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ОглавлениеFIVE WAYS TO CLOSE MORE SALES WITH WOMEN
Ask Yourself:
1 Based on your experiences, what do you think describes the sales process a woman is looking for?
2 What percentage of sales would you guess are influenced by women?
3 A woman walks into your office or store wearing sweatpants and a torn T-shirt, and has three kids in tow. What’s your gut response?
4 True or false: with a woman, you’ve got a better chance of convincing her to buy if you emphasize the “soft” benefits of your product rather than the “hard” details of how your product compares to the competition.
5 What is it about your products or services that make them attractive to women? Is your product so strong that women will buy it regardless of who is selling it?
6 Women like to talk during the sales process. So when you’re selling to a woman, what types of things do you talk about to get her to feel comfortable? The weather? Your kids? Other customers? Personal information from your life? Or just the product?
7 Think about the last time you weren’t able to close a sale with a female customer. What do you think were the exact reasons the sale fell through?
When you’ve finished reading this chapter, think about these questions again and see whether your answers are different.
NOW, let’s get down to it!
If you’re a man, I bet you’re thinking that this chapter alone could be worth the price of the book—and you might just be right. Figuring out what women (and men) WANT has been an interesting project of mine for decades! The good news is that there are definitely specific keys to understanding both men and women that will help you be more successful during the sales process.
If you’re a woman, you probably know what women want in a PERSONAL relationship, but you may not have a CLUE as to what they want as BUYERS. Sure, you’ve BEEN a BUYER, so you’ve got this, RIGHT? But let me ask you something: have you ever STEPPED BACK during a shopping experience and ANALYZED how and why you did what you did? It’s hard to SEPARATE your personal experiences into general rules without talking to lots of other women about what they look for when they’re buying. But if you take all that information and boil it down to the BOTTOM LINE, you come up with one of the most important differences between selling to men and selling to women…
With a man, you can concentrateon closing the sale. With a woman,you had better concentrate onCOMMITTING to the relationshipbefore concentrating on the sale.
With her, it is critical that you COMMIT to the entire sales process, rather than focusing on just the end result. Remember, women are more about the experience, and men are more about the results.
In other words, the typical aggressive sales techniques that have been the core and mainstay of sales training for decades will probably turn her off, which will then turn her away from you!
So are you ready to enter the fascinating and often complex mind of a female shopper? Then let’s start with some great news.
Most books on selling to women spend at least the first chapter or two 1) giving you case study after case study of companies that learned the hard way that they had to advertise, market, and sell differently to women, and 2) offering lots of statistics, charts, and graphs supporting right and left-brain theories of communication, the history of gender differences, and the growth of women’s purchasing power.
So after the first hour of reading, do you have even one single thing you can use tomorrow to help you make more money and be more successful? Since I trust that you are smart and already know that women are critical to the success of your business or career, I thought you might like me to sum up all of that information in a few sentences. Then we can get right down to the business of helping you commit to and close more deals, make more money, and acquire the tools necessary to give your customers exactly what they want!
We can begin by eliminating at least twenty pages of statistics, numbers, data, and research. There is only one statistic you really need to know, so let’s repeat it one more time:
85 percent of all consumer buyingdecisions are made or influenced byWOMEN.
How’s THAT for a STAT? No other statistic is necessary in order for you to be motivated, inspired, and determined to do what it takes to dramatically increase your “Sales to Women” percentage. Women are either buying for themselves, buying for someone else, or telling someone else what to buy; 85 percent of the time something gets sold! WOW! Now you can begin to understand why this book is so vitally important to your future success in sales.
So here’s the inside scoop: since women are usually the EXPERIENCE buyers, they are mentally critiquing each stage of the process and constantly evaluating whether to STAY IN or GET OUT. After interviewing and talking with hundreds of women of varied ages, backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic groups, I realized that women have a very specific set of criteria and expectations in mind when it comes to how they want their buying experience to FEEL. (By the way, you might as well get used to seeing the word feel, because you’ll see it a lot in this book.)
Emotions, feelings, and a sense ofpersonal connection are some of the biggest differences between maleand female buying styles. Womendevelop feelings about every aspectof the process, and those feelingsdrive their decision to buy from you—or not to buy from you.
