Conscious Sales Reading List — Top 20 Books
Already own: Jeb Blount’s Fanatical Prospecting
Recommended Reading Order for Solanasis
- The Trusted Advisor → 2. SPIN Selling → 3. Gap Selling → 4. Never Split the Difference → 5. Fanatical Prospecting (re-read) → 6. New Sales. Simplified. → 7. Selling with Noble Purpose → 8. The Challenger Sale → 9. Sales EQ → 10. Everything else
Prospecting
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 1 | Fanatical Prospecting | Jeb Blount | Empty pipeline = failure. Discipline beats talent. Multi-channel outreach. [OWNED] |
| 2 | New Sales. Simplified. | Mike Weinberg | 3 steps: select targets, create sales weapons, execute relentlessly. HubSpot Top 20. |
| 3 | High-Profit Prospecting | Mark Hunter | Pipeline quality > quantity. Better leads, fewer wasted hours. |
Discovery & Consultative Selling
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 4 | SPIN Selling | Neil Rackham | Based on 35,000 calls. Ask Situation-Problem-Implication-Need-Payoff questions. Foundation of consultative selling. |
| 5 | Gap Selling | Keenan | Find the gap between current state and desired state. Make it viscerally clear. Modern, no-nonsense. |
| 6 | Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play | Mahan Khalsa | 100% focus on helping clients succeed = both win. Radical honesty framework. Covey foreword. |
| 7 | Consultative Selling (8th ed) | Mack Hanan | Stop being vendor, start being consultant. The original bible (since 1970). |
Negotiation & Objection Handling
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 8 | Never Split the Difference | Chris Voss | FBI negotiator teaches tactical empathy, calibrated questions, power of “no.” |
| 9 | Objections | Jeb Blount | Objections ≠ rejection. Frameworks for every stage. Emotional side of hearing “no.” |
Relationship Building & Trust
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 10 | The Trusted Advisor | Maister, Green, Galford | Trust = (Credibility + Reliability + Intimacy) / Self-Orientation. THE book for fCIO positioning. |
| 11 | How to Win Friends and Influence People | Dale Carnegie | 1936 and still relevant. Listen more, be genuinely interested, never criticize directly. |
| 12 | The Go-Giver | Bob Burg | Parable: shifting from getting to giving is paradoxically most profitable. Mindset reset. |
Mindset & Emotional Intelligence
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 13 | Sales EQ | Jeb Blount | EQ is the differentiator, not product knowledge. Managing buyer emotions + your own. |
| 14 | To Sell Is Human | Daniel Pink | New ABCs: Attunement, Buoyancy, Clarity. Reframes selling as fundamental human activity. |
| 15 | Heart and Sell | Shari Levitin | 10 universal truths blending neuroscience with authentic connection. |
| 16 | Emotional Intelligence 2.0 | Bradberry & Greaves | 4 EQ skills with online assessment + 66 strategies. Foundation for making NLP genuine. |
Purpose-Driven & Ethical Selling
| # | Title | Author | Key Takeaway |
|---|
| 17 | Selling with Noble Purpose | Lisa Earle McLeod | Purpose-driven sellers outsell quota-focused ones. Directly aligned with Solanasis ethos. |
| 18 | Influence | Robert Cialdini | 6 principles of ethical persuasion. Explicitly distinguishes influence from manipulation. |
| 19 | The Challenger Sale | Dixon & Adamson | Best B2B sellers teach, tailor, and take control. Permission to push back and educate. |
| 20 | The Science of Selling | David Hoffeld | Aligns selling with peer-reviewed behavioral science. Evidence-based practice. |