Consider yourself very lucky if you have a business mentor you can always turn for advice. However, not everyone has a master Yoda at their disposal (especially in the predominantly remote work environment).
That’s why we have books—to learn from industry leaders, matter experts, and esteemed colleagues from all over the world.
To spare you the trouble of research, we’ve surfed through dozens of lead generation books, and only the best made it on our list.
1. Fanatical Prospecting (by Jeb Blout)
Prospecting in the lead generation process is critical to success, yet many sales teams and SDRs fail in this area—and the reason behind this could be an unwillingness or inability to prospect constantly.
Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling, by Jeb Blount, shows what goes on behind prospecting and offers real-life approaches that have worked on prospects. He advises always making one more contact to perform well and goes through more techniques for every outreach channel.
Goodreads rating: 4.3/5
2. The Sales Development Playbook (by Trish Bertuzzi)
This B2B lead gen sales book, The Sales Development Playbook: Build Repeatable Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales, by Trish Bertuzzi, covers what you need to know—from building new pipelines to accelerating existing ones.
It has six sections that focus on strategy, specialization, recruiting, retention, execution, and leadership, offering many actionable strategies for sales teams. It dives into sales development innovations of the last decade and shows how to create a repeatable pipeline to move your sales strategies forward.
Goodreads rating: 4.2/5
3. Predicatable Revenue (by Aaron Ross ad Marylou Tyler)
This sales book was the first one to prompt the sales specialization principle that kicked off the SDR craft as we know it today. Often referred to as “the bible” of sales development, Predictable Revenue: Turn Your Business Into a Sales Machine with the $100 Million Best Practices of Salesforce.com, by Aaron Ross and Marylou Tyler, explores the sales specialization system and goes into the best practices that resulted in a one-hundred million dollar revenue for Salesforce.
An essential guide for CEOs, business entrepreneurs, and sales teams alike, Predictable Revenue offers timeless advice for boosting the sales process, generating high-qualified leads, and creating a new stream of revenue to meet your financial goals.
Goodreads rating: 4/5
4. Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook (by Gary Vaynerchuk)
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World, by Gary Vaynerchuk, can become a great starting point in planning your social media strategy.
Goodreads rating: 4/5
5. Tech-Powered Sales (by Justin Michael and Tony Hughes)
Being recently published (2021), Tech-Powered Sales: Achieve Superhuman Sales Skills offers the freshest perspective on modern sales. While sales cycles grow longer and the pandemic doesn’t make it easier for us, challenges like this push us to evolve.
In this book, two sales experts, Justin Michael and Tony Hughes, pour their knowledge into practical advice on using technology to sky-rocket sales productivity and get extraordinary results.
Bonus points to those who spot a quote from our CMO, Eric Quanstrom!
Goodreads rating: 4.4/5
6. The Million Dollar Rebuttal (by David Walter)
One of the vital parts of lead generation and sales is cold calling. Some proclaim it’s dead, and some use it to get more business opportunities. David Walter is among the latter.
In the Million Dollar Rebuttal: Cold Calling Is Not a Numbers Game, you may find strategies, cold calling scripts, ways to eliminate objections, and how to get past gatekeepers—all from a personal experience of setting over 1800 appointments in six months.
Goodreads rating: 4.4/5
7. The B2B Lead Generation Machine (by Carrie Bedingfield)
Every business needs to have a well-oiled machine for generating leads and turning those into a constant flow of opportunities into the sales pipeline. The B2B Lead Generation Machine, by Carrie Bedingfield, is a guide filled with solid methods that will be applicable for anyone working in B2B.
It deals with developing a value proposition that’s hard to ignore, nurturing and closing every opportunity, breaking into tough markets, and aligning sales with marketing to get the best results.
Goodreads rating: 4.2/5
8. 80/20 Internet Lead Generation (by Scott A. Dennison)
If you don’t know where to start with your lead generation, this is the book with all the basics.
80/20 Internet Lead Generation: How a Few Simple, Profitable Strategies Can Lead to Marketplace Domination, by Scott A. Dennison, covers topics like ideal customer profile (ICP), unique selling proposition (USP), and some basics of search engine optimization like keywords and targeting, backlink exchange, and website optimization.
Amazon rating: 4.6/5
9. The Truth About Leads (by Dan McDade)
Written by Pointclear founder and CEO, The Truth About Leads debunks certain myths that exist in the industry and sheds light on secrets of lead generation that drive revenue.
Besides being filled with logical and practical advice, the book presents its wisdom clearly and concisely, which makes it very easy to read.
Amazon rating: 4.3/5
10. New Sales. Simplified. (by Mike Weinberg)
In a refreshing and delightful manner, New Sales. Simplified.: The Essential Handbook for Prospecting and New Business Development, by Mike Weinberg, dissects common mistakes made by salespeople, offers practical tips on how to avoid them, and covers every prospecting aspect from emails to closing a deal.
