Well, the floodgates have opened and I have the title for my next book.  "Confessions of a  Closet Feminist" will be all about my denial of Feminism in the business world and the public arena in general.  As a nice girl who needed to be likable and compliant, I knew that I couldn't express my true feelings or I would be labeled "dyke,"  "bra burner" or "feminazi" as my husband likes to call them.

Now that "Sell Like A Girl" is out there, I finally feel that the time has come to express my frustrations with our man- centered world.   I love men.  I just don't think that they should be ruling the world.   Stay tuned for more on this subject.  Please email me or comment on my blog with any stories that relate to your own struggles with your inner feminist.   I want to hear from you.   Jeanne@selllikeagirl.com

Please go out and purchase Pitch Like A Girl by Ronna Lichtenberg.  It is the bible for every working women.  As a matter of fact it is a great tool for men to understand the differences in the way men and women do business.  It does not take sides, it simply elucidates the differences clearly and often with entertaining stories that will make you chuckle in recognition of our obvious differences.   In fairness I am not quite half way through this 300 page book, but I have already learned enough to warrant the $16.95 price.  I will write a real review when I am finished, but don't wait for that.  GO OUT AND BUY THIS BOOK!

You can order a copy on her website, www.askronna.com

moreinfo@clearpeakcommunications.com / email

 

Sell Like a Girl, the book is getting close to being printed.  My goal is to have it published by mid-January.  To pre-order a signed copy just send me an email at Jeanne@selllikeagirl.com with your name telephone number and email address and I will follow-up with you as soon as it is printed.

I am actively marketing it at the Ladies Who Launch Open House on Wednesday December 5,2007 at the Dizan Gallery, Water St., Worcester and will be displaying the cover art of Sell Like a Girl with order forms at the Women's Conference in Boston, on December 11, 2007.

The following are some excerpts from the book:

Chapter 1. How Women Sell...Tips from the Garden of Eden

     "Women spend their lives selling their ideas to their husbands, lovers, bosses, and especially their children.  How many of us have spent hours of our lives in the bathroom with our children waiting for that first tinkle on the potty chair so that we could dole out the first reward of applause....If you don't believe that is selling, then you have yet to discover the dynamic simplicity of sales."


Chapter 5. Keeping an Open Mind

     "Women's priorities have always been relationships--family and friends first.  Men have focused on career goals.  Women can integrate their innate priority of forging relationships with their career goals.  We can create a work environment that is like a supportive family engaged in succeeding as a team."
 

The Wall Street Journal (Nov. 21, 2007) had another interesting article entitled "Ads Made for Women, by Women".  That pretty much sums it up.  Madison Avenue has finally woken up to the fact that women make most of the buying decisions and we all know that women are the commensurate shoppers already.

A man named Jerry Judge has started a new company "Womenkind" to harness the talent of women in advertising, of which there are very few in this male dominated profession.  His idea is to use stay-at-home moms among others, as consultants on advertising geared towards women.  Its not a bad idea, but why did it take a man to come up with it?  Why aren't women thinking about their own niche marketing for themselves?

We are so busy competing with men and trying do everything the male way that we are not tapping into a huge marketing niche of women!  We need to leverage our numbers to create businesses by us and for us.  Please comment on this entry as I feel like I'm talking to myself.  Does anyone else out there see what is happening?

Fasten your seatbelts and prepare for departure.  This is a fabulous opportunity for women with an idea to bring it out for all to nurture and imagine.  This is a program sponsored by the Ladies Who Launch group(?) and is a four week intensive 'incubator' of support, ideas and encouragement by other like-minded women and led by a trained facilitator.   Our facilitator is Lynn Toomey, an artist and mother who has extensive marketing experience in the business world with start-up companies.  We meet every Tuesday night  for two hours at a cafe in Worcester and share our dreams with each other.  There are five in our group including Lynn.   We met last Tuesday for the first time and each shared our ideas and our history and our hopes for the future.  We were sent home with homework that will help advance the ideas of our sisters in the group.

I have never been in a group of women before that thought so much like me.  We were so much on the same wave length that I came home energized and completely immersed in the conviction that I will succeed, even if I am not exactly sure what it is that I will be pursuing.

Please take the time to visit www.ladieswholaunch.com and check it out.  The book is a great read as well as an empowering tool for women who are thinking about striking out on their own.  I will keep you updated on my progress in the incubator program.

