Last week I explained that my blog is called Sell Like A Woman because there is an increasing body of research overseas showing that woman are often outperforming men in achieving sustainable results in sales and client relationships. And I promised you I would start to highlight, from my research, what successful sales women do especially well. So here is your first snippet.
Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus.
I asked 50 highly successful sales women across a wide variety of industries about the differences between male and female sales people.
There was a uniform feeling among all the women interviewed for my project that female sales people are better at establishing a long-term relationship with a customer, are better listeners and find it easier to identify emotions and respond with empathy. Here are a couple of quotes from some of the women in the research project.
“I strongly believe that female sales people start from a very different place to our male counterparts. We start with the relationship. Rather than darting in and offering quick fix solutions, we take a longer term and ultimately more strategic view of the potential value of each client to our company.
“We are willing to be more patient in bringing a client on board, if it will generate better results. I think it also fair to say that, from my observations, women do more of the detail/paper/leg work themselves (rather than delegating it to others), are much better time managers, and less caught up in ‘appearances’ – less ego driven. If I were a client, I would rather have a female rep looking after my interests.”
Another had this to say: “Big generalisation: women tend to be better listeners, and men are better at asking for the business. Women are more patient and men are more direct. Women like to build the relationship, when men like to ‘consummate’ the relationship with the sale.”
All of women interviewed responded in unison, believing saleswomen have certain advantages over men. This surprised me, given that up to date, still, a vast majority of salespeople are male, and sales as a profession is still considered a male profession.
The results of my research are consistent with other extensive studies done. Rosenbaum(1999) found that women have a real edge over men when it comes to complex selling, and in particular they surpass men with respect to the following competencies:
- Aligning customer/company strategic objectives.
- Listening beyond product needs.
- Orchestrating organisational resources.
- Consultative problem solving.
- Engaging in self-appraisal and continuous learning.
To help us come to grips with these and other competencies that make for good sales success, I will focus on a specific competency each week in my blog and this will give you the opportunity to explore how you use each competency in your work and sales careers – and how it affects your sales performance. Think about it like fitness training – bit by bit over time.
I welcome your feedback and findings.
Sell Like A Woman is purely about raising the level of consciousness of what qualities really make for great sales people (men and women alike) in the 21st century. So maybe we can begin to help managers clearly identify and articulate what they are looking for.
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