PUBLISHED ON SEP. 7, 2019 | 17 MIN READ
Like most people I hate sales! I have the same fears that many others do about selling. Yet, sales are the absolute foundation for any business. It doesn’t matter how good of a service or product you have if you can’t sell that product or service then your business will untimely and ultimately fail.
One of the most important business lessons that anyone, in any business, including real estate is learning the art of selling, learning how to influence, communicate, persuade, and negotiate the deal. Selling takes many years to master! I would suspect that most businesses that fail usually do not have good salespeople or are not good at sales themselves.
What are the Best Books on Real Estate Sales?
The list does not attempt to compile every book that has ever been written on real estate sales. Instead, the author attempts to include a well-rounded list that includes sales. The best books on real estate sales are only valuable to the reader if a full investment is committed to reading, studying, and practicing the concepts within the books. Books on shelves that have not been read, studied or practice my fill up your shelving and give an impression of intellectualism, however, success is determined by the student and the value of those books can only be obtained from within. Happy reading!
Best Books on Real Estate Sales: The List
1 – Sales Dogs | By Blair Singer
Blair Singer’s Sales Dogs: You Don’t Have to Be an Attack Dog to Explode Your Income is written by a sales expert, bestselling author and speaker himself. This book is part of the Rich Dad Advisor series. The singer is best known for his teachings on small business ownership and insights on building sales relationships. Sales are fundamental to every entrepreneur and business owner’s success. If you can’t get customers through the door, it is inevitable that you will fail. If you want to bring value to the world and increase your worth, you must learn how to develop these sales skills.
Quotes from the book;
“You don’t have to be an attack dog to be successful in sales.”
“The most successful salespeople are those who understand their natural strengths and work hard to acquire the favorable traits of other breeds. In the world of Sales Dogs, the SupperMutt rules.”
2 – The Greatest Salesman in the World | By Og Mandino
The author of The Power of Positive Thinking, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale says this about Og Mandino’s The Greatest Salesman in the World as “one of the most inspiring, uplifting and motivating books I have ever read.” Mandino’s book has sold over 50 million copies on a global scale. The book goes into the story of an ancient merchant and his 10 mystical scrolls. Each of these scrolls bares some applicable spiritual precepts to sales success. Mandino’s advice comes from a Christian point of view on sales and sales management.
Quotes from the book;
“To become a master in the art of sales one must learn and practice the secret of each scroll.”
“No longer will I fail to call again tomorrow on he who meets me with hate today. This day he will not buy gold chariots for a penny, yet tomorrow he would exchange his home for a tree.”
“Yesterday is buried forever, and I will think of it no more.”
“This day I will make the best day of my life.”
3 – The Millionaire Real Estate Agent | By Gary Keller
Gary Keller’s The Millionaire Real Estate Agent: It’s Not About the Money…It’s About Being the Best You Can Be!, is a step-by-step practical handbook on seeking excellence in your profession and in your life. According to Robert Kiyosaki, author of the bestselling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad says this about The Millionaire Real Estate Agent, “this book presents a new paradigm for real estate and should be required reading for real estate professionals everywhere.” This book explains the three fundamental concepts that drive large production. It explores the organizational, economic, and lead generation models that are critical to any high-achiever’s business plan. And it discovers how to “earn a million,” “net a million,” and receive a million.”
4 – Your First Year in Real Estate | By Dirk Zeller
Your First Year in Real Estate: Making the Transition from Total Novice to Successful Professional is essential, critical, and important knowledge that will get you started of right in today’s rapidly changing real estate market. In this book, you will learn how to avoid common first-year mistakes and get the single inside edge that will take you to the top of the mountain (professionally speaking).
