Know-How Exchange : Customer Behavior

back when I was in business as a freelance business development person, I would generally avoid female clients. Generally speaking, they were much more picky, they were less willing to let me do the work in my own way, they always seem to know several other women who would do the work cheaper than me, they were frequently not the final decision-maker, and since I was just one guy with limited competition, I focused on male clients. Maybe that's not the politically correct answer, but it worked for me.

I would not agree with that. One problem businesses have is not giving enough information. If women are fickle, it's because you left out important information necessary to make a right decision.

If I need price and benefits, a woman might need price, benefits and "social perception".

Michael

I've had great clients of both genders, and I haven't been able to discern any consistent differences in behavior or attitude based on gender.

I do notice that female executives are generally more open to new thinking and trust their intuition more, but that's probably true of most females ... whether they're business executives or not. (And there are some good biological, psychological, and neurological reasons. There's also a culture thing in the United States and Canada that would reinforce that.)

Fickle or indecisive? Not so much.

Actually, I find women clients easier to do business with.

My experience lies in the wholesale distribution world where women have made a lot of gains in the past 15-20 years. The women in leadership positions typically outperformed their counterparts. They often have better attention to detail and base more decisions on data than emotion.

Just an observation.

I have over regular 1,000 female customers who are also in college.

They're awesome.

My 5 female sales reps take great care of them...and their checks cash.

If you're asking a question like that, you are not really into your market like you should be if you want to really sell to it. If that's the case, build a culture of people who are...

I'll take 100 "fickle, indecisive female customers" before I take 10 unprepared, ambivalent male customers, even if the guys were spending 10X more. Most of the time their checks do NOT cash.

Women are awesome, and they control most of the money in the world...

To really get into their "lizard brain" , read this article:https://www.tlgonline.com/sharon/articles/8.asp

hi everyone,

I think it depends on the level of where the woman is and if she is the decision maker - I think men are worst at making decision sometimes they get side tracked and don't ask for everything they need till after the deal is done. As for sales staff I think someone that posted that women take more time to learn the product that is correct... I hope this helps.

Monica

after reflecting on my response above... please do not infer that I feel women make poor managers. I believe that many women are excellent managers, I just do not like to be managed. my business model was to operate with minimal supervision and limited collaboration with client companies. I agree with the above comments that women often want more detail and more information (and possibly more control), and while those tendencies can be helpful in highly desirable in many situations,my business focused maximum time and attention on contact with prospects, with limited time available for collaboration with clients, reporting, meetings, and so forth.

There is a recent book that you might find useful if you really want to pursue this topic. The title is:

How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer. (Here's a link: https://bit.ly/8YNxKp )

In a nutshell, it says that some decisions are best made by a careful analysis of the pros and cons, costs and benefits -- a logical approach -- and some decisions are best made by "gut feel."

Since there is a lot of evidence that women are generally more comfortable (than men are) with "gut feel," and they are equally comfortable with the logical approach, it stands to reason that overall women are probably better decision-makers than men.

If they appear indecisive, it may well be because our cultural norms have imposed a "careful consideration" expectation on decisions that women know can be handled very quickly by trusting their intuition. Men have discounted that way of knowing for years and still often find it annoying when women rely so heavily on their intuition.

What a poison chalice of a question, so before Juliet flies down to SE England with a hit squad, I’ll give you my views.

It is a question of the unanswerable variety without incurring guilt and wrath.

“Answer yes or no, “Have you stopped beating your wife yet?””

If I say no because almost all female clients are great and female colleagues shine I’m accuse of weasel words which we have seen used over any matter of discrimination. “I’m not racist / homophobic / anti-Semitic / a snob etc – look, many of my friends are black / gay / Jewish / Oiks

If I say yes, I alienate 52% of the clients, friends, staff and family I like
If I say no I alienate the Rugby Club, members of Whites of St James’ and the entire city (Male and female)

Do I have any preferences? Well it depends who I am. As a headhunter’s skull-finder, women candidates are brilliant. In a given post they tend to be over achieving and underpaid. That makes them easy to move and really good value for the client.

As an employer, as long as I navigate the minefield of sexual discrimination they tend to shine for less money in their last job – yes there is a divide out there. They won’t get a lesser income for being female from me

As their client or prospect, they win – Beauty, Beast or Vampire I am at a disadvantage. A business equal will have an advantage over me – I don’t know why, I’m not in awe and I don’t want to go to bed with them.

At the risk of alienating everyone try this – Go onto FaceBook or LinkedIn and look at a random 30 male business people by their postings and their info. Then do the same for a random 30 of female business people. Objectively total the people who you subjectively think are vain gits of both sexes and represent it as a bar chart.

Embarrassing isn’t it – guys!



Steve Alker
Xspirt