Why aren’t more women in sales?

It’s an interesting question that leads to one answer…. you are, you just don’t recognize it.

The Think Tank of Three focuses on why being WOMEN, is exactly what the sales force is desperate for!

Audrea Fink:

Always be closing, the ABC of sales. There isn’t a more iconic phrase. And ironically, it’s incredibly outdated and pretty terrible advice. The sales industry is changing. And with it, we’re seeing the old pushy and aggressive tactics lose credibility and a new wave of empathetic and collaborative tactics are gaining traction. Not only is this great news for buyers, it’s great news for women.

Julie Holton:

The climb to the top feels so good when you get there.

Audrea Fink:

Is it just us or can it feel lonely sometimes, even when you’re successful?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

And who defines success anyway? What about life’s twists and turns?

Julie Holton:

We’ve learned a few things along the way, and we’re ditching the culture of competitiveness.

Audrea Fink:

Bringing together women from different backgrounds to share their stories.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Let’s do this together. Welcome to Think Tank of Three Podcast.

Audrea Fink:

Hi, this is Audrea Fink here with Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris and Julie Holton. We are you Think Tank of Three, and today we’re talking about women and sales. 

Sales roles are traditionally held by men and are frequently seen as super competitive. However, the data shows that women are the future.

Julie Holton:

Not only the future, I think women are changing the sales landscape. When you talk about empathy and collaboration, it’s not that men have those qualities, they do. We work with a lot of great men who are empathetic and collaborate with us, but I’m telling you women in sales feels like it’s going to be less of that pushy, door to door salesperson type approach, and more of, “Hey, I see you have a problem. Let’s talk about it. How can I help you find the right solution?” Yay, women in sales!

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Exactly, it seems that it is a more natural fit. It’s not something we’re trying to fit into. It’s something that originally and already fits within us. 

Forbes magazine and the Harvard Business Review are churning out articles left and right on women being the future of sales. And I think that works. That makes sense when you really just stop and think about it.

Audrea Fink:

So I recently read an article in Forbes that stated that the sales function in a corporation has the second largest gender equality gap of all corporate functions. The supply chain was number one. So basically if you’re in supply chain or you’re in sales, chances are it’s male-dominated beyond the organization as a whole. 

And I checked out this LinkedIn report that women only represent 39% of the sales force, which is not a tiny number, but the percentage has only actually increased by 3% in the last decade. A decade ago it was 36%, now it’s 39%. We are not seeing women enter and stay in this field the way we see men. And also not surprising, the percentage of women in leadership decreases the higher you go up the ladder. So if you are leading the sales team, you’re probably a man.

Julie Holton:

And we recently talked about this with one of our podcast guests, Julie Fasone Holder, who has a decorated career in sales, working at a Fortune 500 company, working her way to the top. 

And she talked about this and some of the different options she had to choose throughout her career, and the setup for men versus women, especially working moms and women who have other responsibilities at home. But I can’t believe this number only… I just can’t believe the number of women that are not in sales leadership roles versus even regular sales roles. Anyway, check out that podcast with Julie.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

It’s such a stunning number because more women are in the workforce now than ever before. So where are they all going? And why aren’t we progressing up that chain when we are in there even more than we’ve ever been? We might be moving up that chain, but there’s this ceiling that we seem to continue to hit, which at this point in 2022, we’re still at that tiny number.

Audrea Fink:

Right. Women make up half of the workforce and not even 40% of the sales function.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

It’s crazy.

Audrea Fink:

Also with more women being in the workforce, that means there are more women buyers too. So we’re seeing sales stay male-dominated, but that’s not the case for the buyer. And I think that’s why it’s so important that we talk about why aren’t we seeing more women in sales, and why should we see more women in sales.

Julie Holton:

And I will say, as one of those women business owners who is a buyer of many types of sales, oftentimes men don’t know how to talk to me. They don’t know how to speak the language I want to hear when I’m buying.

And in fact, I’ll be honest, I’m a very critical buyer. Because I understand the sales process because I use it in the marketing work that I do with my business. So I want you to be able to speak my language. And I’m telling you, women, there is an opportunity, especially to talk to other women.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Which makes the Audrea Fink’s of the world who are jumping into that realm make it so much better when you see what’s coming into the field. When you see the individuals who are going to help change those numbers, help drive up those percentages, because she’s going to be bringing others with her and not just sitting back and saying, “oh, I’ve got mine. So there we go.”

