As a woman who’s been in business and sales for over 30 years, a business owner for 27 years of those years and a working mother for 24 years, I thought I’d share with you some interesting insights and research about how sales and sales leadership careers help empower and enable women to forge their careers, rise up the corporate ladder and enhance their earning potential all of which can be very good for women’s overall health and wellbeing.
The central theme here is Agency – in social science, agency is defined as the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. It’s been well proven that education gives girls and women agency which is vital for their overall health and well-being.
Mastering the skills of professional salespeople gives women agency, too. Learning the craft of professional selling is very empowering. It opens many doors. It can be their ticket to a better life, better careers, job prospects, and choices.
Starting your own business
Like starting your own business, which I did on 9 January 1995. The one thing that gave me courage and confidence to open the doors to my new business was that I knew how to sell. I had been well schooled in sales in my previous role which I am eternally grateful for. I recall making over 100 prospecting calls in the first week, getting around 16 appointments in the first two weeks, and closing my first deal on Friday of the first week. I even asked to be paid upfront so I could start the project and my new client said ‘yes’ signing over a $10,000 cheque which I banked before 4pm that day. I was on my way and have never looked back.
Even during COVID-19 lockdowns I am really glad I knew how to prospect and sell. Despite the challenges and limitations, I called hundreds of people and made many contacts, opening up new and brighter opportunities. While that time was tough on me and my team mentally, emotionally and financially, because we had the sales disciplines in place we were able to find a positive pathway forward. There are no quick fixes but knowing you have some agency over your future and the ability to find and create opportunities because you can sell ethically and sustainably is vital for anyone’s health and well-being.
Career pathways to leadership
Having highly visible roles help women get noticed more readily by those at the top and selling is one of the most visible careers on the business landscape. Being in a sales career opens doors to new opportunities, to better jobs, to leadership roles, and positions of influence.
Why women are great for other people’s health, wellbeing and the bottom line
Women as sales leaders are very good for other people’s mental health and well-being as well as the bottom line. Research has found that, by and large, sales units led by female managers who had higher levels of behaviour control activities displayed higher effectiveness in terms of better job satisfaction and job involvement; lower role ambiguity, job anxiety, and burnout; higher organisational commitment; and with a lower propensity to leave.
The results show that sales teams led by female managers display significantly higher levels of civic virtue, sportsmanship, altruism, courtesy, cheerleading, peacemaking, and overall citizenship. This suggests the management style of female managers (perhaps most particularly, their higher levels of behaviour control activity) encourages and facilitates higher Organisational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) among salespeople working in the sales unit, which leads to:
- Superior performance with customers
- High sales unit performance
- Helping with work-related problems
- Effective organisational performance
- Higher employee retention
What Selling teaches you about yourself amongst other things
Despite the negative tropes about ‘used car salespeople’, the best salespeople are highly empathic, compassionate, helpful, and purposeful. Most women in sales are standouts. Women in sales are also some of the most courageous and tenacious people in business and this builds certain resilience, personal confidence, and the mental skills to know how to handle setbacks and challenges. I mean, most days you will get a NO but you soon learn not to take it personally and you can keep on going.
I believe that teaching women and girls how to sell ethically and sustainably gives them a vital set of life skills that will enhance their health and wellbeing and give them agency in their lives so they can go out and pave a pathway forward to create great opportunities for themselves and others.
Remember, everybody lives by selling something.
If you’d like to know more about the Sell Like A Woman programs and keynotes, please contact us or phone 03 9533 0000, or join us for the launch event on Zoom.
Stories from the field
It was a pleasure to spend a couple of days with you and be given the opportunity to learn from your experience.
You delivered the training so well and kept everyone engaged the entire time. Trust me with a bunch of tradesmen turned delivery managers / business development people that’s a challenge all within itself😁
I personally took multiple learnings out of the exercise and I’m sure others did also.
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