It’s a Man’s World, Too For years, selling has been a man’s game, and men have been successful at it — obviously they’re doing something right. It’s not really a matter of one gender being better than another. To look at traditional female characteristics means you have to appreciate the same in males. So it’s often a pairing of characteristics that creates the best sales team. Fisher’s husband goes with her on sales calls. “He’s strong on structural aspects. He thinks in contractor terms — ‘What if I take out this wall?’ Clients trust him, and he sells to them from his point of view.”
Men, in particular, may feel more comfortable with another man talking bricks and mortar. “The likelihood that women have a background in structural issues is lower,” says Tom Kelly whose firm, Neil Kelly Designers/Remodelers in Portland, Ore., has 18 salespeople in its design/build division — 13 of them women. “Women on our staff are more inclined to emphasize design as part of their expertise.” But, he adds that a lot of the women on the sales staff sell projects with major structural components. “So the team works together.”
It’s the same for Dave Bryan of Blackdog Design/Build Remodel in Salem, N.H.. “On the construction side of things [the women on his sales staff] are less sure of themselves.” After several years in the business, though, women become more familiar with the structural aspects and can sell that too. But they have to prove their knowledge to do it well.
Peggy Fisher is a certified remodeler and kitchen designer and allied member of the American Society of Interior Designers; she has studied construction and building. When a male client hears her say “There needs to be ducting in there for the HVAC,” and they know she has studied the lighting and electrical, his trust is raised. “A lot of men naturally assume that if you’re a guy you must know [these things]. When they see that as a woman I have an understanding, they have greater trust.”
“A lot of couples will take the day off for the first day of demolition,” says Tisha Kuntz, who owns Verdugo Hills Interiors in Burbank, Calif. As a sole practitioner, she’s involved in every aspect of the process. “Once [the husband] sees me pick up a 20-pound sledgehammer, or sees me step on a ladder, grab a level, and off we go with the cabinets, it’s amazing the respect I get.”
Fry says only twice has she been unable to overcome men’s prejudice, but she says she’s not offended. “I run 400 to 500 appointments a year,” so it’s not a bad track record. “I learned that product knowledge would help me overcome the prejudice.” Last summer, Fry, who is 56, did her own “wood-rip double hung” job so she could go into anyone’s home and be able to install a window. “When I’m in a home telling people about windows, I’m very believable.”
Double Duty As in many male-dominated fields, women often work twice as hard to prove themselves. Rick Grosso, who has been conducting sales seminars and training since 1987, doesn’t think men and women have a different sales style, but he does think that they are driven by different things. “When [women are] hired in this business, they’re hired against the odds. They come in more determined and focused with a greater sense of purpose.”
Michael Stone, a business consultant for the construction industry and author of Mark-Up and Profit, says women work harder than men. “They pay closer attention in sales seminars and study harder. They write better contracts, have fewer cancellations, fewer problems on the job because they deal with the details of the job better than guys do.”
Grosso agrees and believes it’s because “many of the men are trying [sales] out before they get a ‘real’ job. Women take what they’re doing very seriously. They’re out there to prove they can do something.”
Bryan, of Blackdog, sees this in practice; four out of his seven salespeople are women. The women on his sales staff, he says, are “more careful in their proposals. The women’s binders are, generally speaking, more detailed than the men’s.”
Despite women’s innate skills, few owners would send an employee on a sales call based on gender. Ben White, of Chicago’s Benvenuti and Stein, says he pairs designers/ salespeople with clients based on the client’s emotional makeup, the scope of work, and the designer’s skill level. “It comes down to finding a personality that fits; [gender] is not one of the factors that crosses my mind.”
Perhaps good selling technique is just a matter of personal style, and to talk in gender generalities is not forward-thinking. But when Fry started out six years ago, she says she learned sales by going on calls with a male colleague. She copied everything he did and was, in her words, a miserable failure. “Once I overcame the reality of trying to mirror him word for word, movement for movement,” she says, “things snowballed. I just got better and better.”
In the end, though many women may have sales talent, they’re not beating down the doors to enter the field. As Grosso says, although he’s seeing more women in sales, “from zero to 1% or 2% is not a huge change.”
Perhaps it’s fear — from both sides. Fry says she still faces teasing from male coworkers. Many male owners may not want to take a chance on hiring women they feel don’t know enough about the construction side. But, says Kelly, whose firm has had women on its sales force since the 1970s, “there are [fewer instances] today where male clients can’t believe women can have the skills and abilities to put together a remodeling project. That can be overcome pretty quickly by demonstrating ability. In some cases, we’ve probably lost a little business, but in the end we’ve gained a hell of a lot.”