Julie Holton:

Yes and teaching people, the art and the craft of how to be good at sales, because it certainly isn’t something that you just wake up and start doing effectively.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Right.

Julie Holton:

There are techniques and ways to do it the right way.

Audrea Fink:

And it’s not something that you get by memorizing scripts and saying, “but wait, there’s more.” That might have been what worked in the past. It’s not going to be what works today. But then why aren’t we seeing more women in sales? Why do we see this big gap?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Part of that might be, we touch on it slightly, sales, it is such a loaded word. I know when I think of sales, the movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko “Greed is good”. Okay. Right. I don’t know if got that right.

Audrea Fink:

“Always be closing.”

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

“Always be closing.”, “Greed is good” and that’s not attractive. That’s not sexy, that’s not cute. It’s-

Julie Holton:

Not to women.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Icky, it’s kind of icky. I’m not trying to be greedy, especially if in our natural habitat, we are trying to help you. We’re not trying to take away from you and just keep adding to ourselves. So that’s not very attractive. 

And I know that I’ve had experience in the sales world, from the buyer’s end. I was taking in my car to get serviced, and since we were there, we decided, you know what, why don’t we just take a look at what they have, see if there’s something that interests us, maybe we’ll want to upgrade. But I remember I specifically sat down with the person and I said, “listen, I am not buying a car today. That’s not what this is about. 

If I said that to you, this is not about you trying to change my mind.” But of course, as a seller, that was the job, right. I’m going to change your mind. And I said, “I’m not buying a car today.” And we went through all this different stuff and he decided, “listen, why don’t you take this on a test drive? And you seem to have an interest.” I said, “Yeah, I’ll take a test drive.” But I said I’m telling him. And he even said to me, when I told him multiple times, “I hear you.” 

We sat down after the test drive. And then he says to me, “Okay, so what’s it going to take to get you into this car today?” And I just kind of cocked my head and I’m like, “So did you miss everything I told you? I told you, I am not buying a car today. That is not why we are here.” 

Audrea Fink:

Step one: active listening.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Active listening. But then his whole demeanor completely changed. And he literally says this, I kid you not, this is not the G-rated podcast today, even though it’s just the three of us. Then what the fuck did I waste all this time for? That just like-

And I’m like, “Wait, I’m sorry, what did you just say to me?” I was like-

Audrea Fink:

Step two: client-focused.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Step two. Don’t cuss at me.

Audrea Fink:

I just feel like a good salesperson is, first of all, active listening. Second of all, keep the client’s best interest in mind. This sales guy was not hearing you and was all about himself.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

And don’t curse. Am I asking that much?

Audrea Fink:

Right?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Don’t curse and certainly not at me.

Julie Holton:

I’m just like reeling over here and what he… I can’t even, I have no words. I can’t even believe it.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

I was floored, nothing like that had ever happened to me, my husband’s sitting there looking at me. He’s like, “What just happened?” And then what was funny is they turned their attention to my husband as if they were going to get him on his side or something. I said, “I don’t know what your issue is. Give me my keys because it’s time to go.”

Julie Holton:

Right, you were having your car serviced.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

I was having my car serviced. They were holding my keys hostage. He got his supervisor who apologized. “That was unnecessary, we just want-” I said, “I don’t care what you want. Give me my keys.” 

And we went around in circles for about five to 10 minutes. And the guy looked at my husband, and my husband’s like, “I don’t know why you’re looking at me, give us the keys. We’re leaving.” 

That was my experience with sales… So I’m not saying that greed is good is accurate, but that has been my experience. And it certainly wasn’t fun, enjoyable, or anything that would even remotely interest me and going in that direction.

Julie Holton:

And certainly not the empathetic and collaborative way we were describing sales at the top of the podcast. And I can’t help but think if this guy had actually taken a completely different approach with you. Just conversationally, chit-chatted with you asked maybe about your timeline, you’re interested in looking today, what’s your timeline for purchasing a vehicle? He could have actually started putting you into the sales funnel and gotten to know you, and your goals with… And actually, believe it or not, he could have interested you in buying a car sooner in your timeline. If he had actually built that rapport with you and created that connection. 

