This is not a PC post, but it just irks me how in sales and customer service how poorly women are treated. Like the time my daughter wanted to show me a new car she had researched. She asked all the questions and the sales jerks only talked to me. Needless to say they lost the sale.
Read the Soccer Mom Myth.
I also despise demographics. Let's say 80% of your demographic has a certain behavior. That means 20% does not. And, here's the most important point, no demographic applies to a single individual. And we work with individuals don't we?
Today's quiz. We have a 79 single woman living in a trailer in the South West. She makes her buying decisions based on:
1) newspaper ads
2) direct mail campaigns
3) WOM through the Internet
If you said 3 you were correct. So think very hard next time you make an assumption and listen to and get to know each individual.
I just came here sideways from Doc Searls' blog where you commented so eloquently...
And then I read what you wrote and I remembered something.
In '95, my husband and I bought a rehab house that needed lots of work, including some things that had to be done by a contractor.
My dad was a contractor, and I learned a lot being his helper as a kid. My husband's mom, on the other hand, wielded all three tools in his house (hammer, screwdriver and pliers).
The first contractor we interviewed looked at my husband when he answered every question I asked.
The second one made eye contact with me, talked with me (not above me) and engaged us both with ideas.
He got the job and the $20K.
It's simple, he told me later. "I never get a job if the wife doesn't want to hire me."
Oh, and where did we find him?
WOM from a woman I worked with. (The world wasn't as Webby then ;-)
Posted by: Charlotte-Anne Lucas | 10 April 2008 at 08:58 PM
Thanks Charlotte-Anne,
About 15 years ago back in Chicago we added a second floor to the house. My wife was the GC, hired and paid all the sub-contractors. She had to straighten out a few of the subs in the first fifteen minutes, but they caught on pretty quickly.
Remember the golden rule "Them with the gold, rules".
Posted by: brucefryer | 10 April 2008 at 10:47 PM
For that matter, just watch that old classic movie "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House." Mr. Blandings (Cary Grant) huffs, puffs, and blows his chest out...while Mrs. Blandings (Myrna Loy) calmly goes about doing things her way and spending all the money.
Posted by: Mary Schmidt | 14 April 2008 at 08:36 AM