Controversial thread: Female salespeople - do you aim for Male decision makers ????

Ok, i will say it


i do better with male stake holders, i know this, I'm aware of this, and I strategically do it.


there , i said it.


it's how human nature is though


Disclaimer - I'm an SDR i mean on email/cold call


i convert more males than females.


Males- stakeholder - ask your self - do you subconsciously give women more time of day than men?


let's argue



๐Ÿ”Ž Prospecting
๐Ÿ‘‘ Sales Strategy
๐Ÿ’Œ Cold Emailing
23
GetAHobby
Arsonist
32
RVP Sales
For what its worth, I created a email account with a female alias to prospect and schedule meetings, the hit rate of responses is at least double to the rest of the male counterparts.ย 
Soiboi
Politicker
5
Account Executive, EIAS/Compliance
*thinking noises*ย 
CaneWolf
Politicker
4
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
I know a guy who set up his entire outbound operation to do this. The results were staggering.
AE2SC
Good Citizen
1
Solutions Consultant
That's clever, not surprised at all!
fred
Valued Contributor
0
salesperson
no way!!! that's amazing i am a big fan of this haahah
Salespreuner
Big Shot
0
Regional Sales Director
Whoops! Amazing
ATLSalesQueen
Contributor
7
Sales Consultant
Honestly no. Iโ€™m in a very old school male dominated industry and I feel as though the women really do try to stick together and have each otherโ€™s back. We each respect each otherโ€™s hustle. I struggle with the men sometimes because Iโ€™m not able to go out and hit the golf balls with them or keep up with sports the same way.ย 
sahil
Notable Contributor
0
Deepak Chopra of Sales
Great point my friendย 
Captain_Q
Arsonist
7
Sr. Account Executive
As a male, I absolutely love it when the DM is a woman in their 40 or 50s....for some reason they just LOVE me.....easy peasy.ย ย 

Should be no different for women.ย  ย 

Sales is a savage sport, whatever it takes!


ThatannoyingSDR
Opinionated
0
Enterprise SDR
This is a really interesting idea! I currently sell to IT so I don't get many women DMs (which is a problem...) but I'm looking forard to trying this out in the future
Salespreuner
Big Shot
0
Regional Sales Director
Your end line - 100% true. Whatever it takes๐Ÿ˜Ž๐Ÿ‘
RosyC
Executive
6
Principal Account Manager
It depends on the nature of the business relationship for me. For longer term relationships I actually find it easier to build loyalty with women, thereโ€™s a camaraderie ย there, they value the emotional labour your put in. With men, itโ€™s much easier with short turnaround deals, itโ€™s more business focused/get it done. But the best business relationships Iโ€™ve had that have brought my career the most value have been with women. ย 
SalesGal
Politicker
0
Account Executive
Agreed !ย 
CadenceCombat
Tycoon
5
Account Executive
My philosophy is donโ€™t be shy to use every advantage at your disposal. If you feel you have more success working with male stakeholders as a woman, more power to you.
fred
Valued Contributor
4
salesperson
@GeneralCorpย can you guys please remove my name and my picture from this on LinkedIn...a prospect as just sent me it -asking if it is me - which it is....talking about how I gun for males, not females - I am seriously not happy you could have took my fucking name and picture off i have been''ERICA'D'' by YOU GUYS!ย  - I thought this was a place for authetnic conversation with peers that your prospects will necer see - gues it is the oppoisite - im so so angry its unrealย 
Tanmocha_
Contributor
3
Senior Account Executive
I honestly think It depends on the demographic of where Iโ€™m calling. For me personally, women tend to be fairly rude to me when I call in the West Coast. But women in the East Coast or down south, LOVE me.ย 
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
๐ŸฆŠ
Southerners are kind in general.
LordBusiness
Politicker
0
Chief Revenue Officer
I second this, but urgency is tough!ย 
CaneWolf
Politicker
3
Call me what you want, just sign the damn contract
To your face....