You have to be able to apply that knowledge when selling to women. If you are a “feelings” kind of person already, this is going to come easier for you. If you aren’t, then selling to women will be more of a challenge, but TOTALLY doable! Rest easy; I’ll teach you exactly what you will need to do to have that more personal touch without leaving your comfort zone.
If there is one question that men have asked more than any other—more than, “How can I earn a million dollars?” or, “How can I live longer?” or, “How can I achieve wealth, fame, and success?”—it is simply,
“What do women WANT?”
For the purpose of this book, let’s amend that question to:
“What do women want to experienceas buyers in order to commit to thesale?”
Throughout my research, women have shared both good stories and bad about their shopping experiences. They told me what they wanted and what they didn’t want, what they needed and didn’t need, what they liked and didn’t like, and what they expected and didn’t get. Almost everything they described fell into one of the following five categories.
Women want the experience to be:
1 PERSONAL
2 PROFESSIONAL
3 PRODUCTIVE
4 They want to be PART OF THE PROCESS
5 POSITIVE
These are the FIVE KEY ELEMENTS needed to create the most desirable buying experience for a woman. Let’s look at each one UP CLOSE.
#1: SHE WANTS THE EXPERIENCE TO BE PERSONAL
The first thing you need to know (and accept) when selling to a woman is the following:
It’s not just business, it’s personal.
Anyone who says that business isn’t personal doesn’t know women at all. For most women, the decision to buy is based on many personal beliefs, perceptions, ideas, memories, and most of all—you guessed it—FEELINGS.
Let’s face it, no matter who’s your customer, sales requires personal encounters with discussions about what someone PERSONALLY wants or needs. Success is reinforced and sustained by continuing a long-term PERSONAL relationship with each customer whenever possible. It begins the moment those first personal questions are asked. What do you want? What do you need? How can I help you? How can I make you richer, happier, healthier, or more successful?
We salespeople ask both men (results buyers) and women (experience buyers) these same questions. The difference is that women are more aware of the PERSONAL side to sales and will make very quick decisions during this initial interview process about whether a salesperson seems sincere, acts courteously, and treats them appropriately, and whether they will feel COMFORTABLE doing business with that salesperson.
Women size up the situation in termsof HOW they want to buy, whereas men tend to focus on WHAT theywant to buy.
The same holds true for communication. Women focus on how something is said, and men focus on what is being said.
Women also tend to be very personally CONNECTED to their purchases. I honestly believe that a great many of the purchases women make are directly related to something that is worrying them. The purchase is made to bring relief. The car is getting old and unsafe, so let’s take it in; I want to make sure we can travel when we retire, so let’s invest; the roof might leak, so let’s fix it first; the kids need clothes; office supplies are low; or this old computer might crash, so let’s get a new one.
A good example is when my husband and I were exploring different options for a new will. He was not at all excited about the whole process: he can’t drive it, eat it, play with it, or sleep on it. Plus, he said it was depressing to think about and not a fun way to spend money. Left to him, I think making a will would have remained on his to-do-when-nothing-else-is-going-on-in-the-world list forever. Basically he was there to buy a service—not because he wanted it, but because I did. This is a perfect example of how women INFLUENCE men to BUY.
I, on the other hand, felt we were personally (see, there’s that word we women like to use) responsible for making sure that everyone was taken care of in the event of our deaths. I didn’t think it was fun either, but I was eager to get it done so I could STOP WORRYING about it.
When we met with our estate planner, I brought a huge load of emotion into the meeting—thoughts of my family, my feelings of responsibility, memories, concerns about doing the right thing by everybody, fears about how I would live without my husband, thoughts about what would happen if I died first (would he remarry? How long would it take him to remarry?) I got a bit off track.
That’s a PRIME EXAMPLE of how men and women differ! I guarantee you none of those thoughts were going through my husband’s head! In fact, when I asked him what he was thinking, he said, “I think I would have been better off parking under a tree, where it’s shady, so the car won’t get hot if we are gone for a long time.” Seriously? That’s what was going on in his mind as we walked in to write our wills?
