The challenger sale

What Hacker News says

1. verdvermDec 2025
   Resumes and freelance profiles are not sales in the traditional sense. If you want to do better in freelance, you'll want to reframe how you think about it.

   Putting that aside, I highly recommend the book "To Sell Is Human" that reframes "sales" as something more, i.e. convincing a child they need to brush their teeth before bed is also "sales"

   It was one of the books that helped me through this, The Challenger Sale if you want to read something more akin to traditional sales.

   Another avenue you should consider is getting a professional resume / career coach. A good one will ask you questions about what you want in a job before looking at what you've written. They bring experience and have seen 1000s of resumes to know what works, and are tuned into how that changes over time.

   > But I just. Can't. Get. Moving.

   Another book recommendation, "The Now Habit"

   books are going to be much better than what you read online

   1. they get you away from the portal to that anxiety

   2. they are long, thorough, well thought out, with many examples/anecdotes for you to potentially connect the dots through

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2. jppopeDec 2025
   I spent the first chunk of my career doing sales (2nd half spent in software engineering). Theres a lot of good books out there but you're going to find a lot of the direct advice to be non-applicable (as I'm sure you can pick up from the comments). Most of the Literature out there is directed at professional sales people, who for the most part are non-technical, have the backing of a marketing org, and are also different than a founder. Anyway, heres a reading list. Most of the trainings I've been a part of were custom built to the org or market, and frankly I learned more from Rules of the Game by Neil Strauss. I did enjoy "the Wedge" training by Randy Schwantz... that one you should do the video not the book. It also sounds like you could use some marketing stuff so I'll throw some of that in there too.

   In no particular order, and please keep in mind this is off the top of my head:

   * Influence (the classic)

   * YC videos (e.g. https://youtu.be/0fKYVl12VTA?si=I9uylXSRyOf1nXRv, https://youtu.be/DH7REvnQ1y4?si=Ke858PmaaBr5ar-e, https://youtu.be/hyYCn_kAngI?si=sO_co6kbDaNn3cql, etc)

   * Thinking Fast and Slow

   * Purple Cow

   * Clayton Christensen stuff

   * Spin Selling

   * Challenger Sale

   * Guerrilla marketing (for the mental muscle)

   * Jeffrey Gitomer (basic but useful)

   * Lean Startup (for positioning)

   * Charisma Myth

   * Minimalist Entrepreneur (bits and pieces)

   * The presentation secrets of steve jobs (just a good book on presentations, framed around Steve Jobs to sell more)

   For what its worth this question comes up fairly often. It seems like technical people would like a "technical people" guide on how to do Sales and marketing. Does that sound useful to anyone?

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3. chrisvalleybayJan 2025
   Three years ago I started consulting as an interim CTO for a company doing sales and marketing on behalf of other B2B SaaS. I had to onboard myself into this domain and it was quite hard as there are many snake oil sales men selling snake oil.

   The first book I would read is Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore. After this, in no particular order you could have a look at:

   - This is Marketing by Seth Godin

   - Positioning by Al Ries

   - The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson

   - Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross

   - Traversing The TRaction Gap by Bruce Cleveland

   - From Impossible to Inevitable by Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin

   I would also have a look at the models created by Winning By Design [1]. But be sceptical! These models do however hold some value in terms of visually presenting the sales funnel and gaining understanding of land and expand.

   Best of luck to you!

   [1]: https://winningbydesign.com/resources/blueprints/

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4. derekperkinsOct 2024
   Came here to recommend the Challenger Sale
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5. ajsharpSep 2024
   The Challenger Sale https://www.amazon.com/Challenger-Sale-Control-Customer-Conv...

   Founding Sales https://www.foundingsales.com/

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6. DrStartupSep 2024
   Challenger sale
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