Why Aren’t There More Women in Sales?
On the surface, it appears that women hold a good portion of sales roles with 49.8% of sales jobs held by women. But this statistic includes jobs like travel agents and cashiers. When you account for only B2B sales, women only hold 16-19% of the jobs with the exception of customer success. Only 30% of sales management positions are held by women. So, why aren’t their more women in sales?
Stereotypes
When anyone thinks of a salesperson, one of two images usually comes to mind - car sales (and no, we’re not talking about the Helpful Honda kind) and the Wolf of Wall Street. We think of salespeople as energetic, loud, and as the Calvin Harris song goes, focused on Dollar Signs.
Sales is viewed as a masculine profession. We picture Leonardo DiCaprio ringing the bell and celebrating with a drink afterward. You can almost picture some sort of medieval masculinity show. Ringing the bell is like Gaston dropping his fresh kill on the table and then he heads to the tavern to drink with his friends. Ladies swoon over him as LeFou rubs his feet.
Is this toxic masculinity? Does it put off women from entering sales as a profession? And is the sales profession missing out on sales because of it?
Education
Like many other professions, few people grow up dreaming of becoming a salesperson. If you survey a group of freshman college students, you’re likely to always get the standard 5 professions of interest.
Law
Accounting and Finance
Medicine
Education
Journalism
And because we think of car sales instead of B2B wholesale sales or tech sales - or frankly any other sales roles that require us to be everything other than the Wolf of Wall Street, we continue to lose women and other highly contributing individuals to other professions. I can’t count the number of people I speak with every week who have no clue what an SDR does or that it even exists.
Our education system doesn’t do B2B sales any favors either when it comes to women in sales. Most “sales” courses and degrees focus more on business administration, marketing, sales analytics, macroeconomics, and human resource management rather than classes that teach relationship building or creating cooperative negotiations instead of competitive ones.
Why More Women Should be in Sales
What makes a great salesperson?
The ability to see the big picture with cause-and-effect relationships
The ability to negotiate in a cooperative manner and turn competitive negotiations into cooperative ones
The ability to combine empathy and authority with the right amounts of each
The ability to communicate simple, relevant messages focused on solving other’s needs
The ability to leverage relationships and resources to uncover opportunities
The drive to study one’s craft, stay abreast of market trends, and always be learning
Sure, there are more, but this list is a good start. If you’re a woman or have ever worked with a woman, how many of those items do you/they oftentimes excel at? I can think of many women who are naturally better than me at many of the items on that list. And doing what you’re good at not only fulfills you, but in sales, it can create an exciting and lucrative lifestyle for you and your family.
Sales isn’t about closing and being “The Wolf.” Good B2B sales are about connecting with other people, identifying their problems, and being relentless in your pursuit to help them resolve those problems - even when they don’t know you have the solution yet. How many women could be passionate about that and successful? How many women could improve their financial livelihoods and the financial landscape of multiple businesses? How many top-performing saleswomen are we missing out on every day?
Sales Management
The statistics are in and have been for quite some time. Over half of Americans want to be led by a female leader. In fact, 71% of both men and women feel that having a woman in a leadership position makes them believe that they too can achieve a leadership position. America needs more women in sales leadership.
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How Do We Help More Women Get Into B2B Sales?
We are missing out on some of the best salespeople every year, and it’s not just women, but men too. The answer to this doesn’t only apply to women. Although not a conclusive list, this is a good start to impact the inclusion of women and others in B2B sales.
Advocate
Everyone in sales must work to change the narrative away from the “The Wolf” image. This is an outdated, archaic image of sales. This is simply not how B2B sales are done. B2B sales involve tact, manners, understanding, long-term relationships, and empathy. People do business with people they like and trust.
Mentor
In order to advocate the right image of sales we have to correct ineffective sales behaviors and teach new salespeople communication and other essential skills that sadly are not taught well within our education system.
Educate
Pushing for true foundational sales classes at the collegiate level is imperative to exposing more people to B2B sales. Arguably, it may create better-equipped professionals to tackle the problems of today because sales skills are oftentimes life skills. In the absence of true sales training, there are great companies like Aspireship filling in the gaps.
In Summary:
Stereotypes and education have the majority of Americans turned off by the sales profession
Many women have the skills that would make them top salespeople and would thrive in sales roles
Sales leadership has a huge deficiency in women representation, yet over half of men and women want a woman leader
In order to include more women in sales, it will take everyone advocating, mentoring, and educating others to change the “Wolf” narrative
Here’s who I recommend for career coaching.