5 – The Real Estate Sales Secret | By Matt Parker
How do you measure success? The author of The Real Estate Sales Secret: What Top Real Estate Listing Agents Do Today To Sell Tomorrow measures success in freedom, the freedom to stop work
6 – Super Agent | By Joseph Callaway and JoAnn Callaway
The authors of Super-Agent: Real Estate Success At The Highest Level is a practical guide of the fundamentals of listing and selling more real estate. Reading this book is like spending a day or two with the most successful real estate agents in the United States. Together they sell 300 – 500 high-end homes each year. This book tells the secrets of their success. Their success is built on foundation principles of competence, honesty, and caring. This book is filled with money-making advice that turns any novice beginner into a veteran professional.
7 – Raving Fans | By Ken Blanchard, Sheldon Bowles, and Harvey Mackay
Just having only satisfied customers is the result of their expectations in you because no one else is beating you at the game. But if you want a booming business, Ken Blanchard, a prolific author of several bestsellers says, “your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.”
8 – Way of the Wolf | By Jordan Belfort
Jordan Belfort, as a stockbroker with more than 1,000 people working for him has made millions of dollars and lived a very lucrative lifestyle. Yet, he also spent 22 months in prison for engaging in money laundering and securities fraud. However, despite his notoriety, Belfort has much to teach us about how to persuade others to salespeople and non-sellers. This book is insightful, sometimes vulgar but Belfort has sound and expert advice on sales.
Quotes from the book:
“The Straight Line System will show you how to shorten your sales cycle, increase your closing rate, develop a steady stream of customer referrals and create customers for life.”
“The human ear has become so adept at recognizing tonal shifts that even the slightest one can have a dramatic impact on the meaning of a word or phrase.”
“We can be proactive when it comes to choosing our emotional state, as opposed to reactive, which is what most human beings have been conditioned to think is our only choice. “
9 – Explosive Sales Growth in Real Estate | By Ryan Snow
Ryan Snow’s Explosive Sales Growth in Real Estate: Generate More Leads, Take More Listings, and Build a Six-Figure Income is a book that demonstrates the attitude and mindset of reach a six-figure income. According to the Wall Street Journal, only around 8% of the population of America will ever earn a six-figure salary. For most, obtaining this six-figure income is an unattainable goal no matter how hard they work. Yet, for those in real estate, it’s just a steppingstone to earn an even greater income. According to the author, it all starts with how you think about money, your life, and your career.
10 – Sell or Be Sold | By Grant Cardone
Cardone says, “selling impacts every person on this planet. Your ability or inability to sell, persuade, negotiate, and convince others will affect every area of your life and will determine how well you survive.” Selling is a fact of life! In Grant Cardone’s Sell or Be Sold: How to Get Your Way in Business and in Life is a hard knock book written by a business professional who excels in real estate transactions. Grant Cardone has been in the real estate business for decades and now teaches his 
11 – How to Win Friends and Influence People | By Dale Carnegie
How to Win Friends and Influence People is a classic book written by Dale Carnegie who is also the author of How to Enjoy Your Life and Your Job and How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. Carnegie’s book is written on how to practically deal with people. Although written many of the scenarios are obsolete and outdated, nevertheless, the principles of the book are timeless. If the reader puts the principles into practice, the reader will most likely build the character to win friends and influence them.
Quotes from the book:
“The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.”
“Remember that a person’s name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”
“Criticisms are like homing pigeons. They always return home.”
“Make the other person feel important, and do it sincerely.”
12 – Sell with Soul | By Jennifer Allan-Hagedorn
In Sell with Soul: Creating an Extraordinary Career in Real Estate without Losing Your Friends, Your Principles or Your Self-Respect, the author shares her rise from a novice beginner to a successful real estate professional as a real estate broker. This book contains checklists, instructions from many aspects of the real estate profession. Including; building a marketing list; dealing with buyers; understanding the market; negotiating the deals and building contact databases. Sell with Soul speaks out against the status quo and encourages the real estate agents to strategize around the needs of the clients before their own personal interest in a paycheck.
