It was a cold, rainy day as I walked down the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, taking a break from a conference I was attending nearby. I looked at the string of empty stores and felt sorry for the shop owners, wondering how they made a living in this decaying retail district.
Imagine my surprise when I walked into one of the stores, looking for a souvenir to bring home, and was ignored by the lone employee who stood just a few feet away, leaning against the counter and staring into his phone. Since I was the only other person in the store, I thought he’d be thrilled to have a customer. I was wrong. He didn’t even look up.
The minutes ticked by, and I started to wonder, How long will it take for this guy to acknowledge me? The store was so small that our silent impasse felt awkward. After several minutes, I gave up and left the store empty-handed and irritated. In my head I was shouting, Hey, I was doing you a favor just by coming here! Then I walked back to the conference I was attending and took the stage to deliver a presentation I’d been hired to give. The topic? How to create great customer experiences.
The timing was ironic, but my experience in the store wasn’t shocking. Bad service is everywhere, at every price point, in every industry. And yet, many businesses still don’t seem to recognize the link between the quality of service they give and their customers’ buying decisions. They search and search for the newest idea for winning business and end up overlooking the most obvious strategy of all: create an experience so satisfying that people will want to spend their time and money with the company, and refer it to everyone they know.
Common sense? Yes. Common practice? No. Just ask any woman.
Women are on the receiving end of most customer experiences, good and bad, because they control the majority of the world’s consumer spending. It’s estimated they drive upward of 70 to 80 percent of consumer spending in the United States alone through a combination of buying power and influence.1 Earning their business is the key to winning in the modern economy. Yet most sales training programs overlook the simple question of whether the buyer is a man or a woman. This is both a blind spot and an opportunity: a blind spot because outdated stereotypes about women are pervasive and can stop a sale in its tracks, and an opportunity because understanding women’s perspectives is a serious competitive advantage for anyone in sales.
Men and women can view sales interactions through different lenses. As a researcher on women’s buying decisions, I routinely hear stories about poor sales experiences that drive women away from buying products and services. Many women report being
• treated with less respect simply because of their gender,
• judged on their appearance in ways that men are not, and
• ignored, overlooked, or underestimated when shopping with a male partner or companion.
The last one is a frequent issue. Countless women have told me about not receiving eye contact or attention when shopping with a male partner, even when a salesperson was told that the product was for her. Casual sexism is commonplace (“Tell your husband he should buy this necklace for you.”), and so is unconscious bias and stereotyping (“I’m surprised a woman wants a stick shift. Are you sure?”). In customer interactions, all kinds of things happen to women that would be inconceivable if they were men. Consider the experience of a customer we’ll call Rachel, a woman in her late twenties whose loyalty to a major hotel brand was tested by an unfortunate experience during a business trip.
“My (older, male) boss and I got in line separately to check in at a hotel in Miami,” Rachel begins. “This was a big hotel, part of a well-known chain. While we were standing there, the hotel associate looked over at me, then back at my boss, and said, ‘I don’t have your rooms available yet, but I do have one available for an hour,’ and winked. I was new at my job and mortified that someone had assumed I was my boss’s escort.”
Rachel’s story isn’t from some bygone era: it happened today, to a highly educated, well-paid executive with an active social media presence (in other words, a megaphone), who can afford to take her business—and loyalty—elsewhere.
The business-to-business (B2B) world is no different. I’ve heard many stories from executive women who’ve been mistaken for assistants and asked to fetch coffee and snacks by male vendors who were in the room to sell to them. Often, these women shrug their shoulders at the vendors’ mistakes. They’ve seen it all. But they don’t forget. Is it any wonder so many women approach sales interactions with their guard up?
Just as we continually upgrade our software to stay current, we must upgrade our customer experiences to stay relevant. In a consumer economy dominated by women, new skills are needed. Selling is no longer about conquest and combat, as it was when sales strategies were largely based on men selling to other men. Nor is it about ignoring people, like the sales associate I almost met in Atlantic City. Today, it’s about inspiring people to buy from you. And learning what that looks like with women customers is opportunity number one. You’re about to gain a deeper understanding of the perspectives, life experiences, and communication styles of the world’s biggest consumer market. Many of the strategies we’ll cover in this book will enhance your male customers’ experience too. Winning the business of women isn’t about excluding men; it’s about excluding stereotypes and elevating the customer experience.
