If you are trying to become a better sales professional, you should always be on the lookout for new ways to sell. LinkedIn, for one, is a great platform to gather latest techniques and best practices in sales from top sales influencers.
That’s why, we put together a comprehensive list of sales influencers you should follow on the platform.
From bestselling authors to sales coaches, these influencers have a goldmine of knowledge to share on day-to-day sales tactics, objection handling, building confidence, understanding latest sales tools, trends and more.
Aaron Ross
Aaron Ross Quotes:
“Of course, you want more revenue but what good is it if it isn’t predictable?” – Aaron Ross
“One-time revenue spikes that aren’t repeatable won’t help you achieve consistent year-after-year growth.” – Aaron Ross
“If you’re doing prospecting, it’s not profitable to focus on smaller customers. Your ideal outbound customer should represent the largest revenue size or opportunity you can find that you can likely win.” – Aaron Ross
“Of course you want more revenue, but what good is it if it isn’t predictable?” – Aaron Ross
Aaron Ross Books:
- Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce
- From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue
- CEOFlow: Turn Your Employees Into Mini-CEOs
Andy Paul
Andy Paul Quotes:
“If you start a sales conversation with a question, then you begin to build interest. When you create a spark of interest in the mind of the prospect, it increases their level of engagement with you. That’s when real selling begins.” – Andy Paul
“The idea of a ‘close’ or a ‘closer’ is sort of a myth. Because if you’re in B2B Sales it’s very rare that the customer actually makes the decision in front of you.” – Andy Paul
Andy Paul Books:
- Amp Up Your Sales: Powerful Strategies That Move Customers to Make Fast, Favorable Decisions
- Zero-Time Selling: 10 Essential Steps To Accelerate Every Company’s Sales
Anthony Iannarino
Anthony Iannarino Quotes:
“If your prospective client knows everything you know, they do not need you to advice them.” – Anthony Iannarino.
“It’s about caring enough to create value for the customers. If you get that part right, selling is easy.” – Anthony Iannarino.
“Selling is a lot like swimming. You can’t learn to do it by reading a book. You have to be in the water.” – Anthony Iannarino.
Anthony Iannarino Books:
- Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away from Your Competition
- The Lost Art of Closing: Winning the Ten Commitments That Drive Sales
- The Only Sales Guide You’ll Ever Need
Colleen Francis
Colleen Francis Quotes:
“We make mistakes every time we lose a deal in sales. For most sellers this is 50%-67% of the time! We have to accept that. The key is recognizing what went wrong and correcting the mistake so it only happens once. Accept that mistakes will happen. Address them and move on. I think the biggest mistake we can make in sales is dwelling on the past rather than learning from it.” – Colleen Francis
“Whether your audience is one person in a meeting, ten people in a boardroom or 100 in an auditorium, sales presentations are your chance to solidify your relationship with your clients.” – Colleen Francis
Colleen Francis Books:
- Nonstop Sales Boom: Powerful Strategies to Drive Consistent Growth Year After Year
- Honesty Sells: How To Make More Money and Increase Business Profits
Craig Elias
Craig Elias Quotes:
“Adding a 2nd point of contact to a call doesn’t double, but TRIPLES your chance of closing an account.” – Craig Elias
“The next time you hear a decision maker say something like, “I’m thinking of doing something about this. Why don’t you call me back in six months,” DON”T CALL BACK IN SIX MONTHS! This decision maker is in the Window of Dissatisfaction. If you help create their buying vision now, your odds of winning the sale are 74 percent. Call them back in six months, and your odds of winning the business drop to 16 percent.” – Craig Elias
“What matter to buyers – RIPES: Risk Avoidance, Image, Productivity, Expenses, Simplicity or Time” – Craig Elias
Craig Elias Books:
- Shift!: Harness The Trigger Events That Turn Prospects Into Customers
Daniel Disney
Deb Calvert
Deb Calvert Quotes:
“The sales industry will continue evolving to engage and empower buyers and to dignify customer input. B2C is ahead of B2B in this regard.” — Deb Calvert
“B2C experiences raise buyers’ expectations for what will happen in the B2B buying process. Over time, the sales industry will be more receptive to buyer demands and more nimble in meeting them.” — Deb Calvert
“Sales success comes from the right balance of quality human interaction and appropriate use of supplemental tools.” — Deb Calvert
Deb Calvert Books:
- DISCOVER Questions Get You Connected: for professional sellers
- Stop Selling and Start Leading: How to Make Extraordinary Sales Happen
Grant Cardone
Grant Cardone Quotes:
“Success is your duty, obligation and responsibility.” – Grant Cardone