But Audrea I’d love to hear from you because you were giving some tidbits, you couldn’t even help yourself. I mean poor guy but not because he brought this on himself, but like, can you dissect that for us?

Audrea Fink:

First of all, for car sales, there’s a really high quota. You’re really pushed hard to hit that quota. So he probably had a lot of pressure that doesn’t justify his actions at all. But it is one of those things where when you make so much pressure on hitting these quotas versus getting clients and customers, what they need, you lose because that quota one, it has to be realistic. And two, it has to put the customer in mind first. 

Somewhere along the line, someone decided that to sell meant you just shove your idea, your product, your services down someone’s throat. It’s gross and the used car salesman is the example because they’re following these sort of outdated, sell at all cost, always be getting to the end. 

I had an amazing experience buying a car. I wish this guy still worked at the dealership because we’re looking at another one, but he’s moved on.

My husband walked in the first day and said, “I need a new car, but my wife doesn’t want to buy a new one.” Cause I’m cheap. And so he talked to the guy about all the things he wanted and then he brought me back with him the following weekend. The guy, no sales pressure, basically took notes on what my husband wanted and took notes on what my husband thought I wanted. 

I walk in, I tell him, “I don’t want a new car. I’m only here because my husband made me come here.” And he said, “Great, what’s the problem with your car now?” So I tell, “Oh well, it needs a lot of repair work done on it. Like the engine’s going, we’re going to have to replace some of the engine and it was going to be expensive.” And he said, “The amount of money that you’re going to spend on repairs could be a down payment for a car that doesn’t actually require any more maintenance.”

I said, “Okay, well maybe I’ll think about it.” We walked through what I would want in a car. We test drove so many vehicles and he had one car in mind that he thought fit. And I didn’t like it, so we test drove everything. And at the end, I was like, “I think we’re going to stick with our car.” And he said, “Just test drive this one car. I know you don’t like it, but just try it. If you don’t like it, you walk away. You’ve lost nothing. But if you do like it, you have another option to think about.” 

So we test drove it, I loved the car. It was amazing and we ended up buying that day even though I walked in not being willing to buy a car, the reason is he listened. Active listening, so it wasn’t just that he made me feel heard it’s that he actually heard me. 

He took our laundry list of things, our problems, right? And he found the example that was the solution to all the problems we had. And then he patiently waited while we tried to talk ourselves into other cars. By the time we got into the car that he thought was the best fit, I trusted him. He was credible. Of course we were going to buy a car from him. 

And he ended up writing off some of the cost because they had miss stickered the car. So he lost commission. He was willing to lose commission to get us into a car that made the most sense for us. We ended up like slipping him a little tip afterward, which I didn’t know until then was a thing people did when you buy cars. But he was amazing. I would buy a car from him any day of the week.

We have these horrible sales experiences because people aren’t actually selling they’re shopping. Right?

Think about those LinkedIn messages you get. I don’t know if you guys get them I get them all the time where they’re like, “Hey, do you need a bookkeeper?”

Julie Holton:

Oh yeah.

Audrea Fink:

“Cause I’m an amazing bookkeeper.”, “Do you need a virtual assistant? Because I’m an amazing virtual assistant.” What part of my LinkedIn profile says I need any of those things. 

On the flip side, I got a message from someone who said, “I’m just trying to grow my network in this area, you seem like an interesting person. Could we connect and maybe have a 15 minute coffee over zoom?” Of course. Well, now I know this person, he’s a financial advisor. I think he’s pretty cool. We spent 15 minutes on the phone and moving forward there’s a good chance I would recommend him. Because he didn’t sell me anything, but he did listen to me.

Julie Holton:

I think there are so many missed opportunities too. When you’re talking about LinkedIn It is a huge pet peeve of mine when I connect with someone and they immediately hit me up with some sort of, not even a hello, but some sort of spammy sales templated, scripted out  message about buying their services or even that they want to be on our podcast. And it’s like some dude with some expertise completely unrelated to our audience and to what we bring to you. And it’s like, but they tell us how much they love our podcast and blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, you clearly haven’t listened. 

Audrea Fink:

“I love your podcast.”

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Did you read who our podcast is?

Audrea Fink:

“What episode?”

