It’s all around us, yet we don’t really talk about it much. Women are deeply effecting the social setting of business in our culture. I’m not here to say that these changes are good or bad or that the previously more masculine culture of business was bad or good. I’m merely here to point out some things that sales reps may not have considered about how to adapt to women being in buyer roles. Also, know that these are my opinions – I’m not claiming science. That said, here goes.

Women seem to be less open to new approaches from vendors. Like I said, I don’t have science for this but in general, I find that women have higher thresholds for initiating contact with vendors, for taking that first call or meeting with a vendor (it’s just how it seems to me and I do a lot of cold prospecting). What does this mean? It means that content marketing and a “slower” prospecting approach makes more sense. Realize that they may require more information to entertain a new project and so your emails should be more about providing them information and less about closing for a meeting. Your calls to action should be about delivering value to them versus driving “selling”. In fact, I think women are also much more repelled by the “hard sell” than men.

Yet, women seem more open once you are in a sales campaign with them. I often find that if I’m just real with a female buyer/prospect/client and ask direct questions, I’m much more likely to get real insights. Men seem to be more into the “game” of the deal (not a bad thing, just different) while women seem to want to step outside of the traditional adversarial model of selling that used to dominate. For a male rep, this means developing your “soft selling” skills. Building rapport, asking open ended questions, empathy etc – all will help greatly when working with a female buyer.

Informality. Women seem to like informal meetings and conversations more than a structured pitch. Many reps find this very uncomfortable as they use their pitches as a crutch but they do so to their own detriment. In meetings with predominantly female buyers I’m much more likely to throw the pitch in the dustbin and just open up a free form conversation about their project and business.

Communications. Women are less likely to interrupt you or to even signal their impatience with you yakking away than a man is. This means you risk being irrelevant and not knowing it, or even may be alienating prospects with your selling style. I find that time spent up front in a meeting asking questions and drawing out the prospect is more important with women. Some women seem naturally more reticent to just blurt out their opinion to a vendor in an open meeting, but you should not take their low profile in your sales meeting to mean they have no power in their company.

Going silent. I find that female buyers don’t give negative feedback as readily as a male buyer will (and I also find they are more likely to share positive feedback than male buyers). I think in general, women are much more likely to be telling you something with their actions, particularly when they drop out of communications. I find that when male buyers will drop off the radar screen for two weeks in the middle of a deal, they are usually are just too busy or need a delay and can’t be bothered to let you know. They are more than likely to say, “Yeah, I got busy, sorry, we are in good shape.” Whereas two weeks of silence from a female buyer almost always means the deal has gone sideways or they have switched preferences to another vendor.

I also think that male sales reps need to really be aware that they are competing with lots of female reps today who innately get how to sell to women. While I don’t think women in the main buy from women because they are women, I do think that being comfortable with each other can’t hurt and that’s got to be true for men selling to men as well. I also think that women want me to just “get it” about their different styles and appreciate when a rep deals with them effectively.  I also find that women are much more likely to let you know when you are doing well so it’s not that hard to figure out. I have to tell you that I’ve done some great deals with women leaders and it seems to me that women are more likely to support me once they are a client.

In the end, while men and women may be equal, we are not the same…

I’d love to hear from some female corporate managers/leaders/buyers out there if what I’m noticing makes any sense and also, please share advice too.