Sexism in Sales (And What You Can Do To Stop It)

As a female sales consultant at Skaled, I’ve had the opportunity to work with many terrific sales teams and sales leaders. Through my work and at sales events, I’ve also had the opportunity to see the tremendous gap in gender diversity firsthand. As our CEO Jake Dunlap commented in his article about being the only man at the Women’s Entrepreneurship Bootcamp, every woman in sales has experience being gravely outnumbered — whether at dinners, weekly board meetings, or client calls.

In terms of the bottom line, increasing representation of women and minorities has been proven over and over to improve company performance. A 2009 study found that increasing company-wide gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, and greater relative profits.

So we know this issue is important on human level, and we know it affects our company’s success in a real way. But how do we fix this gap? We wanted to answer this frequently asked question, so we did a lot of research and also interviewed three stellar female sales leaders: Jules Miller, the co-founder and COO of Hire an Esquire; Selina Ang, the Head of Business Development at Ox Verte; and Amanda Eilian, the co-founder and President of Videolicious.

Based on our findings, here are the four biggest areas that affect women’s experience in sales – and actionable insights to help us fix sexism in sales.

1. Sales talent may not look like what you expect

Everyone instinctively wants to duplicate their top performer. However, we need to challenge our internal bias that there is only one type of successful sales rep. Just because women may have different work styles and personalities towards sales does not mean they can’t be equally successful.

In fact, it’s easier to adapt to your diversity of prospects and clients if you have a variety of personalities and styles on the team. As Selina from Ox Verte comments: “A good sales manager will also use this opportunity to learn from other people who may have different styles and tactics and share them with the team to make everyone better.”

What you can do: Jules from Hire an Esquire sums it up perfectly in one sentence: “It takes a huge amount of self-awareness for a leader to say ‘I’m going to hire someone who is different than me and challenges my personal view on success because it will make my team stronger as a whole.’”

2. Culture and core values really matter

How do you attract, grow, and retain female sales talent? According to Selina, culture and organizational structure play a huge role.

Sales has moved away from wine-and-dine relationship building — which means sales meetings happen less frequently at golf courses or the local bar — and towards a process- and metrics-driven, technology-enhanced approach. However, in an industry dominated by men, boys’ clubs still exist and cause women to feel like outsiders. This is why celebrating wins, a no-tolerance approach to sexist comments and sexual harassment, using inclusive language, and open dialogue about diversity is so important.

Perhaps even more importantly, how you promote and reward directly affects the way your employees perceive company culture. On average, women earn $25,301 less than their male counterparts in sales, despite often achieving higher goals. This is an easy fix. As Jules puts it, sales is one of the few places that can be a true meritocracy based on measurable performance – so sales leaders should take a hard look at why they’re paying high performing women lower salaries or commissions.

What you can do: Make diversity, transparency, and respect a core part of your company values. Promote based on performance. Talk to the women on your team and ask them how they would make company culture more welcoming for women.

3. Get rid of double standards

For Amanda from Videolicious, passion for sales began early. As a kid in a small Vermont town, she used to order plastic toys in bulk and mark them up to sell at the annual Fourth of July celebration. However, as she describes, “At some point, my ambition stopped being ‘cute’ or ‘impressive’ and my self-confidence began to erode.”

When women ask for raises or promotions, they are routinely viewed by their superiors as being more difficult, aggressive, and unlikeable than men who do the same. Research has actually showed that success and likability are positively correlated for men andnegatively correlated for women! Women who are ambitious and speak their mind get described as “too aggressive and abrasive” – men with those same characteristics get described as “hungry for opportunity and gives honest feedback”.

As sales is often considered an aggressive role, this competence/likeability trap is even more relevant in sales. This double standard not only affects women’s short-term promotion prospects, but also causes them to feel uncomfortable offering their opinion, asking for raises, and providing honest feedback to the people whom they manage.

Despite facing mixed messages as a woman in sales, Amanda made it back into sales by co-founding a company that she strongly believes in – and can now make sure that her female employees will not go through the same experiences at Videolicious. However, it’s no wonder that even some of the highest achieving female sales professionals choose to take their talents elsewhere.

What you can do: Be self-aware of your own conscious and unconscious biases, and as well as the biases of others on your team.  Actively encourage a culture of radical candor and transparency in your organization.

4. Everything starts from the top

All of the action items above will be most effective if they have the strong backing of the leadership. As our CEO Jake Dunlap emphasized at the “Building an Employer Brand” panel a few weeks ago, a company’s culture – whether positive or negative – starts from the top.

Additionally, in speaking to many women in sales, we’ve found that one of the single most important factors that affect their experience is the presence of women in the leadership. Seeing female leaders in the company shows that women have opportunities for advancement there. Furthermore, people are more likely to hire, mentor, promote, and provide higher compensation to people who are similar to themselves.

What you can do: Reflect your beliefs and core values in your leadership. Every employee affects company culture in some way – but there are large ripple effects from the top.

I believe that creating a more equitable sales team is absolutely doable if you make structured steps towards the four issues above — I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share this article with the men and women in sales in your network, and ask them what they think!

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Nicole Chi is an Associate Consultant at Skaled, a modern sales-consulting firm that helps companies optimize their sales processes, people, and technology to accelerate business growth for scaling success. She is a strong believer that diverse teams are also better teams, and is always interested in having conversations about how we can better address gender and racial disparity in the technology/sales space.