Julie Holton:

So number one, don’t lie to me because give me a little more credit than that. But two don’t hit me up with the spam, and the reason why I say it’s a lost opportunity is sales is not just about that immediate direct sale, right? It is about just like you described Audrea your network, developing referral sources. 

In fact, I just the other day connected with a new financial person, has some sort of financial planning in their background, connected with this person on LinkedIn. Never heard of them. I have a financial planner. I’m not interested in changing. 

However, I am interested in the content that people like this new person I connected with. I’m interested in the content they put out, and who knows if down the line I might have a need for something that he provides, or I might think that he’s a good fit for someone in my life, that maybe my financial planner isn’t a good fit.

And so guys, it’s not always about making that direct sale. I also have had my share of terrible experiences and I won’t go too deep into this other than to say, I was on a zoom call the other day with my team and this pounding on my front to door, and my dog’s going nuts. And so I’m like, okay, you guys continue I’m going to pause. I’m going to see what’s going on, see who’s at my front door. 

So I go to the front door and I leave the glass between me and the person, because also COVID right and she’s not masked and I’m not masked. So she first kind of gives me this look because I opened the big door, but not the glass screen door.

And so she starts to open it and I stop her. And I was like “can I help you?” And she says something at the about they’re auditing gas service in the area, and she wants to take a look at my gas bill to see if she can help me save money. 

And I said, “thanks but I’m in the middle of a meeting right now, and I’m just not interested. But thanks for coming by.” Trying to be polite. And she says, “oh, is there a better time for me to come?” And I said, “No, thank you. I’m not interested.” And she said with a smirk on her face, “oh, you’re not interested in saving money.”

I was so livid. I said, “Actually, I’m pretty proficient in looking over my bills and I’m not interested during a pandemic and having you come into my home to look at my bill when I’m in the middle of a meeting. So thank you, but I am not interested.” 

And then I came back, of course, to my zoom meeting and Audrea was at this meeting and I was so mad. I’m like Audrea, she needs your sales coaching because that is not the way. And I don’t even how she makes sales, and it’s probably commissioned on how many, who knows, how many people she gets to do the audits for whatever. So I’m sorry that I cost her whatever I cost her, but I’m not interested.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Do not be sorry for her being a bad salesperson. That’s on her, not you.

Audrea Fink:

It’s not hard. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not simple, but it’s not hard.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Right.

Audrea Fink:

I think part of the reason sales gets such a bad rap is people don’t know what they’re doing, they’re just pushy. But then also the industry doesn’t help itself, right? We’re evolving, we’re seeing a more collaborative, more empathetic, more customer-first sales process coming in, which we’re also seeing increases sales significantly. 

But the industry, when they go out for our sales roles, they still look for the hunter, they have words like high competition and aggressive and that’s what they want in a good salesperson. But the problem is the buyer doesn’t want that.

Julie Holton:

Right.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

There’s a book. Again, I’ve mentioned this before. Audrea, Seannon sent it to me. It’s called The Power of Human Connection. How relationship marketing is transforming the way people succeed.

It’s not an easy book, but it’s really good as I was starting to read it. And it really does focus on if you’re trying to make the sale and don’t concern yourself with the sale.

It’s what Julie was just saying. You concern yourself with the client, not the sale.

Julie Holton:

Yeah.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Learn about them. You send them that card or you look them up. We even had Allison Tivnon, right? When she was talking about the position that she reached out to them about that she was not interested in it because she said, “that’s not the position you want.” But she had also done her research and she congratulated them on the success that they must have been having. It’s learning and understanding who the client is, and then how you can tap into that for tapping into what it is you’re trying to “sell.”

Julie Holton:

100%. Someone the other day said to me,” wow, you have a really high close rate on your deals for your business, your sales.” And it kind of surprised me, but I said,  yeah, but it comes with an asterisk because we are making sure every step of the way from the very first interaction that this is actually a good fit for us. Because if someone’s not a good fit, there’s no need to go down that sales funnel, that pipeline of developing that relationship. Now that’s not to say that we’re just turning people like as soon as we meet them.

Audrea Fink:

No, but if they’re not qualified, then there’s no point in selling them, there’s no point in wasting your time or theirs.

Julie Holton:

Absolutely. In fact, we had a client two years ago that came to us. They were starting this new, online business. They were really excited to jumpstart their marketing. We sat down, we went through everything with them. 