As I walked into the office, I was concerned about much more than the bottom line—in fact, details and cost were not even in my thoughts at that point. I wanted to make certain that this particular estate planner was WILLING TO LISTEN and then integrate everything I wanted and needed, not just simply write up a will. From the moment I was introduced, I was aware of each nuance of the process. I immediately began to look for clues as to how I would be TREATED and whether this was someone I wanted to continue to do business with. Let there be no doubt: I was conducting an internal interview based on how he acted and reacted to my PERSONAL needs and expectations.
My husband, on the other hand, was sitting quietly, waiting to see what was going to happen, and reserving judgment on the details until he had a chance to hear the FACTS and get a handle on the BOTTOM LINE. He was focused on the END RESULTS.
And ME? I was focused on the entire EXPERIENCE. Truth be told, I began judging the experience the minute I walked into the elevator of the building.
Like me, many women are looking to accomplish much more in their relationship with a salesperson than finding someone to simply take their orders. Therefore, you must be aware from the very first second how much weight a woman is placing on the person she does business with. A woman wants to do business with someone she likes and trusts, someone she feels comfortable with, and someone she believes she can count on.
While a man might put up with an unfriendly auto mechanic who does excellent work at great prices, a woman won’t. She’ll pay a little more and take her car to someone she likes and who treats her with RESPECT—as long as she’s still confident he or she can get the job done. If she’s not satisfied with the second mechanic, she’ll go to a third and a fourth until she finds someone she can trust and feel comfortable doing business with.
A woman’s need for a positive,personal experience means that the CONNECTION between her andthe salesperson is much MOREIMPORTANT than you might think;it takes precedence over almosteverything else.
I’ll give you an example. I know a couple who moved into our neighborhood a few years ago from an area about thirty minutes away. The woman still drives the half hour to her previous hairdresser, dry cleaner, drugstore, and gym. We have all of these services within a block of our house, but it’s worth the drive to her to continue to use people she feels CONNECTED to and has developed personal relationships with. Her husband, on the other hand, took no time at all discovering the closest places that could meet his needs and switched his services immediately. He discovered he could get the results he needed right around the corner.
THE GOOD NEWS: a female buyer ismuch more likely to STAY LOYAL, even if it means being slightlyinconvenienced. That’s POWERFUL!
QUICK TIP: if you want to sell to women, learning to invest in and manage the PERSONAL aspects of the process is critical to your success.
#2: SHE WANTS THE EXPERIENCE TO BE PROFESSIONAL
Even though women want their sales experience to be PERSONAL, that does not mean they don’t also expect it to be PROFESSIONAL. In fact, in order for her to accept and be comfortable with a PERSONAL shopping experience, it must also pass the test of being PROFESSIONAL. Most women are savvy shoppers and will ultimately be focused on making a good, intelligent, and price-conscious decision, regardless of their personal feelings—it’s just that you will have to pass the PERSONAL test before she can move to the next step. Ideally, the two will go hand-in-hand, but don’t think you can play on her emotions to get her to make a purchase that isn’t in her best interests.
It has often been said that with women, emotion drives reason, and with men, reason drives emotion. I don’t think this is giving women (or men) nearly enough credit. Women couldn’t be where they are today if they constantly allowed emotion to take precedence over common sense and value. But it’s worth noting how much women can feel, do, and process at the same time.
Women can evaluate the personal side of the experience: do I feel respected? Do I like them? Do they like me? Are they friendly? Are they enjoyable to be around? And at the very same time, they can be weighing other critical factors: your experience and credentials, the value of the product, the quality of the service, and whether you can be trusted. So when I tell you that a woman wants the experience to be personal, don’t underestimate her absolute need for a professional experience. Both weigh heavily in her decision to continue the sales relationship with you.
Ultimately, every woman is looking for a professional-grade deal. Think of professionalism as one aspect of your brand. That attribute means that everything will be open and aboveboard (no shady financing deals or merchandise that fell off a truck). It means you’ll STAND BEHIND YOUR PRODUCT, she won’t have to haggle and hassle to get the same deal her friend got last week, and if and when something goes wrong, you’ll accept responsibility and take care of it efficiently and professionally.
