Don’t get me wrong.  Why She Buys is a fascinating read and it’s got me really thinking about how to apply this information in the long term for my online business.   It’s not the book.  It’s me.  I like to share my stories.  I think if I had taken the approach of sharing a few lessons I learned for this book,  I would have enjoyed this series of posts more.  Ah well… You live and you learn.  I will say I thought several times about abandoning this post and Part 3.  I chose not to because this an exercise in me finishing what I start.    I know there are areas of my life that I would have been further along in, IF I had stuck with my pursuits long enough.  Well, that’s a different post for a different day.

Today’s post (briefly) describes the final 3 gender differences discussed in Why She Buys.

Gender difference #3:  Women appreciate the little details of their experience with your product or service and will tell their friends about it.

According to Brennan, here’s how to better serve a woman in that regard:

• Don’t lead with HOW something works – lead with the practical benefits.  How can this product make my life better?
• Give her a reason to buy from you.  Can you provide any endorsements or testimonials of your product?
• Tell her a story to bring your service to life.

Gender difference #4: Women have better memories for details – pleasant and unpleasant

When you are designing or creating your service or product, consider and (if possible) ask her what is important to her and the other people that she buys for.

Gender difference #5: Women avoid conflict situations.  Men avoid emotional scenes.

This is one of the differences that I questioned.  I think (some) men may not show their emotion, but they still have them.  I think conflict causes an emotional response from just about everyone, man or woman.   Am I wrong? Don’t most people avoid conflicts?   Maybe I’m proving the author’s point by even asking this question.

Please, leave me a comment regarding any of the 5 gender differences.  I’m curious to know your thoughts.  Do you think this is a stereotypical view of the psychology behind women as consumers?

My purpose in writing this series of posts is not to really review the book, but to highlight some of what I’m learning.  Today and tomorrow’s post are just small snippets from all this book has to reveal.  The information below and in the next post is only a snapshot of one chapter from the book.

Gender Difference #1: Women and men define success differently.

Girls learn it’s important for them to learn 2 social talents: being liked and being helpful.

I can soooo relate to this.   I’ve spent so much of my life trying to please other people and manage their perceptions of me.  When I look into the lives of my girlfriends, (what they allow me to see) I see a similar thing.  We try really hard to be liked and to be helpful.   We want to be, as the author states, indispensable to our families, our employers, our churches, our friends, our children’s schools, etc.

Achievement for women is more internal and inclusive. Women find success sweeter when it benefits the people they care about, because for a woman building relationships is one of the most valuable life achievements.

What is your definition of success?  If you ask most women,  external things are not usually what drive a woman to “feel” successful.   It will usually involve her relationships.   We feel rewarded when we can serve others.

Gender difference #2:  Women connect by revealing their feelings and being vulnerable.  Men connect through activities and by NOT being vulnerable.

Think about all those hour long (or more) conversations you’ve had with your best girlfriends.   Don’t you feel so much closer to your friends after those conversations?  We bond over whatever we are thinking or experiencing in our lives in that moment.   I always feel lighter after one of those hour long yada yada sessions with one of my best friends.

When you think of a business woman who has made her living through sharing her feelings and being vulnerable, who immediately comes to mind?  Oprah, of course.   The first show I remember seeing of Oprah’s was when she shared about being raped as a child.   This left an impression on me, even as a child.  I couldn’t believe that some one on TV was willing to share such a private experience from her life, according to Brennan this is part of Oprah’s appeal.  Her willingness to share her life makes her relatable, even to women who on the surface (wives, mothers) she doesn’t have much in common with.   Women connect with Oprah, because she lets us know, despite her fame, her wealth and her wide spread influence, (ie. all the surface things)  to her underneath it all we are all the same.

How then does this information translate for those of us in the business of serving women consumers?  According to Brennan,

• Think twice before using “masculine” competitive messages in your marketing.

There was some serious outrage expressed by women regarding the Super Bowl ads this year.   Some of the ads really missed the mark on their target demographic and who they were serving.

• No matter your business, strive to make service a major differentiator.
• Leverage the word-of-mouth power that women customers have on any business.

Women talk and we really like to share when we find something we like.  There are countless things that I’ve purchased or services I’ve used because my girlfriends have told me about their good experience.  There are countless things they’ve purchased because I told them it was a good buy.  There are restaurants I won’t step foot in because a friend told me how poorly they were treated and vice versa.  Word-of-mouth carries serious weight.   The sooner we all realize this and adjust accordingly, the better.

• Invest in human help.

I can tell you one of the most irritating experiences is needing someone’s help when you are trying to make a purchasing decision and there is NO ONE to be found to help.

Empathy is an effective sales tool.

People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Validation and affirmation help women to say yes.

Affirm how your customer is feeling.  Help her justify her decision to buy from you.

Humanize your company by minimizing status differences and leveraging a sense of humor.

All State’s insurance commercials during the recession have been a brilliant example to me of this.  Even though All State is an insurance giant it has captured the heart of how many Americans feel right now.