And then at the end of the conversation, they realized they weren’t ready yet for what they wanted to put into the marketing. They still had so many of the basic business steps to take before they could launch the type of campaign that they wanted to do. And they said, “okay, we’re going to come back to you in a year. We’re going to give ourselves a year to do this.” 

They came back a year later and they were so ready because we had talked through those steps. So it’s all about getting to know the person that you’re trying to sell to. And frankly, we could have brought them on board that first year as a client, it would not have been the success that they wanted because we would’ve made some headway for them. But the campaign would’ve been way too complex for where they were at in their business.

And we would’ve locked them into a contract, we would’ve gotten our money for that contract. We would’ve done the work and delivered and it would not have had the results they needed. It was more worth their time and ours to wait a year and then bring them on board for a successful campaign that then continues indefinitely.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Audrea, I know that you love quoting Zig Ziglar. And he really promoted that idea that sales is helping others, and so if that’s the case, then women in sales should absolutely be a natural fit. We just heard the example from Julie about how she worked things out with her client for the longer term, versus that short let’s get it done thing and how it worked out better for both ends. 

Generally speaking, when we think about women we are better listeners. We are more inclined to build relationships, Julie just discussed building relationships. Allison Tivnon and pretty much every person that successful individual that we’ve ever dealt with, with the women on these podcasts, what have they all had in common and dealt with? Building those relationships. 

And we tend to be more empathetic trying to figure out what is it you’re actually looking for? Look at what you said to yourself Audrea with regards to that salesperson, what that’s wrong with your car? What is it that you want? What are you looking for? Again, turning that to them. 

Audrea Fink:

And that builds trust. And trust gives you credibility, which makes it safe to buy from.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Exactly. So there is some data out now that shows that women perform better in sales than their male peers, which is not surprising. It doesn’t surprise me, but it’s surprising that more women aren’t in it because of this male-dominated field, which should not be male-dominated. On average women outperform by 3%. So why are we still seeing such a big gap?

Julie Holton:

It seems like so many women say, “well, I just don’t like sales.”, “I just don’t like to sell.” Some of it might come from this idea that you have to have a certain personality in order to be good.

Audrea Fink:

You’re born with that.

Julie Holton:

Yeah. I remember when I was in high school, I worked at the Levis and Dockers outlet at the mall. And we were tasked with asking people when they would check out if they wanted an add-on, so adding on socks or a belt. I hated it. For some reason, I felt like I was asking people to pay more than they actually wanted to pay. Or I was trying to get them to buy something they didn’t need or want. I put that back on me like I was doing something icky to them. This whole idea of being a salesperson. But we’ve talked about this before. Audrea, you say it all the time. Everyone is in sales.

Audrea Fink:

Everyone is sales.

Julie Holton:

Even if you don’t call it sales, even if you don’t want to think you’re in sales, you might not have sales in your title, but we are constantly selling our ideas. You’re constantly selling your knowledge, yourself. Maybe it’s when you ask for a new job or a raise or a promotion. I mean, think about how you’re selling yourself in that interview. When you meet a new person, you want to be friends with. You’re convincing them to like you, you’re selling yourself.

Audrea Fink:

You’re asking questions.

Julie Holton:

Yes. Maybe you’re talking a partner or friend into going on a vacation. You’re talking them into it, you’re selling them on the idea. So I’m in sales, you’re in sales, we’re all in sales.

Audrea Fink:

And sales doesn’t have to be a dirty word. When I was working with attorneys, they hated the term sales. Business development made them more comfortable and they really didn’t want any of that attached to them. Or sometimes they’d call themselves marketers because marketing felt safer than sales or safer than business development. 

They wanted to be trusted advisors, but trusted advisors are who you will purchase from. You are in sales. They’re one and the same. If I go to you and I say, I need help with this thing that is complex and it’s affecting my business and you give me solid advice and show me support. I’m going to then pay you for your time because I know you have my best interest at heart. And I don’t think women understand how powerful sales can be for them and how empowering it can be for them.

I think some of this goes back to that idea of like the quotas. If you’re super focused on hitting a number, it’s going to make you anxious if you don’t hit it, you spend the whole time focusing on the end of the sale. You don’t spend any time on the pipeline. There’s a buyer’s journey. They first have to know who you are. Then they have to understand what you do. And if you are saying, I sell this service that doesn’t help them. 