Professionalism, for many women, is shorthand for SAFETY— physical, emotional, and financial safety. If women don’t feel safe with you, your establishment, or the deal they’re making, they will stop listening and start watching—everything and everyone. They will switch from looking for a good deal to looking for a good exit strategy. Your professionalism is a reflection of your personality, attitudes, and respect for yourself and others. So the first issue is your female customers’ level of comfort with you. This is all about your level of respect, trust, and commitment. How you look at her, where you look at her (always aim for the eyes), the tone of your voice, and the manner in which you conduct business are all clues her radar will pick up quickly to determine whether this will be a comfortable and professional situation in which to do business.
Each and every woman I’ve talked to had at least one story of a salesperson who made her so nervous or uncomfortable that she couldn’t get away fast enough.
I have had several encounters with unprofessional behavior, but one particularly comes to mind. Years ago, when my husband and I were buying a house after moving to a new city, I did most of the looking on my own while he worked. The first agent I dealt with was a woman who had me running away from her by the end of the morning. She certainly knew her territory and had an uncanny gift of figuring out exactly what we were looking for, but she wasn’t professional at all and made me very uncomfortable. She constantly talked about her other clients and the money they had (or didn’t have) to spend. Then at every house we viewed, she would tell me very personal things about the neighbors. Even though she knew her product and had an excellent grasp of what we needed, I felt she shared too much confidential information. (Ever meet anyone like THAT?) I knew if we bought from her, it was just a matter of time before her gossip would include us and our personal information.
Being professional also means you’re qualified, knowledgeable, and experienced—you’re representing your product, service, and company competently, and she doesn’t need to check you out from every angle to make sure you won’t try to cheat her or take advantage of her. You know where the lines are, and you stay within them. Boundaries are important to a woman, and you need to recognize and respect hers. You must respect her time, her space, her privacy, her personal information, and her intelligence.
This professionalism is pretty critical stuff because if she isn’t comfortable with you, the environment, or the deal, she’s going to take her business elsewhere, and you will probably never know why.
#3: SHE WANTS THE EXPERIENCE TO BE PRODUCTIVE
Men are busy, but women are really, really busy! Women have an always-on generator for worry and guilt, and those two emotions generate a mental to-do list that never ends.
Women are like a computer with a hundred tasks minimized at the bottom of the screen, each ready to be “pulled up” and dealt with at any given moment. When my husband walks from the bedroom to the kitchen to get a drink of water, it’s a simple task. He goes, gets what he needs, and returns. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? When I go on the same errand, I return thirty minutes later after doing eight other things on my way to the kitchen. My mind sees into nooks and crannies, closets and cabinets, inside and out. And I usually come back without what I went after, because the task took on a life of its own.
Men often say (and they have a point) that we women create our own “busyness” and we should just stop worrying.
A woman’s answer is always,
“If I stop worrying, nothing will get done around here.”
(Sound familiar?)
This worry and guilt springs from a belief that many women hold: it is my responsibility to make sure everyone else is happy, healthy, and successful. At the least, she might make it happen by working just a little harder.
Men tend to live in the PRESENT: what is going on now? How do I feel now? What can we do about it now? Women live mostly in the past and the future. The past is GUILT: what we shoulda, woulda, coulda done differently. The future is WORRY: what might happen, could happen, probably will happen.
Most men are far better at compartmentalizing and tuning in or out, depending on what they view as necessary or important—what requires their immediate attention. Women view the world more holistically. It’s more than just multitasking. It’s multi-seeing, multi-hearing, multi-doing, and multi-fixing all at once. Almost everything we see and hear reminds us of ten other things, which remind us of ten other things each. So the word busy doesn’t begin to describe life through a woman’s eyes, whether the busyness is self-imposed or not.
What does all of this have to do with sales? Everything! Because she has so many things she needs to do, or thinks she wants to do, your female customer doesn’t have time to waste (unless she is window-shopping, which is an entirely different experience in itself—but she won’t involve you in that).
Many salespeople make the mistake of focusing more on productivity with their male shoppers than with their female shoppers. The truth is, women don’t want to waste their time any more than men.