These perspectives will help you stay one step ahead of millennial (born approximately between the years 1980 and 2000) and Gen Z (born after 2000) customers of both genders, since many values that have historically been associated with women—like wanting to buy from companies that make the world a better place in some way—now apply to the younger generations.
In the same way that women’s needs have driven changes for men in the workplace (for example, maternity leave is fast becoming parental leave so that men can take it too), women are driving changes in the consumer marketplace that younger generations of both genders not only appreciate but also expect. A good rule of thumb is this: if you want to know where the market is going, follow the women. Women are the leading indicators for what people want.
THE “G” WORD
Gender is a topic we don’t discuss in the context of sales and customer experiences very often, so allow me to take a moment to clarify how we’ll talk about it. All women—and men—are individuals, and should be treated as such. Women are not all the same, just as men are not all the same. Yet, each of us is born into a society that recognizes two primary gender “cultures”: the male culture and the female culture. The gender culture in which we grow up impacts how we’re socialized and interact with the world, including the communication styles we use.2 The descriptions in this book should be viewed as tendencies, not absolutes, that are based on the aspects of female culture that can affect women’s perceptions of sales interactions.
Here’s an analogy for gender culture: Imagine you were planning a vacation to Italy and decided to learn everything you could about Italian culture. You study Italian history and modern society; you practice helpful tourist phrases in Italian; you learn expectations for customs such as tipping and hailing a cab. You’re happy to put in the work because you know the knowledge will enrich your experience. And yet, when your plane touches down in Rome, you would never expect every Italian to behave the same way. After all, it’s a nation of 60 million personalities. However, your preparation has provided you with a valuable foundation that allows you to communicate more easily, confidently, and ultimately, successfully. That’s the spirit in which this book is written. It’s a guide to the cultural conditions of modern women that will help you exceed their expectations as customers. But it bears repeating: every customer is an individual, first and foremost, and should be treated as such.
Let me also clarify the language I’ll be using so we’re on the same page. I use the term sales professional to describe all of us who work with customers for a living. I recognize that few people use that title in real life. However, whether you manage a sales team, run a dude ranch, work in retail, or are an independent business owner, your success depends on customers agreeing to pay for your products and services. Hence, we’re all sales professionals.
For the sake of simplicity, I will use the word customer to refer to women consumers in general, though depending on your industry, you may call them guests, patients, clients, community members, fans, or something else altogether.
THIS ISN’T A WOMEN’S ISSUE—IT’S A STRATEGIC ISSUE
Now that we have our language squared away, let’s set the stage for our discussion. The economic opportunity with women buyers is often viewed as a “women’s issue” and not a business issue. This is a mistake. I’ve seen many companies—and sales professionals—limit their growth potential by thinking this way. Hosting an event for International Women’s Day, for example, is laudable and important, but it’s not a substitute for a long-term growth strategy. That requires a longer view, and the tools and techniques in this book are designed to help you get there. You’ll find:
• Practical strategies to increase your customers’ emotional engagement
• The Four Motivators Framework for creating experiences that appeal to women customers
• Communication “watch-outs” to avoid
• Best practices from leading brands, businesses, and sales professionals
• A road map of the biggest trends driving women’s buying patterns
• Activities at the end of every chapter to help jump-start your growth (also included as an appendix)
• A Monday Morning Action Plan to create a long-term strategy for your business
Winning women’s business is about creating inclusive customer experiences that incorporate the perspectives of the people who drive most of the buying. Our world is changing fast, but one thing remains constant: women’s domination of consumer spending. That fact alone provides a valuable compass for navigating, and winning, the future. So as we move forward, keep in mind that this is not simply a women’s issue—it’s a strategic issue, and it’s huge. Let’s get started.