Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [68]
This goes back to the idea that every networking scenario is an audition. Men, don’t forget that judgment in business is cumulative. One bad action may ruin the relationship for a long time, or even forever. We need to remember that we are proving ourselves every time we communicate with others.
She Says . . .
Knowing a person’s competency level was the most important characteristic for earning referrals from women. Additionally, more women than men felt that they needed to try a product or service prior to giving referrals.
Neither of my male co-authors understood why women felt the need more than men to try products before standing behind referrals. I explained that over time women have been taken advantage of by salespeople, mechanics, tradespeople, and so forth, mostly because they did not know which qualifications to choose service people with.
Here is what author John Gray, Ph.D., had to say in an interview with Dr. Misner:
She is not going to support something simply because somebody says she should. She is going to because of her own personal experience with it. She wants to personally endorse it. She wants it to come from within. By nature, women want a lot of evidence before they can embrace something.
It’s much easier for women to choose an auto repair professional based on personal references, which is almost as good as trying the product themselves. Most women do not know the technical ins and outs of a car engine the way that more men do, therefore it’s easier for a woman to get snowed at an auto repair shop, not knowing the lingo to detect lies with, etc.
Women are very good at sharing both positive and negative information about their experiences about products and services, and are happy to do so to help one another. Most companies know that if you want to generate good word-of-mouth with women, get them to try your products and services, and if they like them, they’ll happily tell everyone they know about you. They’ll also spread the word just as quickly if they’re unhappy.
In his book, She Means Business, Grant Schneider has this to say about the power of female word-of-mouth:
Salespeople, managers, advertisers, and even potential dates, beware! All the knowledge and experience in the world won’t compensate for a perceived lack of concern for your female customers’ overall satisfaction. You might be able to fool a woman once, but you will never have the chance to do it twice. However, earn her trust and you will have a customer, client, employee, or partner for life.
Before the age of social networking, online referral, and customer review sites, when a woman needed to find a doctor or dentist, she would simply find out who her friends and associates were using and what they had to say about that person.
Little has changed today. Women still storytell their experiences with products and services to other women. Women value the referrals of others so much that they even pass them secondhand, carrying along a hefty experience that happened to a friend, like this one:
I had to hire someone to come into my home and give it a good cleaning after I had a lot of remodeling and repair work done. I started asking my friends if they knew of a service that would clean the house well with earth-friendly products. Several of my friends told me secondhand stories from their friends and families, rather than relaying experiences they had actually