals, it inspires us to do the same better than if he just told us without being a model of it himself.

Basics of Successful Selling

But again, I think this is the best sales book ever written because not only does it tell us an inspiring story, it also teaches the very basics of selling, like prospecting, enthusiasm, asking questions, soft selling and the importance of being organized.

It even talks about the importance of tracking and analyzing your sales pipeline, in a day in age with no computers, no Excel spreadsheets and no Salesforce CRM software. He did it on index cards and he made a record of every single sales call he ever made, and then he analyzed it to make his time more worth while.

Frank Bettger has no doubt influenced generations of sales reps through the timeless sales principles in How I Raised Myself from Failure to Success in Selling and that's why I think it's the best sales book I've ever read. Although he talks mostly about selling insurance, this book will help anyone starting out in a sales job.

Although this is the best sales book I've read and I recommend every new sales rep to have this on their bookshelf for reading and inspiration, I believe that sales reps who want to be successful should always be reading new books about sales, motivation and leadership.

There should be a continuing education and growing that happens.  I believe those who stop growing stop producing.  It's a simple fact. We are created to learn and we are created to grow.  It's a principle we see everywhere, not just with biological organisms.  A company that does not grow, dies.

You can see it when you step into a company that has plateaued.  They are stale and even if they are a big company, they still feel dead inside.  That is why you should constantly read, listen to CD's, podcasts and DVD's, and go to motivation and training seminars and workshops.