Edit: To be clear, I'm from the South.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
1
๐ŸฆŠ
Awe bless it.... ๐Ÿ˜
Incognito
WR Officer
3
Master of Disaster
Nope.ย 

Depends what youโ€™re selling though .....
funcoupons
WR Officer
3
๐Ÿ‘‘
I feel I get equal success with male and female DMs. I will say that I've never been sworn at or rudely hung up on by a man I've cold called, while my male colleagues can't say the same. I think most men would feel really uncomfortable telling a woman to fuck off, so they at least humor me.
MightySteelLeg
Arsonist
2
account executive
I know some female SDRs who have some serious LinkedIn game
ThatannoyingSDR
Opinionated
0
Enterprise SDR
Fully agree! The best SDRs on my LinkedIn feed tend to be women
avatarsarehardtothinkof
Contributor
2
Enterprise Account Executive
I do find it annoying when people will attribute a female's success at PG purely to their gender. What if they're just doing greater volume or higher quality messaging which could also be an influencing factor?ย 

If males CXOs & decision makers are taking hour long meetings from females because of the fact their female and nothing else... then that says a lot about the state of the world they're still having to operate in...

For what it's worth I ran a commercial sales team with males & females and no noticeable difference in bookings (90% via cold calls).

I think when it comes to cold calls it's down to your finesse in objection handling and quickly delivering value, and less about your gender. If anything, I've seen female reps have to adjust more so they don't sound "too girly/youthful" so as to avoid hang ups.

Personally don't imagine gender plays a significant role in email outreach.ย  It's probably LI connects where it creates the biggest divide due to display pictures and ability to put faces to names.
mentionitall
2
Regional Sales Manager
Haha I wish I had the option to specifically target female stakeholders! There arenโ€™t enough out there in my industry. I have an equal success rate male/female conversion. That being said, I do find that it takes a bit longer to build credibility with some of my male prospects, since they may initially feel they canโ€™t shoot the shit with me, go golfing/strip club. That changes quickly.ย 
LordBusiness
Politicker
1
Chief Revenue Officer
I donโ€™t think there is anything wrong with targeting buyer personas you know will convert at a higher clip. ย 
salesninja
Opinionated
1
VP
I give women more attention, but it's never reciprocated.ย ย 
Anyway, I don't care if it's male / female...just want to help and make some $$$$
AE2SC
Good Citizen
1
Solutions Consultant
I think from a perspective a little more engaged with the sales cycle could go either way. There were phrases my old manager could get away with because she was female so her tone, inflection, and pitch helped pull it off, and when I tried it just sounded weird. The females I've worked with have been able to commiserate better with female clients too where I've had more success with male targets.ย 
WenWest15
Valued Contributor
1
Principal Business Development Manager
Nope. But I do have more male clients just due to the nature of the industry. Probably a 60/40 split.ย 
sahil
Notable Contributor
1
Deepak Chopra of Sales
Please refer to me as Sahila from now on.
wahmsales
WR Officer
1
SDR
I'm a woman and I feel more comfortable talking to men. I feel like I can joke around with them more than I could with a woman.
MajorB
WR Lieutenant
0
AE
What industry / persona do you sell into?
fred
Valued Contributor
0
salesperson
Markingย 
fred
Valued Contributor
0
salesperson
sorry - dyslexic - Marketingย 

MajorB
WR Lieutenant
2
AE
Hmm. Trying to find some data on the number of women who hold leadership roles in marketing.ย 

Quick google search says itโ€™s on the up and up @ 45%, but the year before was hovering just below 30%.ย 

my thoughts: I back away from sweeping gestures at women being more difficult to schedule time with than men. Both men and women reject my outreach. Both men and women also take me up on it.ย 

The challenge is that there are far more men in decision making roles - so, statistically, the sample size is greater and thereโ€™s a higher chance of booking men.ย 

the narrative that women are harder for other women to book /might/ be a false positive, especially if youโ€™ve made up your mind to actively focus on men over women because you believe youโ€™ll get better results.ย 

Iโ€™d like to see real stats - both on number of men and women put into sequence and conversion rates (if you can get a big enough samples size of women in your sequence pool).
allbusiness
WR Officer
0
Senior Technical Business Analyst
Thank you, precisely.
Chep
WR Officer
0
Bitcoin Adoption Specialist
Love the candidness
deviantzen
WR Lieutenant
0
Consultant
As a non-white person you can bet that I do better with people who look like me.