It is true that when men are looking to buy, they go in, find what they want at the price they want to pay, and get on with their lives. Therefore, salespeople know right from the beginning that men have little patience with saying about making the buying process and would rather be somewhere else— anywhere else. As a result, the astute salesperson gets right to the point with the guys and moves quickly to the bottom line, unless there is an indication that the man prefers to take a bit more time.
Women, on the other hand, usually take far longer to make a purchase. They ask more questions and spend more time weighing their options than men. Salespeople often misinterpret this to mean that a woman is “just shopping around,” has all the time in the world, or is simply indecisive. As a result, the salesperson will often tune out the woman who appears to be just looking, and perhaps even wander off and move on to someone else.
Be very careful making any of those assumptions, because you could be way off base. She probably is taking longer because she sees the purchase as part of a bigger picture, and she wants to make sure it is going to fit in with whatever else is going on in her life. The sound system she’s buying needs to offer great performance, portability for her daughter’s college move next year, and adaptability for new technology two years from now, and it has to match the living room decor. Thinking through all those things at once just takes a little time!
Even though a female customer may take longer to close or commit, she still doesn’t want to waste any of the time she has allotted for the purchase—she has just allotted more time to begin with than a man would. But that doesn’t mean she wants to be ignored, get passed from salesperson to salesperson, or repeat herself to a salesperson who wasn’t paying attention the first time.
Never underestimate how precious a commodity time is for a woman. KNOW THIS: anything you can do to help her find the right solution to fit her needs will be appreciated. Anything you do to derail the process will be noted and chalked up against you.
This is true even though at first she may appear more social than productive and decisive. She is trying to assess whether she likes you, trusts you, and wants to do business with you. This is part of her personal and professional examination of you and the situation at hand. Once she has decided that you are the right person to do the job, she will probably do an about-face and get down to business. Let her take the lead. She’ll let you know when she is ready to start buying. You just concentrate on being personable, professional, and productive.
#4: SHE WANTS TO BE PART OF THE PROCESS
For most women, a purchase isn’t just a transaction in which she pays money for goods or services. It’s an ENTRY into a relationship—with you, your store, your product or service, and with your company. Because business is PERSONAL with women, if they choose your service, it’s often because they are comfortable supporting your business, representing your brand, or becoming part of the circle of your customers.
Women are aware that their purchasing decisions reflect back on them and affect the world they live in; this is just part of the multifaceted approach women take to buying.
Maybe it’s because of this awareness that women feel the need to take responsibility for their buying decisions—they don’t want to just walk in and buy something (“In and out,” a man might say). They want to weigh the options, learn the differences between them, and decide what’s best.
They want the information that will help them make good decisions. Women hate to waste time making purchases they will regret, not use, or have to return later. They want to know what makes one brand or product better than another, or why you think one will be better, and whether it really is or not.
In short, women want to be a part of the process and have a good interaction with the salesperson.
Now don’t get me wrong—men want to be PART OF THE PROCESS too, but most salespeople wouldn’t dream of excluding a man from a conversation about his purchase. Again there is irony here. Men talk less in the average buying situation, ask fewer questions, and are more anxious to just leave and get on with it than women, yet men are generally included in each step of the process whether they want to be or not.
Women—who tell their whole story, ask tons of questions, and have often done far more research on the product—can find themselves excluded from some conversations because the salesperson has decided that the information is too difficult, tedious, technical, or uninteresting to share with them.
Beware of making assumptions about what a woman wants to know and learn about your product or service, because if she feels left out of the process, you will probably lose the sale.
Being part of the process means more than just being engaged in all decisions and understanding the variables. It also means being heard, a point we are going to discuss a great deal throughout this book. It means that when a woman wants to explain why she wants something or how it needs to fit into her life, you listen, even if you think you already have the information you need. (If she’s still talking, there’s a good chance you can still learn something to your advantage about what she wants and why. Pay attention!)
When she asks a question, answer it honestly, without getting irritated or impatient, and give her an answer that’s as complete as she needs.
A great example of being excluded from the process is something that most of you can relate to. It happens to men and women equally, although for some reason, it doesn’t seem to bother men as much as it bothers women.
