Wingtips for Women: Success Without Compromise

As we outlined the book, we soon came to the question of whom to interview. That led us straight back to one of the earliest secrets of the sales trade. Networking is not new to the last decade. The tools may be different, but successful sales people, male or female, have naturally done networking for millennia. Sure, it may go by different names, but whether you call it networking, social networking, netweaving (http://netweaving.com/heartOfNetweaving.html), connecting with people is an integral part of sales. After all, you need to get in front of people (literally or figuratively, physically or electronically) in order to sell your product or service.

So that is what we did. We reached out to our network of executives and within a few days, we had found and contacted most of the women we ended up including in the book. The simple act of asking friends and colleagues to help us identify women at the top of the corporate sales ladder was a great reminder that it is often who you know and not just what you know. At first, I thought women might respond out of ego to our request for an interview. But it was quickly evident from their responses to our questions that they were serious about sharing their hard won experiences with men and women just starting out on the sales career journey. And I do mean ‘men and women’ because most of these women never distinguished between men and women unless we asked the pointed question. That, in itself, is a key learning. These women know they are different from many of their colleagues, but they do not see that first and foremost. They see successful sales people, some of whom are women and some of whom are men. They treat everyone equally and expect others to do the same. That is not to say there can be different issues as a woman in sales, but those differences are to be embraced and not carried around as heavy chips on one’s shoulders.

But back to networking! Even at the highest rungs of the ladder, busy women responded to the requests of those who knew them and made a simple request for an interview with me, a complete stranger. They say we are separated by 6 degrees, but I don’t think it was more than 3 degrees of separation for any of the women in our book.

The power of networking is in the give and the take. If you are out there collecting emails or cards without giving value to your new contacts, you aren’t networking. You are collecting. And when the time comes to find your top 20 influential contacts, they won’t be there for you. So start networking now. Give first and they will be there for you when you need help.

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