Yesterday it was a proud time to present ideas about ways to diversify your sales team to gain ROI at the biggest technology conference in the world, Dreamforce. Those on my handpicked panel are all successful sales executives and in two different sessions, we shared ideas that work to grow revenues by harnessing inclusion to build a greater sales team than you currently have.
To get the PDF of our 18 Ways to Diversity Your Sales Team and Grow ROI please download here
In the First Panel Session, some of the things we discussed were:
- the power of sponsorship versus mentorship
- how women tend to take a more critical look at themselves so don’t always raise their hand even though they are qualified for a bigger role
- job descriptions for sales roles often have a male bias with words like “competitive” and “closer”
- women like companies where they can see other women in executive roles – they can see themselves moving up in that company
After the first panel was over, an attendee came up to a couple of us and asked this question:
“Why is it that in 2016 we need this topic? Why hasn’t this changed yet?”
I agreed with him and told him that I hope I don’t feel the need or am encouraged by others to moderate these panels any more in a couple of years, but the statistics don’t bode well.
DiscoverOrg just released data from a data set of 31,000 people in sales roles in the U.S. The companies large and small shared a similar trend about women in sales:
- Individual sales contributors were 30% women
- Mid-level managers in sales were 26.3% women
- Senior level / executive sales leaders were just 12.6% women
We NEED more women in sales roles, especially leadership.
Is your company working on this?
You can get the entire DiscoverOrg study here.
Watch for more topics on diversity in sales here. For more about women in sales, sign up to get updates on WOMEN Sales Pros.
Lori Richardson helps mid-sized companies grow revenues by solving key issues in their sales department - like recruiting, retention, diversity hiring, process, pipeline and leadership. She speaks at CEO groups on topics of sales growth. Clients include companies in the technology, telecom, manufacturing, distribution, and professional services industries. Subscribe to the award-winning blog, follow her on Twitter
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