Whereas if you say I sell this solution and here is your problem, they go, “Oh, I have that problem. Great.” You build trust, you take them along this little journey if you will. By the time you get to the sales, you’ve already sold them. But if all you’re focusing on is that number, then you’re not getting very far.

Julie Holton:

Reischea and I are over here just nodding because it’s like, yes! Everything you say. And it has me thinking maybe why women… I’m guessing I have no knowledge to back this, but maybe, we’ve talked about how women, I think it was Jemele Hill who just said on a recent podcast that men can have zero things on a checklist of 100 but still apply for the job. Women can have all but 3 of them.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

95.5% or 99.5 % and we focus on that 0.5%.

Julie Holton:

Maybe I need to work on this a little more first, maybe I’m not quite there yet. And I’m wondering if that is the same with sales. Because Audrea, as you describe these techniques, I’m like, okay, so you’ve got more than 10 years of experience, you know what you’re doing. 

Most women, I would suspect are doing some things right. But they feel like they don’t know what they’re doing, and they don’t know these tactics and they don’t know the right way, and we all fear being told no. And so we don’t want to sell because if we’re told no, well then what? 

Do you think that maybe this feeling of being inadequate or not having the skillset is why more women aren’t in sales?

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Or not recognizing that you have the skillset, you have it, but you just don’t realize it.

Audrea Fink:

Right. I think it’s a mixed bag. So I think some of it is confidence, absolutely. In order to sell, you have to be confident in your product or service or idea, whatever is the right one. Women struggle with that. 

I think the other piece of it is that sales has kind of a negative connotation and women are definitely judged for being assertive or aggressive or overly confident. And so in this role, it’s required. You have to be confident. You have to think, I think I can solve this problem. 

You also have to be customer or client-focused, but you still have to be confident in your problem-solving. And women are generally brought down out a peg when they’re overly confident. So I think it’s kind of a mix. I also think that sales does have a bad rap, right? People don’t realize it can be fun. It can be really rewarding. It’s mentally stimulating. Right?

And I don’t think that we frame it in the terms of helping. It’s why I love Zig Ziglar so much. Even though he is potentially a problematic person, Zig Ziglar really believed sales is helping. If you are not out there to make somebody else’s life easier to help them make money, to help them reduce risk, to help them sleep better at night, you’ve no business in sales.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

All right, Audrea you touched on it just a little bit. So give us the biggest benefits for women being in sales.

Audrea Fink:

I think sales is a place of empowerment for women. 

At least it can be provided you’re in the sort of the right space, and you’re in an organization that supports that empowerment or you’re on your own. 

First of all, with sales, you probably already have the skillset. Women generally speaking are better at listening. They are the helpers. We constantly have to tell ourselves, to put our own oxygen mask on first. Women already sort of tend to be good at sales because it’s within the way that we are brought up to be.

Within sales, you learn and practice really good life skills like listening, and positioning. Why is this thing better than this thing? You learn about influence. A lot of times as a salesperson, you’ve got to get someone to buy-in. 

You don’t have any authority over them and then negotiation, right? All sales is negotiation. It’s back and forth. Can I give you this? Can you give me this in return? So these are amazing skills to have in life and you can take them and transfer them to the next role. 

So if you’re in a sales job and you want to move up, well you have skills that easily transfer. Because everyone is selling all of the time, if you have the confidence that you can do it, you can easily transfer that. 

Sales also tends to make pretty good money. You don’t need an advanced degree for it. So it’s a good place for women who want to be economically stable to hang out because you can make your own way with sales.

Additionally, and especially in today’s pandemic, remote world, you can get a lot of work flexibility. 

I have a friend who works at a company that is fully remote. She’s a sales executive. She works when she wants to. She doesn’t work when she doesn’t want to. Some days she’s like, all I have is admin tasks so I sit on the couch, I watch TV and I answer my email. Other days she’s got calls lined up. And she does the work when it’s appropriate for her. So really sales is a strong empowerment place for women.

Julie Holton:

We’re also seeing sales as a whole shift with the changes in how we work. Especially you’re talking about working remotely, the shift in buyer expectations. We’re really seeing that how we sell is evolving. Would you say?

