Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [5]
Have you ever worn a sexy outfit to a business function and then felt offended that no one was taking you seriously, or worse yet, asking you out on dates rather than listening to your business ideas?
Mars vs. Venus
Dr. John Gray summed it up for all of us when he wrote his famous book, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. But business networking is just business networking, so it should be pretty straightforward, right? If we all have been reading the latest books on relating between the sexes and partaking in the most current networking training, then we should all be on the same page, right? You’d think so, but nothing could be farther from the truth. After working for years with businesspeople all over the world, it is clear that though they all want similar outcomes, their methods and communication styles are very different, which can cause endless problems and lost capital.
It really doesn’t matter if you’re “just” an employee with a secure job or a business owner looking to build up your empire. Knowing how to relate to both sexes will allow you to build a diverse network that can ultimately help connect you when you are looking for a new job, or connect your existing business to better products, skilled people, or more referred prospects. The best insurance you can take out on both personal and professional future is to network before you actually need anything. Think of the act of networking as building a huge, detailed net over time that will catch all kinds of great treasures, including you, if you fall.
BUSINESS–BUILDING MANTRA
Build your network before you need it and your “net” will “work” for you.
Now let’s get started! There’s a lot to learn.
CHAPTER 1
The Exception Becomes the Perception
The Survey Says . . .
Everyone Wants to Get Along
The realm of business today is global, not just local or national. When we set out to discover what people thought about business networking, we focused on businesspeople, but in a broad cross-section of the world. Over a three-year period, more than 12,000 businesspeople from every populated continent in the world participated in a survey about gender and business networking, the most comprehensive survey of its kind ever conducted. The survey was split almost evenly between men and women (50.2 percent men and 49.8 percent women). In their answers to the objective questions, men and women were not light years apart, as might have been expected. They mostly agreed, often quite closely, on the practices, values, and experiences of networking. The differences were oftentimes small, although statistically significant. No controversy there.
Then came a little surprise.
The final question on the survey was an open-ended one:
Do you have any story about networking between men and women that you would like to submit for possible use in the book? If so, please describe.
Nearly 1,000 participants responded. And what stories!
When given the opportunity to say something personal about their networking experiences, 545 women and 403 men revealed strikingly different perceptions. Despite their fairly close agreement on the objective questions, male and female businesspeople seemed to live in two different worlds. Many of the women wrote of feeling undervalued, intimidated, ignored, overshadowed, or patronized. Others told of sexual harassment, as shown here:
I sometimes feel as a woman it is hard to be taken seriously by some of the businessmen.
As a young marketer, any time I approached a member of the opposite sex, even when dressed conservatively and speaking only about business, they thought I was interested in dating. I didn’t get too far with business.
One of the first “gentlemen” I met said, “Sorry, I didn’t catch your name, I was too busy staring at your breasts.”
Some men had negative things to say about the women they met and worked with, shown in the comments below:
I can recall a particular woman that