First-hand experience is helpful when it comes to improving your sales performance. However, this first-hand experience is sometimes hard to come by, especially if you’re a member of a marginalized group underrepresented in your field.
Thankfully, there are experienced BIPOC entrepreneurs and sales professionals who are eager and willing to share their experiences with those hoping to get their foot in the door. In this post, discover books written by BIPOC authors that will help you learn more about yourself and how to unleash your full sales potential.
1. What’s in the CARDS? 5 Post-Pandemic Sales Strategies
Cherilynn Castleman, a relationship sales expert, draws on her 25 years of experience to teach readers five core competencies salespeople need to leverage to strengthen their relationships with clients and achieve sales success. As the recent COVID-19 pandemic has changed the market and consumer behavior, Castleman emphasizes these shifts and explains how salespeople can use these new challenges to become more resilient, creative, and flexible.
Ultimately, Castleman wants you to know that adversity and loss are not liabilities but rather assets to your budding sales career.
Review: "In the post-pandemic world, everyone is prioritizing relationships. This book excels at step-by-step instructions, conversation prompts, and reminders of what is most important: winning the hearts and minds of your clients."
2. Black Business Secrets (500 Tips, Strategies, and Resources for the African American Entrepreneur)
Through a combination of personal anecdotes, tips, and strategies, Dante Lee discusses the entrepreneurial skills that Black business owners should master to succeed in a competitive business market that often looks the other way. Black Business Secrets will help you explore how passion can turn to profit and focuses on the motto, "Don’t be a worrier, be a warrior."
Review: "…Dante Lee has written a wonderful book for you to truly overcome your challenges, become successful in business, and embrace the entrepreneurial DNA that lies within you."
3. Reach the Top 1%: A Strategic Game Plan for Warrior Women in Sales
Cynthia Barnes, the author of Reach the Top 1%: A Strategic Game Plan for Warrior Women in Sales, says, "Sales is simply the best career on the planet, especially for women, because it lets you call the shots."
Learn from Barnes’s success as CEO and elite sales professional, and understand how women can overcome adversity, harness their power, and build successful, rewarding sales careers that help you close high-impact deals with top clients.
4. Create Togetherness: Transform Sales and Marketing to Exceed Modern Buyers' Expectations and Increase Revenue
Create Togetherness: Transform Sales and Marketing to Exceed Modern Buyers' Expectations and Increase Revenue, written by Jeff Davis, Encourages salespeople to understand the relationship between marketing and sales as a means of improving sales performance. Davis provides a step-by-step guide on generating alignment between the two departments and explains the advantages and long-term benefits that come from these partnerships.
Review: "Jeff Davis taps into his unique expertise and fresh perspective to deliver Create Togetherness, a book that creates clarity for how B2B marketing and sales leaders can fix their dysfunctional relationship and increase company revenue. Highly recommended for any revenue leader that is looking at how to compete in the modern and complex B2B business environment."
5. The Sales Enablement Playbook
The Sales Enablement Playbook, written by Cory Bray and Hilmon Sorey, is a guidebook for salespeople to create a culture of sales enablement within their own organization. Divided into different chapters, you can follow the step-by-step guide to begin making changes within your workplace that will help your business scale and succeed.
Review: "Most sales enablement books are full of opinion and theory, but The Sales Enablement Playbook stands alone by going straight to practical solutions and useful advice. I read it over a weekend and was implementing it on Monday."
6. Playing The Game Without a Coach: How Courage, Resilience, and Forgiveness Helped One Man Seize the American Dream
Benjamin Raymond’s inspiring, personal story in Playing The Game Without a Coach tells readers about how internal determination and drive helped him succeed on the basketball court, as a salesperson, and as an eventual owner of a thriving business. He’s an inspiration to all that are hoping to rise above their struggles and become the person they want to be, both personally and professionally.
Review: "A must-read for anyone looking for inspiration, motivation and any entrepreneurs. Packed with great quotes, inspiring words, and soundbites of insight any young career professional or entrepreneur can benefit from."
7. Leapfrog: The New Revolution For Women Entrepreneurs
Nathalie Molina Niñowrites Leapfrog: The New Revolution For Women Entrepreneurs to guide aspiring entrepreneurs to win in their business ventures. She shares secrets and advice that she’s learned along the way in the form of leapfrogs, which she describes as clever loopholes to outsmart and jump over the hurdles that many entrepreneurs face, especially those who don’t have access to money, capital, or connections.
Review: "Leapfrog cuts through the typical ‘lift yourself by your bootstraps’ advice (applicable only for those with privilege and peels back that onion to get to the delicious truth of the hustle that is possible for entrepreneurs often locked out of the system."
8. It's About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage
Arlan Hamilton was on food stamps and sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport in 2015. She had dreams of breaking into the venture capital business but had no connections in Silicon Valley, financial background, or college degree. Yet, she achieved her dreams and found the success she hoped for.
In It’s About Damn Time, Hamilton writes about her experiences with breaking into the elite Silicon Valley club and creates an empowering guide on how to find your voice and achieve the successes you want, even without a privileged background that those around you may have.
Review: "A hero’s tale of what’s possible when we unlock our potential, continue the search for knowledge, and draw on our lived experiences to guide us through the darkest moments."
Whether you’re new to sales or an experienced professional hoping to move to the next level, this list of books contains insightful knowledge from experienced professionals that you can apply to your career path.
