Brad Huisken

Cross Gender Selling!

I would guess that you don’t need me to tell you that men and women are different. However, they are! Women and men buy for different reasons, shop differently and thus need to be treated differently during a sales presentation. Just for example, I know that the only time a man will go shopping for a new suit is when they have a special event happening within 48 hours or they blew the seat out of the suit pants that they already have. On the other hand a women may go shopping for clothing at any time. I know these are generalizations, but for the most part they are true.

When a man is making a sales presentation to women, the women may not be completely honest with the man. The same is true when a woman is making a sales presentation to a man. Should the women be a career women, who is a single mother, raising her children and supporting the household, what is the likelihood that she is going to tell a man that she can’t afford a particular item? The chance is pretty slim. Where in this example she may be more likely to tell a woman that she can’t afford the item. The same is true when a woman is making a sales presentation to a man. Should the man have an ego, and some do, the likelihood of the man telling a women that she is demonstrating a product way out of his price range is rare.

When these situations occur the man or women will probably just say to the other gender that; “they need to look around, this is the first place shopped, or that they will be back.” When in reality the true objection was to the price. I have previously said that when a customer gives an objection, 60% of the time the objection is not true. I believe that in a cross gender situation as much as 75% of the 60% the true objection has something to do with the price.

Therefore the answer is to handle the price objection as discussed in previous sales insights or turn the sale over to someone of the same gender. Men and Women are different!
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Posted by Brad Huisken on June 19, 2009 | Comments (0)