U
D

Conversation

the

03/19/12 | Uncategorized

The 5 Silent Career Killers For Women

Women fail to sell themselves, to the disadvantage of their careers.
By Lauren Carlson (CRM Analyst, Software Advice)

A recent Harvard Business Review post explores certain behaviors of women that can hold them back in the professional arena. The article cites studies which show that only half of women display high self-confidence while the other half admit to feelings of self-doubt regarding their performance. As a result of this self-doubt and reduced confidence, women can end up inadvertently sabotaging themselves.

Inspired by this post, I decided to write a post for my site, digging deeper and looking specifically at a field that has been traditionally dominated by men: sales. There are studies that show that women are actually more successful in the field of sales. And yet, salesmen still outnumber saleswomen.

To find out what saleswomen might be doing wrong, I decided to speak to a handful of some of the most successful females in the industry: Jill Konrath (author, trainer and sales strategist), Kim Duke (former sales exec and current owner of Sales Divas, a training firm aimed at women in sales) and Kristine Scotto (sales exec with 25 years of experience under her belt).

I interviewed each of these women to find out the top behaviors they see amongst women in sales that could potentially be sabotaging their career.

We identified the top five “silent career killers”:

  1. Avoiding self-promotion
  2. Undervaluing themselves and/or their services
  3. Not asking for help
  4. Prioritizing relationships over closed deals
  5. Being afraid of messing up

Many women in sales and other professional fields can probably admit to one or more of these things. I know that writing this article definitely hit home for me as I saw several examples of things I do, somewhat regularly, that could be negatively impacting my growth. I go into each of these in on my blog.

What about you? Are you guilty of any of these behaviors or have you seen them in your coworkers? Please share your thoughts, experiences and feedback.

Editor’s note: Got a question for our guest blogger? Leave a message in the comments below.
Photo credit: David Goehring on Flickr.
About the guest writer: Lauren Carlson is a CRM Analyst at Software Advice. She writes about various topics related to CRM software, with particular interest in sales force automation, inbound marketing and social media. She has a background in the music industry, and when she isn’t writing about software, you can find her running at Town Lake and singing at local venues. She is a graduate of the University of Texas with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. Follow her on Twitter at @CRMAdvice.

Editor

Editor

The Switch Editorial Team.

Straight to your inbox.

The best content on the future faces of tech and startups.

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

SHARE THIS STORY

NEW COHORT STARTS JANUARY 2024

Join the Angel Sessions

Develop strategic relationships, build skills, and increase your deal flow through our global angel group and investing course.

RELATED ARTICLES
[yarpp]