Enterprise sales, like most of corporate America, is still a male oriented and dominated profession. If you add “technology” into the description, then you get another multiplier for men. In corporate presentations it is perfectly acceptable to refer to your sales team as “the sales guys.” Almost all positive descriptions of sales people: “hunters, warriors, studs, monsters, animals, rain makers” all sound mannish to me. Barely a day goes by when I don’t hear someone making a correlation between getting a sale and picking up women. When I posted the mustache contest last week, I didn’t give it a second thought that it was a frat boy thing that excluded women- sort of like you don’t mind swearing and burping in the locker room- you’re in the clear, amongst men.
Oh if all the Brown girls could see me now! Call out the femi-nazi troops, we have a misogynist on the loose!!!!
Not really. Most of the women I have encountered in sales are way more talented than their male counterparts. The cliché of the hot stupid bimbo that bats her eyes and shows some skin and gets the deal is something I have only seen on TV. As a matter of fact, most of the women I know that carry a bag are the most motivated, aggressive, competitive and sometimes crass salespeople around. They know their product cold, they qualify mercilessly and they’re not afraid to kick their VP of Sales squarely in the balls if they aren’t getting what they need. The stay at home mom is my new archetype for the best telesales producer: they don’t show up to work hungover, they couldn’t care less if they get rejected and they have their motivation for working just beyond earshot in their home office. Unlike their male counterparts, women that succeed in sales don’t necessarily make lousy sales managers and trainers.
One of these woman super salespeople, Jill Konrath, has been a partner of Jigsaw’s since the beginning. She has been in enterprise sales for a long time, and always felt that there was a serious lack of role models for women in business. After noticing that 38% of B2B salespeople are women (it shocked me, too), yet most of the industry mavens and trainers are men, she decided to put on a yearly event geared solely for the sales woman. She came up with the (fantastic on multiple levels) name of “Shebang” for her conference and hosted the inaugural conference last December in Minnesota. I was planning on attending, but then I realized that I would most likely get tarred and feathered if I didn’t freeze to death.
Anyway, if you are a woman sales guy (the term is actually gender neutral) you should check out the event this year. www.salesshebang.com She has a very impressive array of speakers, some of whom you can hear in a few preview interviews: http://www.salesshebang.com/content_display.jsp?top=21943&mid=80350
She BANGS!
Garth
PS- Next week back to boozy stories and mustaches- check out my look for this week…