13 – Unlimited Sales Success | By Brian Tracy and Michael Tracy
One of the most challenging profession is sales, as Brian Tracy knows so well. Brian Tracy is an exceptional businessman, speaker, and author. He’s written many other books including; Believe It to Achieve It, Eat That Frog, Maximum Achievement and many others. In Unlimited Sales Success, Tracy teaches basic tools to follow in his footsteps. This book gives insightful advice, training, and useful discussion of twelve sales concerns. While these concepts are built on old-school truisms, they are tested, clear, and useful.
Quotes from the book:
“Fully 5% of self-made millionaires are salespeople who started at the bottom, became very good in their field, earned high incomes and became wealthy.”
“The most powerful words in the world are the words that you say to yourself and believe.”
“Eighty percent of success is mental and emotional, not technical and physical.”
“Get going, get busy, get moving and develop a ‘sense of urgency’.”
14 – Good to Great | By Jim Collins
Jim Collins’ Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t is a classic manual from the business author and consultant Jim Collins. Collins pursues one foundational question: “Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how?” The principle of his book “good-to-great” is a firm model, yet, many of the companies that he and his team identified as great, 
15 – The Miracle Morning for Real Estate Agents | By Hal Elrod, Michael Maher, Michael Reese, and Jay Kinder
Hal Elrod is a successful life coach and author of The Miracle Morning who had near-death experiences that fundamentally changed his life. His devasting car accident led Elrod to develop several coping mechanisms. Elrod discovered that a morning ritual is the most critical element to living out of great life. He incorporates six powerful elements in his morning routines; affirmations, visualization, exercise, reading, journaling, and meditations.
16 – The Honest Real Estate Agent | By Mario Jannatpour
The Honest Real Estate Agent: A Training Guide for a Successful First Year and Beyond as a Real Estate Agent is a practical guide and principles of real estate. According to the author, most real estate agents fail during their first year and 75% of new real estate agents don’t even make it to their second 
17 – Shift | By Gary Keller
Written by successful author, businessman, and entrepreneur who has written the best selling The Millionaire Real Estate Agent and The Millionaire Real Estate Investor, Keller’s book Shift: How Top Real Estate Agents Tackle Tough Times is the book that will teach you the twelve strategies to achieve success in any real estate market. Shifts happen and when it does you can too. You may shift your business into the next level or shift in a response to a falling market. But both can transform 
18 – Mastering the Art of Selling Real Estate | By Tom Hopkins
Perhaps one the foremost real estate experts in the world, Tom Hopkins’s Mastering the Art of Selling Real Estate is a classic book on lucrative and effective real estate sales. Hopkins teaches his readers on what it really takes to go from good to great, from a real estate agent who is average to a true and successful real estate professional. The opportunities are endless in real estate and to be a true champion in real estate you must master the art of selling through these insightful and inspirational principles.
19 – 7L: The Seven Levels of Communication | By Michael Maher
Just imagine receiving a referral every day. In 7L: The Seven Levels of Communication: Go From Relationships to Referrals is a book about much more than building your business from referrals. Maher demonstrates in his book the rewards of 
Final Thoughts on the Best Books on Real Estate Sales
Making deals, negotiating deals, and selling are intertwined in the business world. Mastering the art of selling, like anything, takes hard work, practice, and studying. The best books on real estate sales are a list that is not exhaustive, but it is a list that will if implemented in practice, knowledge, and studying will very likely take you from a “failing” student to a “successful” student. The success of the student ultimately depends on the student.
Do you want to learn more about the “Best Textbooks on Real Estate Sales,” Check out the Best Textbooks on Real Estate.
Also, check out the Best Books on Real Estate Sales, Best Books on Real Estate Agents, Best Books on Wholesaling Real Estate, or the Best Books on Real Estate Agents.
Meet Maurice, a staff editor at Bigger Investing. He’s an accomplished entrepreneur who owns multiple successful websites and a thriving merch shop. When he’s not busy with work, Maurice indulges in his passion for kayaking, climbing, and his family. As a savvy investor, Maurice loves putting his money to work and seeking out new opportunities. With his expertise and passion for finance, he’s dedicated to helping readers achieve their financial goals through Bigger Investing.
