Sales Reading

Influence, Bob Cialdini

The OG, undisputed classic. Originally published 40 (?) years ago, just as relevant today.  Deep examination into the more important drivers behind persuasion: Reciprocity / Commitment / Social Proof / Liking / Authority / Scarcity.  Also the inspiration for an acronym I created for my sales team in my consulting days as to why customers bought (BECAP: bandwagon/ego/common good/anxiety/price)

Man for all Markets: How I beat the dealer and the markets, Ed Thorpe

Ed Thorpe should be Dos Equis’ most interesting man in the world. Genius puzzle solver across so many fields – creating a formula for pricing the optionality in warrants (predating black scholes), beating roulette with the first wearable computer, the OG blackjack card counter, quant hedge fund manager, and more.  The power of heterodox thinking.

Talent: How to identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners around the world, Tyler Cowen and Dan Gross

Rich book of nonobvious hiring secrets, example: probe what candidate involved with on weekends as talented people don’t turn off the spark after work.  Tyler defines ‘talent’ as “how one manipulates their current environment to bend it to one’s will – through charisma, intellect, energy, and durability.”  Appendix provides some fascinating interview questions.

Against the Odds, An Autobiography of James Dyson

This book reinforced my view that the entrepreneur and salesperson archetypes are close cousins.  Incredible story of first principles thinking, insane stubbornness (5,000+ prototypes over five years making incremental improvements to engineer the first bagless vacuum), highlighting this fascinating cultural difference between the east’s approach to gradual iterative improvement (Toyota) versus the our fixation in the west with quantum leaps / shortcuts.  Great quote/mantra from Dyson: “create a product that nobody has, everyone needs, and only I make.”

Two Elon books – Ashlee Vance and Walter Isaacson. Enjoyed both, but preferred Vance as more to the point, less hagiographic, and skips over tedious psychoanalysis around South Africa upbringing.  Elon’s approach of experimenting and acceptance of failure (you will blow up some rockets) relevant to MVP concept in enterprise sales. Unbounded ambition – frequently overpromises on timing but not the outcome. Elon a sales grandmaster, particularly his self belief, simply isn’t wired to fail.  However, Vance highlights his sales weaknesses such as a seemingly robot-like lacking of human empathy.