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August 01, 2007 at 08:00 PM
“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.”
- Ronald E. Osborn
For some of us, selling in the female market is an area of growth that we have not consistently tried to master. The question always seems to be, “Why haven’t we been successful and why should we even try?”
Most of us know that the major companies in our business have diversity market initiatives and most of them are specific in including women in that separate diversity market. Is this a new thing? No. I’ve worked in this industry for almost 30 years and the first thing I learned in training was that the female market is untapped. However, the statistics and the focus on women as consumers has definitely changed over that 30-year period.
According to LIMRA and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of women in the labor force has just about doubled over the last 50 years. Women influence a vast majority of financial decisions and control almost half the wealth in the U.S. Women are also growing faster as new business owners in the U.S. than men. Approximately 80 percent of women will live an average of 20 years alone, controlling their own finances, as a result of either widowhood or divorce. All of these facts substantiate the “why” of being a part of this growing and unending market. But simple marketing – giving a woman a brochure or sending her a letter – is not the answer. Learning to effectively sell to women will make your reward happen.
