Original Article on BenefitsPro

It’s 4th Quarter, which means it’s also open enrollment.  We are all tired, overworked and keep saying over and over to ourselves, “Just get through it.” But then…as my friend, Allison Cohen De Paoli put it so perfectly, you get “assaulted” by yet another vendor trying to sell you during the absolute busiest time of year, and you just can’t take it anymore.  

After sharing some texts with my crew (Erika, Chelsea, Colleen & Nancy), it got me thinking that we can’t be the only ones.  This prompted me to send an email to my list of about 300 women who have been featured in the “What’s the Good News, Ladies?” series over the years and see if others had stories to share.  

Boy, did they!  In less than 48 hours, over 50 women responded back with annoying, rude and downright appalling examples of how salespeople have approached them during this time of year.  

So maybe this is a little bit of a public service announcement; maybe it’s a little eff you; or maybe it’s a little “how to sell to a woman 101.” Because people, you are missing it, and you are missing it big! You know why?  I’m dropping some knowledge on you right here in case you didn’t know: According to American Express and the SBA, over 42% of businesses in the U.S. are owned by women and women make up over 51% of the U.S. population!  And according to Forbes, 85% of women control or influence consumer spending.  That means there are over 330 MILLION women who will sing your praises if you get it right, but they will run the bus right over you, hit reverse and do it again if you get it wrong.  We will screenshot your email, text, LinkedIn DM or forward the voicemail to each other and we will remember to avoid you and your company’s services at all costs, because what’s the rule you should never forget?

Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned.  

Buckle up and take note, because you are getting a golden list that is the compilation of many uber successful women in our industry, including award winners, top producers, business owners and badasses.  If you are in sales, print this out and put it where you can see it and then never do these things.  

1. The Gift Givers:  Not the ones who are sending you a thank you for the business; we mean the ones who are trying to bribe you for a meeting.  Gift cards and even shoes were offered to some of these women.  What’s wrong with this?  It can be looked at as rebating in some states and if you are a vendor with a license, you can lose it. And just as importantly, you make us feel gross.
2. Bate and Switch – Recruiting:  More than one woman emailed and said she had recruiters pose as a potential client. The meeting is booked, but once on the call, they realized it was a recruiter trying to hire them away.  Do you really think someone worth their salt is going to come work for you when you have basically lied your way into a meeting and showed your ethical character?  
3.  Bate and Switch – “I’m Interested in Your Services”:  I’ve heard a few people bring this one up: Someone reaches out to you via email or social media, saying they’re interested in your services, so you set up a meeting.  But once you get on the meeting, they have a full PowerPoint presentation on selling THEIR services.  So not only did the vendor waste the person’s time as they prepared for what they thought was their own prospect meeting, they completely disrespected them by pushing the vendor’s agenda over theirs.  
4. Beauty and the Beast:  I know you have all gotten this one, if you take a second to think about it.  A breath of fresh air enters your inbox: finally, a well thought out email or message from someone that has done their homework! You accept the connection, but five seconds later, you get a spam sales pitch message and a link to set up a meeting.  I had this happen recently and ignored it two times. By the third one, I was a little less than nice and said, “Dude, read the room. It’s open enrollment and if you really work with brokers, you’d know asking for a meeting right now is the kiss of death.”  His response was basically that OE ends in 2 weeks (is he out of his mind?) and he wants to be one of the first people I reach out to.  My response? I deleted the connection, took a screenshot and sent it to my friends, who won’t ever meet with him.  Bravo.
5. Badmouthing:  You know how your gramma always told you, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all”?  If the only way you feel that you can get business is by throwing others under the bus, are you really that good of a salesperson?  One guy basically told one of woman that she was dumb because of the software she was using!
6. Spam:  “Hi…your profile looks interesting…” Raise your hand if you get 10 of these a week.  Do you really feel like this is a differentiator?  If someone makes me laugh, I always accept, even if I have never met them.  But if it’s the same canned outreach, I delete it. And most others do, too!
7. Not Knowing Your Audience:  Man, this one came up a lot.  Salespeople basically throwing spaghetti to the wall and hoping it sticks, but missing the mark because they didn’t take any time to really look at who you are as a professional.  The sad thing with this one is, that they probably could have gotten a meeting if they did a little homework.  
8. Lying:  I have to give a big shout out to the sales training I got from Paychex (I know my girl Rachel McLauchlin will echo this) as I really feel like it was some of the best.  Two things I always remember:  1.  If you sell on price, you’ll lose on price. 2.  Never lie. One example I got of this was someone basically swiping a mutual connections LinkedIn list and pretending that the mutual connection recommended that they connect.  When she called the mutual connection to see what was up, she discovered the deception and said, “I will not do business with him now.”  So, this guy not only burned one bridge, he burned two, along with all the other people they will tell!  (Gas up the bus, girls!)
9. Did you Get My Email?:  This one came up like 10 times. It can also be worded as “Let me bump this up to the top.” Most don’t get the hint that you didn’t respond for a reason and so keep on sending.  Or they get a read receipt when you open the email, so then they have someone else who is supposed to be higher up in the firm reach out to you and say they know “you’ve been talking with their colleague.” So many of these do not have an “unsubscribe” feature, so you just end up blocking them.  
10. The Unapproved Meeting Request:  Nothing grates on me more, and  this was brought up by over half of the women who responded.  If you are doing this, stop.  Just stop.  I don’t know who taught you this, but it’s wrong.  It’s intrusive.  It conveys that you think their time and schedule should be controlled by you.  It’s dishonest.  Think of the other person.  Would you be thrilled if someone you had never met walked into your house, sat down at your dinner table and said, “Oh, is now a bad time?” I generally have a “three strikes and you’re out” rule, but this one is an immediate banishment in my book. I will never take a meeting from them and everyone I have talked to has similar feelings.  Especially this time of year, we are all tired and overworked.   When a funny meeting appears on our schedule that we don’t know anything about and we respond to the sender to get a little more information and find out it’s a sales pitch,, queue explosion.  Hell, hath no fury….

If you couldn’t tell, I had a lot of time writing this and I hope you had fun reading it.  I know we are all running on empty right now, so hopefully this gave you a little reprieve from the stress we all have this time of year.  Maybe you got a little insight into how to sell to a woman and realized you might be doing some of these things in one way or another.  Or maybe you just nodded your head throughout because you felt a connection to others in our industry.  My hope is that it gave you a few laughs, headshakes and maybe a face palm, too.  

I’d be remiss if I didn’t thank those who helped with this article; the emails that came in were just so much fun to read!  Hang in there, ladies, and if you need a bus driver, I got you!