180: Women in Sales Paid Less, Stay Longer, Produce Better Results, with Megan Ackerson, CHRO, Xactly
Conversations with Women in Sales
Release Date: 08/28/2024
205: From Events to Leading Customer Success to VP Growth, Laura Lakhwara, Soapbox
Conversations with Women in Sales
Laura Lakhwara leads GTM teams and customers in transformative strategies that empower businesses to streamline operations and scale efficiently with AI, automation, robotics, and data-driven insights. She has an incredible background from working at IBM, a first-ever partnership with IBM and Apple, and other companies like UI Path and Softbank Robotics. We had a great conversation - her expertise spans market entry strategies, enterprise sales, customer success, and fostering customer-centric cultures that drive revenue growth and long-term partnerships. Follow Laura: More...
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204: The Activator Advantage, What Todays Rainmakers Do Differently, Karen Freeman, Co-author
Conversations with Women in Sales
I had a great conversation with co-author of the new book, "The Activator Advantage"'s Karen Freeman. Here is some information about the book from DCM Insights: There is a growing problem in the professional services industry that is often acknowledged but rarely discussed openly: clients—even long-standing ones for whom firms have delivered unquestioned value in the past—are much less loyal to firms and partners than they once were. But top performers have figured out a radical new approach that is redefining what it means to be a "rainmaker" in today’s professional services...
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203: From Construction Engineer to Successful 2x Company Founder, Tracy Young, TigerEye
Conversations with Women in Sales
Tracy Young has been on our radar for some time, having co-founded PlanGrid (acquired by Autodesk) and now co-founder of TigerEye - a GTM modern analytics platform. As a successful co-founder, Tracy has a natural sales background combined with her engineer background - a powerful combination. On the TigerEye website, the company's core values are: Wholehearted, Humility, Kaizen, Trust, and Simplicity. Tracy discusses how she leads the company and has battled in her own head what a construction CEO or a tech co-founder looks like. It looks like her: a petite, Asian woman. Tracy...
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202: Supporting and Leading a Global Team in a We Culture; Erica Ettore, Workiva
Conversations with Women in Sales
Erica has helped build a global team at Workiva where everyone has a "me vs. me" mentality - working to improve ourlseves, not a competitive "me versus you" attitude. How can you get better? How can you deliver the best to your clients and internal consitutents. Erica was named "Manager of the Year" and she says it is because of her incredible team. We talked about holding people accountable - such an important issue for leaders to demonstrate. I love when Erica discusses what she looks for in top sellers (17 min in) Erica has people on her team from Amsterdam all the...
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201: Pivot and Grow in Your Sales Role, Amber Hayes, Voices
Conversations with Women in Sales
Amber Hayes is currently Director of Sales at a Toronto company called Voices, which is the #1 marketplace for voice-over. We had a great conversation about how you need to pivot and embrace change within your company so that it doesn't outgrow you. She started at Voices as a Project Administrator, and listen to the episode to learn more about her move to sales, and now sales leadership. Amber is in her 11th year at Voices - unusually long tenure so we know good things are happening there! Amber says, "We're in a really fast-paced industry and it's changing all the time. This...
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200: Celebrating Conversations with Women in Sales 200th Episode, Alice Heiman, Sales Energizer and Podcast Host
Conversations with Women in Sales
The time has come where we hit 200 episodes and it was a pleasure to have on good friend and "Sales Energizer" Alice Heiman. Alice also hosts a great podcast called . We need to keep talking about more women in sales and sales leadership since we still have huge opportunities for more women in sales and sales leadership. Alice and Lori talk about the last ten years of effort to help create inclusive B2B sales teams, what has changed, and what we still need to do. We remember Barbara Giamanco who started the podcast back in 2018. Her early episodes are really great and we...
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199: It is not What You Know but Who You Know, Cynthia Cross, Cox Business, Kansas
Conversations with Women in Sales
Cynthia Cross was all set for a career in accounting when she went to college. A wise professor suggested she would not like that major and encouraged her to do something else where she could utilize her social skills and outgoing personality more. Upon graduation she moved to Wichita, Kansas and met a sales manager who encouraged her to get into a sales role. Cynthia says the throughline in her entire career has been who she knows, not what she knows. Good question for the audience - how are you building your network? Do you work at it every day or week? Most of us haven't been...
