This is the time of year I love! Long sun-filled days, warm temps, and lots of opportunities for outside fun. I spend a lot of time near water-our pool, the lake, and even a trip to the NW Pacific planned this summer) always with a book, or my Kindle, in one hand. (The other hand is for a beverage or snack of course.)

Summer is a great time for learning from the best and upping your game with the latest and the greatest books for increasing sales.

We start our Summer Sales Reading list with NEW for 2016 books. I’ve read most of them and encourage you to select at least 1 to tackle this month. We have a fine variety of topics for you to select from, depending on what you and your team need to grow.

This is first of a 4 part series, we’ll give you the entire list soon!

The Summer Sales Reading List – New for 2016 by Sales Pro Insider, Inc.

7 STEPS TO SALES FORCE TRANSFORMATION:  Driving Sustainable Change in Your Organization

by Warren Shiver and Michael Perla

A successful sales force transformation can mean increased revenue, increased sales productivity, and reduced cost of sales. But up to seventy-five percent of attempted transformations fail. According to sales experts Warren Shiver and Michael Perla, the root of the problem is two-fold: salespeople are notoriously reluctant to change, and all too often, even when the sales department transforms successfully, the rest of the organization fails to keep up. In this new book, Shiver and Perla provide their proven strategy for achieving holistic, sustainable change by overcoming resistance and incorporating all parts of the organization. They include examples from many well-known companies.

The Art of Commercial Conversations – When It’s Your Turn To Make A Difference

by Bernadette McClelland

This book is DIFFERENT! It provides mainstream how-to’s and what to do’s with a left of field focus on who you need to be and why this is so important. It taps into what REALLY contributes to business success when it comes to revenue generation, day to day leadership and the critical activation of those results that matter the most. It’s an invitation as well as a wake-up call to begin having commercial conversations that provide a win for everyone – you, your buyer and the greater community –  providing chapter after chapter of game changing calls to action!

Beyond The Sales Process: 12 Proven Strategies for a Customer-Driven World

by Dave Stein

Relationships matter. In our new, post-recession B2B sales world, thinking only about how to close an active buyer can be a fatal miscalculation. It’s a cold, hard reality: your customers typically spend less than 5 percent of their time engaged in the buying of products and services from you. In order to continuously drive sales, it is imperative to engage with would-be buyers during the 95 percent of their time when they are not buying from you. (Reinforced by research from Aberdeen Group, SAMA, ITSMA, and other experts, this evidence-based book gives you practical, proven methods for effectively positioning and differentiating yourself in an unprecedentedly competitive sales environment… enabling you to grow with your customers, and take your sales performance to a whole new level.)

Fanatical Prospecting

by Jeb Blount

Fanatical Prospecting gives salespeople, sales leaders, entrepreneurs, and executives a practical, eye-opening guide that clearly explains the why and how behind the most important activity in sales and business development—prospecting. Learn how to keep the pipeline full of qualified opportunities and avoid debilitating sales slumps by leveraging a balanced prospecting methodology across multiple prospecting channels.

The Future of Consultative Selling

by Mike Schultz, Bob Croston, Jason Murray

In the past handful of years, the sales environment has changed so much that respected sales experts and business journals are telling sellers to replace consultative selling, while others claim it’s still relevant but that it needs to change. In The Future of Consultative Selling, Schultz, Croston, and Murray propose a new definition of consultative selling, and take a close look at the future of sales and what you need to do to win in the new sales environment. You’ll come away with a better understanding of how to adjust course in the selling process now and in the future.

How to Place the Successful Sales and Prospecting Call

by Art Sobczak

Art Sobczak take you step-by-step through his proven Seven-Step sales call process. Plus you’ll get examples of the what-to-say messaging to use in all parts of the call to get the “yes” answers you want, and how to place those calls without fear of the “rejection” that so many callers get paralyzed by.

Get this newly-revised 180-page paperback FREE…just cover the shipping.

Own Your Day

by Keith Rosen

How Sales Leaders Master Time Management, Minimize Distractions, and Create Their Ideal Lives. Whether you’re a sales manager or salesperson, this book delivers a step-by-step self-management road map to double your productivity, take charge of your life, and Own Your Day.

In addition to learning time management strategies that will yield immediate results in your life, you will learn how to master the inner game of time management which will enable you to coach your team to thrive and help them improve their personal productivity.

The Sales Development Playbook: How to Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales

by Trish Bertuzzi

This book paves a clear path for the value of investing time and resources in a great sales development team. It is broken up into 6 sections, one chapter dedicated to every element of building an effective outbound sales team.

The 6 sections are 1) Strategy: A framework for aligning your sales model with market dynamics 2) Specialization: How to segment your prospect universe 3) Recruiting: How to find, hire and compensate good sales talent 4) Retention: How to engage, develop and motivate reps 5) Execution: How to properly conduct outbound sales 6) Leadership: How to be a good sales team leader, from establishing quota to performance metrics to building out a sales stack.

Sales Manager Survival Guide, Lessons from Sale’s Front Lines

by David A Brock

The indispensable guide to the toughest, most important job in sales.  Front line sales manages are responsible for maximizing the performance of each person on the team, assuring the team makes the numbers.

The book is a tactical guide to the issues sales managers face every day on the job, whether it’s how to coach effectively, how to conduct high impact business reviews, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, firing, getting the most from top performers, dealing with poor performers.  It’s perfect for people new to management through to the most experienced managers.  It’s been called THE Go-To resource for sales managers.

Sales Presentations for Dummies

By Julie Hansen

No more excuses for giving another boring, ineffective sales presentation after reading this timely book!  Author Julie Hansen lays out a step-by-step method for building a blockbuster presentation and tips from acting, storytelling and Ted Talks for delivering it in a compelling and memorable way.  Whether your presentation is formal or informal, virtual or live, the techniques in this book will help you gain and hold the attention of busy decision-makers and improve your closing ratio.

SELLING VISION: The X→XY→Y Formula for Driving Results by Selling Change

by Lou Schachter and Rick Cheatham

Smart companies try to stay ahead of marketplace shifts by changing what and how their company sells. In the book, Lou and Rick – veteran sales executives and consultants – argue that too many sales transformations are unsuccessful because they fail to plan for a mission-critical phase – a transition period of selling both the current and new offerings at the same time. It’s based on new research and is full of advice for salespeople, sales managers, and sales leaders.

Whale Hunting with Global Accounts

by Barbara Weaver Smith

Nothing grows your bottom line faster than new business with your global accounts, yet companies like yours are leaving millions—maybe billions–on the table. You have a big customer or even a few that are part of global corporations, but you’re still treating them as if they were local. If you’re not ready to expand globally with your customers, even your domestic business is at risk.

In Whale Hunting with Global Accounts, Barbara Weaver Smith takes CEOs and sales leaders on a deep dive into the four critical sales strategies that will make you winners in the competition for growth in your biggest accounts:

• Knowledge—Look Deeper
• Structure—Get Organized
• Process—Beyond Steps
• Vision—Lead the Way

The voices of fourteen global sales experts—current practitioners and sales leaders—contribute seamlessly to the narrative for a powerfully multinational perspective. Weaver Smith will teach you how to become a smarter, more insightful, global account team whose customers look to you for leadership.

How do you strengthen this "Will" among your sales associates? How does the lack of drive impact your daily life? I discussed this and so much more on a recent virtual training event you can access below. It's valuable information for any business leader who needs to maximize performance of their people to grow their company.

Click here to access the replay.