After a decade of fear and loathing when is comes to assigning gender traits to how things are accomplished in the workplace, it seems the light is finally seeping through the cracks of the Great Wall of political correctness.  In other words, there is a murmur rippling, as I speak that dares to say that women and men are different.

In this morning's Wall Street Journal, Oct 7, 2007, there is an article by Erin White entitled "Deloitte Tries a Different Sales Pitch for Women".  Yes it's that Deloitte, of Deloitte & Touche USA, the renowned Accounting firm, has begun to teach it's male consultants to interact differently with women than with men. 

For example; Deloitte is training its male consultants to sit across the table from the women, instead of next to them and bringing in subordinates because women value knowing the people who do the work. I am still not sure whose subordinates the article is referring to, but the point is that consultants are being trained to feed into the way women want to do business. 

I have mixed feelings only because I don't want men to usurp women's natural proclivities and use them on her just to make a sale.  If there is a shared understanding and respect for her approach, it will be validated.  However, I think that one of the suggestions, such as returning her enthusiasm in an email with equal enthusiasm using exclamations points because she did, is a little shady.  It's called 'mirroring' in sales, but that is done in person with dress and comportment, not sitting at a keyboard plotting grammatical battle.

You know that I am a great believer in the differences of the genders, I just don't want men to come up with another pat generalization on how to sell to women using some extrapolated theory that smacks of stereotype.

Anyway, I still think that women's intuitive abilities will trump and lay bare a poser of female sensibility.

Today I met with Kate Hyland Mercer, the dynamo behind Business Concepts, Inc.  Her background is pure pedigree, but she confessed to me that she is a "serial entrepreneur".  She has the chops to help small businesses grow and be successful, since she has her own 5 successful start-up companies on her resume.

I was referred to her by Peter Caputa of WhizSpark, and really had no expectations for the meeting.  She listened to me go on about my new passion "Sell Like A Girl" and immediately asked me questions that I hadn't necessarily thought about.  What she did was make me think about what I want to achieve and how to get it.

I was so pumped by our meeting that I came home and finished editing my book!  Now, if I can let it go.....

I met with Catie Foertsch of Our Town Productions the other day and although I had seen her in passing at the Corridor Nine Chamber Breakfast meetings as she moved around the room videotaping the speakers,  I had no idea what an interesting person she is.  We hit it off immediately and it was as if we had known each other forever.
I was meeting with Catie to find out more about her new business of videotaping for the websites and blogs.  We talked for almost two hours about all kinds of stuff and discovered we are both embarking on new career journeys and experiencing much of the same challenges.
Anyway, I am now contemplating adding a podcast to my blog so that people can see what I am all about and sample a bit of my "Sell Like a Girl" philosophy.  If you have any video needs, please give her a call, you won't be disappointed.  Her email is Catie@OurTownLLC.net or phone her at 508-439-4094.

Carole Donovan of Image Boosters in North Grafton, held a wildly successful networking event called "Wine, Women and Work" on Thursday, Sept. 20th in her offices.  It was a diverse group of women including executives,  lawyers, entreprenuers, artists, a chiropractor and a scientist.  We all had a chance to tell about our ventures and it was amazing the depth of knowledge and experience represented by this group of 15 or so women.

We need to continue to come together, as men have done for centuries, and share our knowledge and experience so that we can all learn and grow from our sisters' life lessons.  There is some talk of a winter retreat and everyone has responded favorably.  I can't wait for more time with these interesting and enlightened women.  Girl Power rules!

On Tuesday I attended my first C9 sponsored seminar entitled "Leave Your Prospecting Woes at the Door".  It was a great title, if not a bit misleading. Our speaker set us straight early on in the program by stating that behavior takes a long time to change, but perhaps we could get a nugget or two from the session.

He also made it clear, by mentioning on at least two occasions, that all he requested from us was our business card with a 'yes' or 'no' (with the 'no' circled) written on the back, based on our willingness to have him follow up after the seminar regarding his sales training program.

I know that he was trying to make the point that sales professionals need to know where they stand with a prospect.  We cannot afford to waste time with disingenuous people who will never do business with us, but don't have the guts to just tell us that straight out.  I understand that.  I was just uncomfortable by the aggressive manner in which he made his point to the audience.

Having been in sales for 20 years, I have my own ideas about selling and attended just to see if there was anything new out there.  I was also curious to see how one fills three hours with prospecting tips without giving away the store.

I took away some good information.  Just not the kind of information that I had expected.  We can learn from others mistakes as well as our own.