9(ish) Books to Help You Master Sales, Influence, and Persuasion
So, you want to start a cult...or maybe just a cult following? Read on, friend! Read on!
One of the skillsets with the most outsized potential for reward is that of persuasion. Whether it's written or spoken, when you learn how to masterfully influence the motivations and actions of others, everything changes.
Negotiation expert Chris Voss calls it "the art of letting other people have your way."
Practically speaking, that means:
- Expertly guiding a prospect towards your product or service as the answer to their problems (assuming it is.)
OR
- Convincing your S.O. that Better Call Saul is a better Friday night than the Bachelorette (objectively, it is)
OR
- "Inceptioning" your teenager to adopt new desirable behaviors
(If you're on my email list, I share a story about how I "seeded" my One Direction obsessed daughter to fall in love with the much more palatable Fleetwood Mac — a technique I learned from book #2.)
Once this new superpower is yours, you'll find new doors opened to you in all areas of your life. (Just use it wisely.)
So, after reading (or skimming and promptly discarding) over a hundred books on the topics of persuasion, sales, and copywriting, here are the ones that offer the MOST bang for the buck, with the MOST useful and timeless info (meaning you won’t have to unlearn it later when some new thing comes along.)
In fact, some of these books are over 100 years old, so that should attest to their abiding merit and value.
If you did nothing more than put into practice a tenth of what's in these nine(ish) books, you'd be light years ahead of most "professional" persuaders — that includes salespeople, copywriters, consultants — even your local cult leader.
Without further ado, here are my top 9 (plus a few bonus) books on selling more persuasively through the written word.
1. The Adweek Copywriting Handbook: The Ultimate Guide to Writing Powerful Advertising and Marketing Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters
By Joseph Sugarman
When it comes to direct response copywriting, (copy that compels immediate action) this is the perfect place to start. This book is woefully underrated in my opinion.
Joseph Sugarman grew a hugely successful mail-order business selling millions of dollars worth of products with little more than the power of his pen. One of his blockbuster campaigns was for BluBlocker sunglasses, of which he sold 20 million(!) pairs.
This book shares the strategies, processes, and tactics Sugarman used to turn out profitable promotions time and time again — and how you can do the same.
I turned to this book more than any other when I pivoted into online sales years ago.
Available in Kindle, print and audio
Pairs well with Joseph Sugarman’s Triggers. This is a wonderful little book where Sugarman introduces 30 psychological triggers to help motivate, influence, and persuade your prospect.
Those triggers are covered in The Adweek Copywriting Handbook too, but if you want to explore them more deeply, grab Triggers.
2. The Forbidden Keys to Persuasion
By Blair Warren
Despite the hokey sounding title, this book remains one of my favorites to recommend to folks who want to get better at persuasion.
It was one of the first books I read (maybe 12 years ago?) that peered into the darker side of persuasion and human nature.
It's possible that's why I like it so much (you never forget your first,) but I'm confident you'll find some incredibly valuable nuggets here.
Blair Warren looks at what makes cult leaders so attractive, the secrets conmen, magicians, and comedians use to get you on their side (without you realizing it), and the secret "trap door" to anyone's mind once you know how to access it. Great stuff.
Pairs nicely with the same author’s One Sentence Course in Persuasion. Warren boils down the essence of persuasion into just 27 words.
Those words are: "People will do anything for those who encourage their dreams, justify their failures, allay their fears, confirm their suspicions and help them throw rocks at their enemies."
The rest of the book does an excellent job backing it up, in case, you know, you disagree with his premise.
3. Propaganda
By Edward Bernays
There are lots of great books on the role propaganda plays in shaping the way we see the world. The reason this book gets top billing is because it's written by the original hype artist himself, Edward Bernays.
If that’s a new name for you, Ed Bernays is considered the "father of PR" and pioneered many of the techniques still used today to shape and manipulate public opinion.
He cut his teeth selling WWI to Americans as one that would "save democracy." His model worked so well, he applied the same techniques to future political and corporate campaigns.
Thankfully, he turned down the offer to help the Nazis win favor among Americans before the mustache flipped his gourd.
Ed is responsible for the bacon and eggs breakfast, the popularity of disposable cups, making cigarettes cool to women, and the overthrow of the Guatemalan government in order to sell more bananas. (I may be glossing over some details, but yes, really.)
