Career Advice - Selling Styles - Men vs. Women

Learn the Differences in Selling Techniques Between Men and Women.

Advice Seeker: Dear April,

My boss insists it's not a bad thing that we have all men on our sales team at work and that men and women basically sell the same. I argue that adding women to our team would bring up sales. Not necessarily because women are better sellers, but because they use different techniques than men. He says I'm being sexist in saying that men and women sell differently. I say he's being sexist in not recognizing the differences between men and women and how our differences can compliment each other. Who's right?

Sincerely,

Selling by Gender

April Masini's advice:

Dear Selling by Gender,

Actually, you can tell your boss that YOU are right!

Men and women are VERY different; they see the world differently, and they sell differently. Men are much more goal oriented, in general, and women are much more process oriented, in general.

Given this, men are much more hard sell. They hone in on the goal a lot more quickly and aggressively than most women.

Women are a lot more soft sell because they are focused on the feelings their customer has, the experience they are both having, the feelings they, themselves, have, and the goal as a by-product of those feelings and the experience.

So, it can definitely help to have a mix of men and women at work on any sales team. Both genders bring different qualities to the selling experience and at any given time, one could work better than the other.