“Successful entrepreneurs are givers and not takers of positive energy.” – Grant Cardone
“Great Salespeople build value.” – Grant Cardone
“No one is really served until you close the deal.” – Grant Cardone
Grant Cardone Books:
- The 10X Rule: The Only Difference Between Success and Failure
- Sell or Be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life
- Be Obsessed or Be Average
- If You’re Not First, You’re Last: Sales Strategies to Dominate Your Market and Beat Your Competition
Jacco Vanderkooij
Jacco vanderKooij Quotes:
“Customers want a new experience. They don’t need to be sold to, they want to hear success stories.” – Jacco vanderKooij
“Customers are changing the selling experience – you need to educate, not sell.” – Jacco vanderKooij
Jacco Vanderkooij Books:
- Blueprints for a SaaS Sales Organization
- The SaaS Sales Method for Customer Success & Account Managers: How to Grow Customers
Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks Quotes:
“It’s time to go where your buyers live: online. If you pride yourself on being where your buyers are, why aren’t you online yet?” – Jamie Shanks
Jamie Shanks Books:
- Social Selling Mastery: Scaling Up Your Sales and Marketing Machine for the Digital Buyer
Jeb Blount
Jeb Blount Quotes:
“There is no easy button in sales. Prospecting is hard, emotionally draining work, and it is the price you have to pay to earn a high income” – Jeb Blount
“The brutal fact is the number one reason for failure in sales is an empty pipe, and, the root cause of an empty pipeline is the failure to prospect.” – Jeb Blount
Jeb Blount Books:
- Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling
- Objections: The Ultimate Guide for Mastering The Art and Science of Getting Past No
- Sales EQ: How Ultra High Performers Leverage Sales-Specific Emotional Intelligence to Close the Complex Deal
- People Buy You: The Real Secret to what Matters Most in Business
Jeffrey Gitomer
Jeffrey Gitomer Quotes:
“In sales, it’s not what you say; it’s how they perceive what you say.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
“There’s no lotion or potion that will make sales faster and easier for you – unless your potion is hard work.” – Jeffrey Gitomer
Obstacles can’t stop you. Problems can’t stop you. Most of all, other people can’t stop you. Only you can stop you. – Jeffrey Gitomer
Jeffrey Gitomer Books:
- Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness
- The Sales Bible, New Edition: The Ultimate Sales Resource
- Little Red Book of Sales Answers: 99.5 Real World Answers That Make Sense, Make Sales, and Make Money
Jill Konrath
Jill Konrath Quotes:
“Salespeople today ARE the differentiator. That’s why it’s so critical for you to focus on becoming a valuable business asset to your customers.” – Jill Konrath
“Your products, services or solutions are secondary to your knowledge, expertise and the difference you make for your customers.” – Jill Konrath
“Sales is an outcome, not a goal. It’s a function of doing numerous things right, starting from the moment you target a potential prospect until you finalize the deal.” – Jill Konrath
Jill Konrath Books:
- SNAP Selling: Speed Up Sales and Win More Business with Today’s Frazzled Customers
- More Sales, Less Time: Surprisingly Simple Strategies for Today’s Crazy-Busy Sellers
- Agile Selling: Get Up to Speed Quickly in Today’s Ever-Changing Sales World
John Barrows
John Barrows Quotes:
“Don’t just share ebooks and webinars – advise what pages to check out or what minutes to watch.” – John Barrows
“People buy from people; they don’t buy from the perfect pitch, script, or canned demo. The more real and transparent you are with them the more real and transparent they will be with you.” -John Barrows
Keenan
Keenan Quotes:
“People want to feel empowered, and empowered people are the most productive people.” – Keenan
“Selling through social channels is the closest thing to being a fly on the wall in your customers, prospects, and competitor’s world.” – Keenan
“We all know who the shitty salespeople are. Don’t be afraid to get rid of them.” – Keenan
Keenan Books:
- Not Taught: What It Takes to be Successful in the 21st Century that Nobody’s Teaching You
- Gap Selling: Getting the Customer to Yes: How Problem-Centric Selling Increases Sales by Changing Everything You Know About Relationships, Overcoming Objections, Closing and Price
Lori Richardson
Lori Richardson Quotes:
“Be an example. Are you prompt? Are you professional? Are you engaged? As sales leaders, we have to set the bar high for ourselves as well as our teams.” – Lori Richardson
“Selling is really about having conversations with people and helping improve their company or their life. If you look at it like that, selling is a very admirable thing to do.” – Lori Richardson
“Everybody’s talking about artificial intelligence, machine learning, and the fact that the simplistic tasks salespeople have done in the past will eventually be gone. In some companies, they’re already gone.”