Goodreads rating: 4.3/5
11. LinkedIn Unlocked (by Melonie Dodaro)
LinkedIn is one of the most effective social media channels for B2B lead generation. It hosts an enormous amount of decision-makers, however, few businesses know how to effectively convert them into customers.
LinkedIn Unlocked: Unlock the Mystery of LinkedIn to Drive More Sales Through Social Selling, by Melonie Dodaro, is a user guide into the universe of LinkedIn filled with eye-opening tips and tricks we all wished we knew a while ago.
Goodreads rating: 4.2/5
12. It Takes What It Takes (by Trevor Moawad)
It’s not your typical sales book. It Takes What It Takes, by Russell Wilson, is about what you need to make it in this industry—a positive mindset. Lead generation may be a weariful process, and not everyone has enough skills to carry on through some setbacks and rejections.
The author, who is one of the savviest mental coaches in sports, urges you to replace hardwired negativity with analytical thinking and smart decision-making.
Goodreads rating: 4/5
13. Combo Prospecting (by Tony J. Hughes)
Nowadays, high-level decision-makers can be almost impossible to reach. They get so much noise daily that they have to block it out. How do you get through, though?
Just one approach isn’t enough; that’s why Tony J. Hughes suggests Combo Prospecting: The Powerful One-Two Punch That Fills Your Pipeline and Wins Sales. This recipe for success teaches mixing deep social media research with a pinch of technology and digital marketing, adding scripts and referrals, and topping it with strong branding.
Goodreads rating: 4.1/5
14. The Science of Selling (by David Hoffeld)
While practical advice is invaluable for learning, the only thing that might be better is actual science. CEO of Hoffeld Group, David Hoffeld compiled research in social psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics to show the correlation between how we sell and how the buying decisions are formed in our customers’ brains.
In The Science of Selling: Proven Strategies to Make Your Pitch, Influence Decisions, and Close the Deal, Hoffeld uses real evidence to back up his approach to effective lead generation.
Goodreads rating: 4/5
15. Lead Generation (by Larry Billson)
Although Lead Generation: How to Generate Leads and Sales to Grow Your Business Without Spending Tons of Money, by Larry Billson, is new to the market (published in 2020), the author has a lot of hands-on experience in helping businesses grow with lead generation.
Amazon rating: 3.7/5
16. Conversations That Sell (by Nancy Bleeke)
Carrying meaningful conversation is a thing that can make you stand out from the crowds of salespeople calling your prospect every day. However, it’s also one of the biggest gaps in SDR education. SDR may have scripts and notes, but they are not taught to assess business needs and immediately bring value to the table.
Conversations That Sell: Collaborate with Buyers and Make Every Conversation Count, by Nancy Bleeke, is a lead generation book that includes practical lessons on how to prepare for a call, identify a buyer's need, and act on it, with valuable tips for overcoming objections and closing the sale.
Goodreads rating: 3.9/5
17. Predictable Prospecting (by Marylou Tyler and Jeremy Donovan)
Marylou Tyler, one of the authors that brought to life “the bible” of sales development has teamed up with Jeremy Donovan to dig deeper into the prospecting methods.
Predictable Prospecting: How to Radically Increase Your B2B Sales Pipeline provides a deep understanding of such concepts as personalization, account-based sales development, precise targeting, and optimization—all of the strategies needed to achieve predictable prospecting.
Amazon rating: 4.2/5
18. Perfect Selling (by Linda Richardson)
This New York Times bestseller is not an ordinary lead generation book. Perfect Selling, by Linda Richardson, considers selling as an opportunity to win, yet fully revolves around the customer. It’s about when to connect with a customer, recognize their need, and resolve their problems, all of which should be done with graсe and great empathy.
Most reviewers recognize this book as an easy read useful both for learning basics and discovering something new.
Amazon rating: 4.5/5
19. The Invisible Sale (by Tom Martin)
Tom Martin suggests that if you hate cold calling that much, there’s something else you could do to drive sales in the digital marketing sphere.
The Invisible Sale: How to Build a Digitally Powered Marketing and Sales System to Better Prospect, Qualify and Close Leads is all about constant repetition, creating a social media marketing strategy, optimizing website and keywords, and most importantly, finding self-educated buyers in the “invisible funnel” before they even show themselves.
Goodreads rating: 4.2/5
20. Change And Transition (by Andrew Ledford)
Change And Transition: Through Skill Acquisition for Sales, Lead Generation, And Marketing is the first volume in the series, yet we bet it is nothing like you’ve read before. The author, Andrew Ledford, combined his experience in dog training and marketing to come up with a unique approach on how to change behavior and alter your journey through sales.
Goodreads rating: 3.7/5
Broaden Your Lead Generation Book Collection
So hop on the couch, grab a cup of tea, and let these top twenty books on lead generation help you find new leads where you didn’t even think to look for them.
Contact or tag us on social media if you find some other book that should’ve made the cut!
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