Audrea Fink:

Yes, gone are the days where the seller has all the power and the buyer just has to hope they give it to them at a good price. Between the internet, working remotely, and then just technology evolving, the buyer now has all of the information they need. They’re trying to figure out, are you the right fit? 

So your job as a seller is less educator and more of a collaborative, can I make these fit well? Can I build a solution that really targets your need specifically? And buyers are looking for that. They want to be, as they should be, they want to be the center of your universe as a salesperson, right? Like they want you to say everything you’re doing has to be to benefit me. I’ll pay you for right, but you need to benefit me. And you need to hear what those things are that I need in order to be able to build a beneficial product.

Buyers are expecting to have the seller really understand them and to tailor to them. People buying are tech-savvy. We are self-sufficient. We’re more informed than we’ve ever been. Thanks in the large part to the internet. Thanks in the large part to social media.

Julie Holton:

Social media. Now that you mention it is such a great example of the evolution of sales, especially for women. I mean, think about all of the women that you see, whether they’re stay-at-home moms or women who leave their corporate job to sell things online. Whether it’s clothing, athletic clothing, all sorts of makeup, beauty products, all sorts of things that people are directly selling online and indirectly. 

So I work on this with our team at mConnexions, everything we put on social media is us selling something. We are selling our experience, we’re selling ourselves as thought leaders, we’re selling our clients and what they do when we’re writing social media posts for them. Everything we do. And we used to say this, Reischea I bet you did this at ESPN and news, everything was, “well, how are you going to sell that story?”

Which might sound weird the first time you hear it, how are you going to sell that story? That doesn’t mean that there’s a connection between the newsroom or the sports anchor desk and sales like the sales department for the station.

That’s not what we mean. We mean, how are we going to get people to care about this story? What’s going to keep them listening or watching this story? How are we selling that this is something that we think is important that they want to hear? 

And it’s the same way, whether it’s on TV or on the radio, on this podcast, on social media, every word you choose, every graphic you design has the power to either turn people away, have people ignore it, or to sell the idea that you are sharing.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

To pull them in. Absolutely. So let us summarize, we need more women in sales.

Audrea Fink:

It’s true.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Right. We need more women in sales, business needs to invest in women on their sales teams and women should consider sales roles. Sales can be empowering if you look at it through the right lens. So please think about those things.

Julie Holton:

And I just have to say it, so sorry Audrea.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Yes.

Julie Holton:

If you need a kind, empathetic, powerhouse sales coach, whether you’re actually already working in sales or whether you want to work on empowering yourself to feel more confident in the other sales roles that we talked about, then Audrea is your girl. 

I’m telling you, she knows what she’s doing. She’s been doing it for more than a decade, and she just launched her own sales consultancy. So she is now a sales coach and strategist with mConnexions. I couldn’t be more excited to have her add her expertise to what we’re doing. And so I’m telling you, sorry, this is a long plug, but Audrea is your girl. 

And you can reach her at thinktankofthree.com. So definitely connect with her, even if you just want to have a conversation about what you’re thinking about doing related to sales, if you want a coaching session or two, or if you want to put together a whole custom program. Definitely talk to her, if any of this resonated with you because I know we can all grow our skills and expertise. And she’s amazing.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

She really is. You cannot go wrong with Audrea Fink on your side.

Audrea Fink:

You guys Are making me blush.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

Hey, we only speak the truth. I say it all the time. We only speak the truth, no smoke, and mirrors here, straight up fact and truth. That’s what well… At least truth and opinion of our fact of truth.

Audrea Fink:

The facts as we see them.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

But the fact is, you are solid. The fact is you are someone that can absolutely elevate someone in their sales career, and they really need to take that opportunity. They really do.

Guys, this has been so much fun. This has been great. And we thank you all for joining us today that will do it for this episode of Think Tank of Three.

Audrea Fink:

If you have topics you’d like us to cover or guests, you’d like to hear from send us a message at thinktankofthree@gmail.com, subscribe to The Think Tank of Three wherever you listen to podcasts and connect with us online. 

Julie Holton:

Follow us on social media. You can find us individually on LinkedIn and as Think Tank of Three on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Women click to join our private group on Facebook, where we can all share advice and articles.

Reischea Canidate-Kapasouris:

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