— Lori Richardson
“Sales reps need to be coachable— willing to learn new things and improve every day.” — Lori Richardson
Mark Hunter
Mark Hunter Quotes:
“The only good sale is the one that leads to the next sale.” – Mark Hunter
“It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” – Mark Hunter
“When things aren’t going well, call your best customer. Someone you have helped.” – Mark Hunter
Mark Hunter Books:
- High-Profit Prospecting: Powerful Strategies to Find the Best Leads and Drive Breakthrough Sales Results
- High-Profit Selling: Win the Sale Without Compromising on Price
Mark Roberge
Mark Roberge Quotes:
“You know you are running a modern sales team when selling feels more like the relationship between a doctor and a patient and less like a relationship between a salesperson and a prospect.” – Mark Roberge
“It’s no longer about interrupting, pitching and closing. It is about listening, diagnosing and prescribing.” – Mark Roberge
Mark Roberge Books:
- The Sales Acceleration Formula: Using Data, Technology, and Inbound Selling to go from $0 to $100 Million
Matt Heinz
Matt Heinz Quotes:
“Filter everything you’re doing, saying and pitching and you’ll improve just about every metric you care about today.” – Matt Heinz
Mike Weinberg
Mike Weinberg Quotes:
“Often, in sales, we become prisoners of hope. Stop hoping, open more opportunities.” – Mike Weinberg
“I can’t even tell you the number of meetings I secured as a salesperson by bouncing off of the no and asking two more times for the meeting. Let me repeat: this first no is automatic. It’s an auto-reflex. They are programmed to say no.” – Mike Weinberg
“You should never allow someone else to dictate your sales process.” – Mike Weinberg
Mike Weinberg Books:
- New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development
- Sales Management. Simplified.: The Straight Truth About Getting Exceptional Results from Your Sales Team
Morgan J Ingram
Morgan J Ingram Quotes:
“Whatever your aspirations are for the future, chances are you are going to have to invest in that dream outside of your everyday work.” – Morgan J Ingram
“Have a straight line focus every single day…you will always have the highs and lows, but you can’t allow them to affect your attitude” – Morgan J Ingram
“When most people hear ‘no,’ they’re done. You have to be willing to push back and challenge or you’re not going to be successful.” – Morgan J Ingram
Richard Harris
Richard Harris Quotes:
“You need to be able to paint a picture in a conversation. The lost art of sales is the storytelling side.” – Richard Harris
Scott Leese
Scott Leese Quotes:
“Whether is sales skills, business acumen, management skills or leadership in general, the critical thing is they feel value and invested in. My job is to get them to where they want to go next, and remove obstacles from their path along the way.” — Scott Leese
“The most important thing a sales leader can do is coach, mentor and develop the people on their team.” – Scott Leese
“I document every single objection there is and we build a robust playbook that covers all rebuttals.” – Scott Leese
Scott Leese Books:
- Addicted to the Process: How to Close Transactional Sales with Confidence and Consistency
Tibor Shanto
Tibor Shanto Quotes:
“Prospects equal options. Master prospecting and you will be the master of your sales destiny” – Tibor Shanto
“Like great athletes, great salespeople are motivated by achieving personal bests while also being key contributors to the team’s success. Keeping your team focused on the goal that motivates them to behave differently from the unsuccessful, and better than what got them to where they are.” – Tibor Shanto
“Sales hasn’t changed. It’s about the customer, which is why I like to be focused on objective-based selling.” – Tibor Shanto
Tibor Shanto Books:
- Shift!: Harness the Trigger Events That Turn Prospects into Customers
Tony J Hughes
Tony J Hughes Quotes:
“How can you help them save, gain, reduce, increase or improve? These are the five magic words that grab C-suite residents.” – Tony J Hughes
“Every salesperson must therefore be able to answer the following three questions: 1. Why will this customer buy anything at all? 2. Why will this customer buy from us? 3. What’s our strategy to provide best value and lowest risk in the eyes of the buyer?” – Tony J Hughes
Tony J Hughes Books:
Trish Bertuzzi
Trish Bertuzzi Quotes:
“The Only Sustainable Advantage in Modern Selling is you.” – Trish Bertuzzi
“On average, managers are spending 2.4 hours per rep on monthly coaching – we need to do better!” – Trish Bertuzzi
“Every company has a vision. But can your sales reps clearly articulate it? Probably not. Why not create a welcome video from the CEO or a founder just for new sales reps? Make hearing the why both personal and motivating at the same time.” – Trish Bertuzzi
“Prospects are making their purchase decision based on whether they think you understand their problems and you have the knowledge, resources and commitment to solve them.” – Trish Bertuzzi
Trish Bertuzzi Books:
Victor Antonio
Victor Antonio Quotes:
“Always Be Convincing is the new Always Be Closing.” – Victor Antonio
“Anyone can be good at selling when they learn how to differentiate between what the client wants versus what they really NEED and focus on the latter.” – Victor Antonio
Victor Antonio Books:
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