Demonstrating appreciation is one of the simple ways to generate word-of-mouth publicity and repeat business from women.

Thank you never goes out of style.  People always appreciate a sincere gratitude.

Tomorrow’s post will discuss gender differences #3 through #5.  These post have just scratched the surface on this book.   I’m so curious to know your thoughts on what I’ve shared so far.  Do you agree or disagree with this information?  Do you think it stereotypes women?   Why?

According to the author, this book takes you inside the mind of the most powerful consumers on the planet – women.   The basic premise of the book is that men and women are different.   (I know you’re thinking, Duhhhh…  Be patient.  We’re going somewhere with this. )   Based on that understanding,  the author asserts if the men and women who create and implement marketing messages for their companies would arm themselves with this knowledge that women are females first and consumers second, they will be more likely to produce products and services women really want.

A few of my observations write off the bat have been:

1. This book really has a unique feel to it.   It’s a book with a personality.   It feels less like a book about marketing and more like a book about relationships (which I love) – a book you would find in the “self-help” section of a bookstore.
2. I found this book in the marketing section of the bookstore.  To my surprise, it spends a large portion of the book discussing the psychology of women’s spending habits.
3. It provides a mini-course on the differences between men and women.  I felt like I could almost hear Steve Harvey saying, “Act Like a Lady, Think like a man.”  It even concludes with a “Mencyclopedia” which is a  brief glossary of terms that’s intended to help men “decode a woman’s speech.”
4. The book provides quite a few real-life examples of how companies are applying this information to their marketing messages.

It’s written to help businesses “get behind the eyes” of women.   It provides in depth insight into what women (as consumers) want based on the author’s previous marketing experiences.

In tomorrow’s post we’ll start to explore the role of gender discussed in the book and how this could potentially influence your  business strategy, whether you’re still kicking around business ideas or growing an existing business.  What are some of your favorite stores to shop online or in store?  What is appealing about them?

Happy Valentine’s Day to you and the ones you love most!

See you back next week.  We will continue the book discussion from Wednesday’s post, Ain’t I A Woman?.

In this space today, I decided in honor of Black History month and my previous post, Ain’t I A Woman, I would post one of my fave poems.  It’s one I practically have memorized.  It is by my all time favorite poet, Dr. Maya Angelou.  No one can tell it like she can!

Here are the words:

Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Dr. Maya Angelou

Gender is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything in it.  It’s more powerful than age, income, race or geography. – excerpt from Why She Buys: The New Strategy for Reaching the World’s Most Powerful Consumers by Bridget Brennan

When I was in college studying to be a secondary education teacher, I took a class called “Culture and Schooling.”  This was one of the most interesting courses I took in college.  It’s a class that I took over 9 years ago and I still remember it.   It’s my opinion it should have been required for every student at that University.

The purpose of the course was to teach us how culture affects every student in our classrooms.   One of the requirements of the class was to right an autobiography.  In the autobiography we were to explore how our race, our gender, our religious beliefs, our family environment, our neighborhoods, and anything else we could think of influenced our school experience.

I don’t remember what I wrote.  But what I do remember are the great discussions we had in class.  The teacher who made the assignment shared a great deal with us about how her culture and her schooling sometimes collided.  In that class I learned the real meaning of words like assimilation, conditioning and culture.   In that class I also learned we are assimilated into our group through the culture of that group.  The culture of a group teaches you what is acceptable and what is not.

Until about the age of 22, I would say the strongest determinant of how I viewed the world was race not gender.  Race was always on my mind.  In elementary, junior high and high school I attended schools where black kids were the minority.   As a result,  for college I decided to attend an HBCU (historically black college/university).    After 3 years at that school,  I got married and moved to Arizona.   (My husband and I had both done college internships together in Arizona.  When he was offered a position after graduation, it was natural for us to move there.)  Well,  I don’t know how much you know about Arizona, but there are no HBCUs here, which didn’t bother me, but it was a very different experience.

I went from a school where black culture was the norm, where I was apart of the majority, to a school where I was the only black student in ALL my classes.   Being a southern girl didn’t help either, because that’s a completely different culture (and a completely different post).  I spent a lot of time trying to compensate for my southern accent (which is not as distinct as it used to be).    I tried to look past the cultural differences, but it was a challenge, I must admit.  Over the years, I’ve grown to the point where I am not nearly as sensitive about this as I used to be.

Now back to Bridget’s statement.  I’ve come back to it over and over again.  Is it really true?  Is gender really the most powerful determinant of how people view the world?  I don’t know if I agree with it or not.   I feel my viewpoint now, as a Christian, has a greater impact on how I view the world than the fact that I’m a woman.   Maybe I’m wrong, I just know that  I’m not convinced, yet.    I’m interested to know what you think.  Has your gender influenced you more than your race, your income status, your religious beliefs, or your geography?  What examples do you have from your own life or someone else’s life to support your belief?

We will continue talking about this book  this week.  Please, check back tomorrow, as we discuss more points from the book and how it can be used to brainstorm business ideas or to help you grow your business.