Why Smart Women Struggle With Sales
This doesn't need to be a manifesto, so I'll be direct and to the point. After years of working with brilliant, ambitious, change-making female founders I've made the following observation:
Smart women have a tendency to overcomplicate sales.
This might be one of the few situations (save dating, but we'll leave that for another discussion) that can become MORE DIFFICULT the smarter you are. Here are 3 ways smart women over complicate sales and what to do about it:
1. They overthink it.
Many women founders generally dislike selling. They spend a lot of time worrying about seeming pushy, or desperate, or how their prospects will feel if they catch wind that they are being sold to. Selling doesn't seem respectable and is a departure from the skillset they've worked so hard to amass. But selling IS a skill - one of the most important skills any entrepreneur can have - and figuring out how to do it well is a priority. It doesn't need to be complicated.
2. They employ clever content marketing strategies that neglect last mile delivery.
Companies that use content marketing strategy for lead generation know that one of the best ways to attract high quality qualified leads is through sharing insightful, informative and helpful content. What most marketing strategies fail to emphasize is last mile delivery - they'll have the obligatory CTAs but sometimes that isn't enough of a nudge. If you are spending time and energy on content marketing but aren't seeing the results you want I encourage you to reframe how you think about your content. Who's consuming your content? What does that say about them? Are they interacting with it? Are there opportunities to engage with these leads to open up the room for a sales conversation? This type of targeted direct outreach doesn't need to be complicated, it just needs to be genuine. Lead with a genuine compliment and curiosity and see where it takes you.
3.Convenient lies masquerading as beliefs or facts
Successful women founders are smart and influential - they're so good at influence they've convinced themselves of seemingly innocuous white lies that are absolutely detrimental to their sales life. Here are some examples:
I don't want to seem pushy
Then don't be. Release the notion that sales is pushy. The more you believe to sell is to push the more you won't do it!
My prospects buy when they are ready, so any prompts are an infringement on their autonomy
Nice try :) One thing I know to be true is feeling ready and being ready are two different things. Making autonomous purchasing decisions and providing your prospects the opportunity to chat through the distinction between feeling and being ready are not mutually exclusive.
My results speak for themselves. I don't need to sell people on them.
I'm going to quote Eleanor Beaton, Founder of SAFI Media, when I say attention and dollars flow to the point of highest clarity. Testimonials and results are powerful, but prospects need and deserve context. They need to know how your expertise can support their unique situation.
Selling can be as simple or complex as you make it. How you make people feel when you sell to them is a choice, not an inevitability. My advice? Don't overthink it, identify consistent ways to employ direct outreach to your existing marketing strategies and check in with yourself each time you make a statement related to your selling process to identify whether this is indeed a fact, or a story you tell yourself to spare your feelings.