I've also frequently used-anglo sounding names in the past, even making up fake email aliases.
LTYale
0
Public Sector Business Development
It is what it is... Every good sales person has to eventually face fixing a weak point in their process/strategy. SDR/AE that is best at value based selling and reaching the right people at the right time is the most important issue. Eventually - ALL of us will catch a lucky break/miss an opportunity one way or another...
12dip12
Fire Starter
0
Account Executive, SMB
When I was a BDR, I made a point to almost never go after female prospects. Why? They were almost always extremely rude and not wiling to provide any intel.ย 

The few women that I did connect with were usually previous users of our product and a bit more willing to engage.ย 

I was always amazed when my male counterparts could book a meeting with a woman or engage in a somewhat lengthy connect call.ย 

To be honest, I can't really think of a time I was ever cursed at via cold call (by a man). A few semi-rude email responses but nothing overly aggressive especially compared to the guys on my team.

About halfway through my BDR career I copied a female AE and decided to include my LinkedIn photo on my email signature. I'm sure that garnered me a few extra responses ha

I will say I was definitely more casual with my outreach, would sometimes add emojis and would joke around with prospects. I had my male counterparts telling me they could never do that or had tried and it just didn't land or sounded a bit off.ย 

For context, I was a top performing BDR (selling to engineers and IT) on my team month over month and lots of my first touch emails would turn into a meeting. I guess what I'm saying is it sometimes pays to be a female ;)ย 
TakeNoPrisoners
0
VP Sales
It is inevitable.ย  That you are aware of it means you can use it as a very effective weapon and huge advantage.
kastrul
0
CEO/Sales Manager
I am a female and used to work for a company where my main clients were men 20+ years of my age and with big wallets. That stats came out after making an analysis. My "office" was a public space where I was approaching men and women but still I attracted mostly men and thanks to that my comm was $$$.ย 

By now I know which people I connect with the best and I'd rather approach them, serve them and make the most out of it. Not stress out and cry at the end of every quarter why I haven't hit my quota.ย 
Irishman
Catalyst
0
Business Consultant
Use what you can. My accent gets me in the door in some cases
BCD
Politicker
0
BDR
Iโ€™ll target a male DM before I target a female DM. Huge generalization here, but reason being is that (I feel) women typically are always on the defense and donโ€™t want to feel like theyโ€™re being โ€œsoldโ€ somethingย 
SalesSage
Valued Contributor
0
National Account Manager
I am curious if the industry really matters for this to be an issue.ย ย 
TakeNoPrisoners
-1
VP Sales
Notice, most every man agrees.ย  And on this site, most every women too.ย  The type of women that would take umbrage at your post would never get past Bravado's opening video.ย  The alphahood would be too offending for them to sign up.
7

AEโ€™s - Try your best to identify all the โ€˜key decision makersโ€™ early in the process. You might feel that itโ€™s necessary to wait or to be delicate in how you ask for other peopleโ€™s involvement โ€“ but donโ€™t

Advice
10
5

Male ๐Ÿ‘จ Female ๐Ÿ‘ฉ or other ๐Ÿฌ ? (POPULATION POLL)๐Ÿ—ณ

Question
6
What are you?
11% Other ๐Ÿฌ
20% Female ๐Ÿ‘ฉ
68% Male ๐Ÿ‘จ
44 people voted
10

Getting extensions to Decision Makers

Advice
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