Ten years ago, top sales speaker and sales expert Jill Konrath noticed that at sales conferences, industry events, and many corporate sales off sites, the sales expert on the main stage was a guy.
Guys – actually up to 17 or 20 at a typical conference, speaking on the main stage – with maybe one woman also speaking on the main stage.
Why?
Most of the conference organizers were well meaning and said they simply could not find an expert who happened to be a woman to speak, or they had no idea this was the situation – they just didn't think about it.
Today that has changed – it is the exception rather than the rule now that the main stage not has a strong mix of speakers – younger, diverse, and typically enough women speakers to reflect the percentage of women in the audience.
It’s not always the case – recently I’ve seen a couple of conferences with all male “headliners”, but it is now more than not.
Dreamforce – the largest technology conference has organizers who look for diverse speakers and have had entire tracks and sub-events on women in technology, for example.
INBOUND is an annual marketing conference in Boston which has been growing the sales track for the last couple of years and actively seeks out diversity as well.
Book recommendations can be like speaker recommendations – we endorse what we know.
Many people have not read some of these excellent sales books written by the experts in Women Sales Pros.
The WSP Booklist – bookmark it!
This post would not be necessary if more posts on LinkedIn and elsewhere reflected some of these authors’ books. So we have them here for you – starting with the books written by our advisory board first, then the rest of our expert's books. More are on the way – from Alice Heiman, Lisa Dennis, and me. So bookmark our WSP book list and refer to it the next time someone lists all male authors. We know and like most of the guys whose books are on those lists – we just think you might want some NEW ones occasionally for a refreshing, insightful viewpoint.
Just this week, two new books are being announced by our experts:
Deb Calvert, co-author of Stop Selling and Start Leading
Melinda Emerson, author of Fix Your Business: A 90 Day Plan to Get Back Your Life and Remove The Chaos from Your Business
We are creating a SECOND book list of all of the recommended books by women business authors. If you are one or know of one, let us know!
Lori Richardson is President of Women Sales Pros – a virtual community where companies can find great women sales leaders, women reps, and women can learn about the amazing career of professional sales. She is also CEO of Score More Sales, a sales consulting, training, and coaching organization for mid-sized companies. Her new book will be available in June, 2018.