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198: Self Care Strategies for Women in Sales, Katie McDonald, bNourished
Conversations with Women in Sales
Katie McDonald was in sales previously. Now she coaches women in self-care because of so many of us who have gotten burned out or just put ourselves last. Hear some of Katie's suggestions for your crazy busy life. She talks about "ME management" It's all about self-care strategies because the fact is most of us are running on fumes and we're borrowing future energy to get through today. Katie wants to disrupt that. When we think about what we're able to create in a compromised state she wants to leverage the wellbeing that we can create through our habits. Katie also says that to create...
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197: From BDR to AE to Director to GM; A Sales Journey with Sarah Kiley
Conversations with Women in Sales
Sarah Kiley has had a sales caree where she's risen through the ranks. She's built a reputation for aligning people, processes, and technology to deliver measurable outcomes. Whether it’s launching new products, driving cross-functional collaboration, or spearheading strategic initiatives, she has focused on creating value for customers, partners, and stakeholders alike. More about Sarah: More about Women Sales Pros - we have a website, we are on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. Subscribe to our 2x a month news, and share the podcast with others! We'd love a 5 star rating and...
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196: From Teaching to B2B Sales, Samantha Craig, Senior Sales Manager, Semrush
Conversations with Women in Sales
Samantha Craig wanted to be a teacher. She got through school but then had a hard time finding a job. She knew she loved to travel so she wondered if she could travel somewhere and teach. Sam ended up teaching for a year in South Korea. She came back to her home state of Massachusetts and realized she wanted to teach somewhere else so set off for Washington, DC. At some point Sam considered a job "until she got her teaching job" in an office. But not just any office. Sam said that if she had to work in an office, it should be an amazing one. She was interviewed in an...
info_outlineXactly is a tech platform for assisting companies with compensation and forecasting with the sales team, and has been around since 2005. They started sharing research about men in sales roles versus women in 2014 or so - quite some time ago, and just released their 2024 research results which includes the following:
● Representation disparities: The gender ratio in sales is alarming. Women are underrepresented in sales roles, constituting only 34% of the sales force and only 29% of sales managers.
● Female salespeople earn less: On average, men earn 3.5% more than women as salespeople, and 3.7%* more as sales managers when it comes to fixed pay. Without adjustment of outside factors, men earn 9% more than women as salespeople, and 13% more as sales managers.
● Pay gaps widen over time: At the start of salespeople’s careers, men earn 2.2% more on average than women. After 2 years, this gap widens by 30%. After 5 years, the gap increases even more significantly, with a 77% increase.
● The gaps differ from industry to industry: The pay gap varies significantly across sectors, with female sales professionals in the Life Sciences and Pharma space reporting a 9% gap in pay and Manufacturing space with an 8% gap. It might be more opportune for women in sales to enter the Financial Services industry, where no pay gap was reported.
● State-by-state disparities: The state sales people live in seems to correlate with the pay disparities. Colorado and New Jersey hold the largest pay gap between men and women at 7%, with Georgia and Washington claiming the lowest pay gap at 1%.
● Performance remains unaffected: Despite the overwhelming disparities in representation and pay, female sales professionals consistently outperformed their male counterparts. Female salespeople outperformed men by 1.5%, and female sales managers outperformed by 3%.
● Loyalty is not a factor: Women tend to show greater loyalty to their Sales teams, staying with the same organization on average four months longer than their male counterparts.
● Unfair impact on quota assignments: Many organizations do not seem to recognize women’s higher performance. On average, male salespeople are assigned 3% higher quotas, and male sales managers are assigned 5% higher quotas, suggesting that sales teams assign men to higher potential sales territories or opportunities.
Follow Women Sales Pros for more research, interviews, and recommendations to add more women into sales and sales leadership roles.
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