Available in Kindle, print and audio
Pairs nicely with Age of Propaganda. Also, in the same vein, my friend Michael Schein recently released his own opus on harnessing the power of propaganda for good. It’s called The Hype Handbook, and it’s VERY good and VERY actionable.
4. Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life
By Rory Sutherland
I can’t say enough about Rory Sutherland. If he released a phone book, I'd buy it. His cheeky British humor makes everything more entertaining to read, and this book showcases it brilliantly.
Alchemy explores the idea that great business decisions aren't always economical and rational, but are quite frequently psychological and seemingly absurd.
He argues that we can make much larger improvements in people's perception of reality, than we can in their objective reality — and at a fraction of the cost.
Put another way, how we experience a thing — a brand, a product, an interaction — is more influenced by the story we tell ourselves about it, than by what actually occurred.
5. Thank You for Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln, and Homer Simpson Can Teach Us About the Art of Persuasion
By Jay Heinrichs
Another grossly underrated book.
Whether your motivation is to win more Thanksgiving dinner debates or convince potential clients that you are their Huckleberry, this book has it all.
You'll learn how to frame your arguments in a friendly, collaborative light, get people to like and trust you, and turn vehement objections into welcome opportunities.
Plus the whole tone of the book is warm, witty, and funny, so you'll witness Jay apply his techniques on you right in front of your very eyes.
6. The Crowd: Study of the Popular Mind
By Gustave Le Bon
First published in 1895, The Crowd was one of the first books to explore the darker side of human psychology — particularly when part of a group of people.
Several notable individuals who would draw heavily from LeBon’s research (for very dissimilar purposes) include Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Teddy Roosevelt and Sigmund Freud (who happens to be book #3 Edward Bernay's uncle.)
If you want to know which buttons to push and which levers to pull to get a crowd to think, act, and behave in a certain way, look no further.
As terrifying as it is educational.
Available in Kindle, print and audio
Pairs well with Robert Greene’s The Laws of Human Nature.
7. Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
By Noah J. Goldstein Ph.D., Steve J. Martin, and Robert Cialdini Ph.D.
Robert Cialdini’s breakout book Influence has been the go-to manual for understanding how to use (and be aware of their use on us) 6 psychological triggers he calls “automatic.”
Meaning that the human OS almost has no defense against them unless we are incredibly vigilant.
Yes! Builds upon that work and shares 50 ways to use those triggers in a practical sense.
Each chapter is a couple pages at most, so it makes terrific toilet reading. In just a couple minutes, you’ll walk away with fresh inspired ideas, without the dead, tingly legs.
Available in Kindle, print and audio
Obviously pairs well with Influence. A good second pairing would be The Choice Factory by Richard Shotton.
Written in a very similar format, each chapter highlights one cognitive bias and offers real life examples of how they were used in successful sales and marketing campaigns.
8. The Six Easiest Ways to Start Any Sales Message
By Michael Masterson and John Forde
If you can’t hook ‘em, you’ll never sell ‘em.
Great Leads walks you through what makes a compelling opener to any sales message, whether that's an email, a sales page, or a website.
With so much noise online, writing copy people want to read is a skill that’s more valuable now than ever before.
Plus, the authors of this book are directly and indirectly responsible for hundreds of millions sold online, so they know a thing or two about what works.
9. Scientific Advertising
By Claude Hopkins
Written almost 100 years ago, it’s remarkable how relevant this book remains. The insights Claude Hopkins shares about human nature work just as well now as they did then.
It should also serve as a soothing agent when you’re tempted to jump from tactic to tactic in order to keep up with the frenzied pace of the online world — people’s desires, ambitions, and motivations remain as sure and dependable as ever. This book brilliantly reveals them to you, and teaches why they work.
The link below combines his two books, Scientific Advertising and My Life in Advertising. I’d recommend reading both.
While Scientific Advertising is very tactical, My Life in Advertising gives you a deeper look into Claude’s thought process as he was designing and testing ad campaigns throughout his incredible career.
Plus, it’s packed with old-timey words and phrases that make me chuckle.
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Affiliate disclosure: If you buy any of the books I recommend, Jeff Bezos will take a few quarters from his Scrooge McDuck vault and throw them my way. If you'd rather he keep them to himself, just google the title and you're off to the races.