Xactly 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.

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Gretchen launched Unbound and Unbothered, a career coaching business for women in tech in  2021. She helps high achievers who are stuck, stifled or at a crossroads ditch the stress and overwork to have a life and a job without burning out. 

Since she and I both got into tech in the "early days" (me earlier than her) we had a great conversation - I reference the title because we both worked for at least one company where the bathrooms were both for the guys since we were the first or second female hires.  

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It started for both Cherilynn and me by selling Girl Scout cookies. Like me, she LOVED selling cookies, and it seems to be one of the commonalities in our sales careers. 

Cherilynn Castleman wants to empower 1 million women for C-suite success by 2030!

She is a force to be reckoned with - listen to our conversation and how we both want everyone to know how selling is really helping others. 

Learn sales skills and become "too good to be ignored" - as Cherilynn says. 

Follow her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cherilynn-castleman/

Women Sales Pros hosts this podcast and also "The News" newsletter for things happening around the sales ecosystem for women in sales. Follow us on LinkedIn, X, Instagram, and wherever women in sales is being discussed. 

Professor Stefanie Boyer is a changemaker - she is helping thousands of college and university students learn how to be a professional seller through her work as a professor and also as the co-founder of RNMKRS. We had an interesting conversation about sales education and more. 

Lindsey Boggs is Digital Sales & Development Leader at Citrix where she manages, develops, and retains top talent by teaching social selling, prospecting, cold calling, and pipeline creation. Prior to that she's been a mainstage speaker on social selling and worked at other top companies in sales and leadership. When tragedy struck in her family she had a nervous breakdown, got help for it, and used that situation to help others through the co-founding of Uncrushed.org. She also gave a TEDx talk, and does ongoing speaking (as she did here with us) about the stigma of mental health and how those in our sales organizations feeling depressed or isolated have people to talk with. We also talk about Imposter Syndrome. 

Becc Holland is a woman on a mission to help Sales Development Reps - and anyone at the front of the sales process to better communicate with and help buyers buy. She has an exhaustive library of plays for those newer to sales to try in order to reach buyers and have more positive conversations to ultimately move deals forward. Her Flip the Script program offering is free for others to learn, and paid for by sponsors. We talk about how her helping others internationally when young, along with her love of music and selling helped bring her to where she is today. 

Galem Girmay is an Account Executive at Flywire and co-founded RevGenius, the community for sales professionals with over 7,000 members. As a Black woman, she offers her support and recommendations to companies to help them find women of color for sales and sales leadership roles. Learn more about the SDR role, where she began her sales career and gain ideas about the great possibilities of sales in this episode.  

Chantel George is doing big things. She is an Account Executive at LinkedIn, the Global Program Manager for the Black Inclusion Group at LinkedIn, and also Founder & CEO of Sistas in Sales, which is the first community of women of color sales professionals. We talk about Chantel's journey from acting to law to sales, and have a good conversation about what majority women can do to support her efforts to see more women of color in our sales profession. 

Sheevaun Thatcher is an outspoken leader in the practice of Sales Enablement worldwide - as a frequent speaker and as a Founding Member & Member of the Board of Advisors with the Sales Enablement Society. 

She is the Global Learning and Enablement Leader at RingCentral and oversees a worldwide remote team. Sheevaun has a way with words - which makes her an amazing storyteller. 

Maria Tribble is VP of Enterprise Sales at PathFactory. She raises flowers in her #5-9 and believes in the critical importance of kindness. We had a tough time recording this one because Maria had been previously recorded with Barb, before her passing, but the episode hadn't launched nor had we found it - so we re-recorded. 

Sara Levinson, VP Business Development at Prometric has sold and launched transformational technology initiatives - multi-million dollar deals - with the world’s largest & most influential brands. After grad school, Sara got into a marketing role which morphed into more of a sales role in the newspaper business in Pittsburgh. Hear how she got into the technology sector and how who you know is key to not applying for positions. 

Cynthia Barnes is author of "Reach the Top 1%: A Strategic Game Plan for Warrior Women in Sales", and is a keynote speaker, sales trainer, LinkedIn top sales influencer, and CEO of the NAWSP.org. In this episode we discuss how sales changed Cynthia's life, how we both agree that women do NOT lack confidence! and more. 

Tamara Schenk's goal is to help empower human potential. She is a mainstage speaker on all things sales enablement; having spent 25 years in international roles spanning multiple industries. Tamara has also been the "only" woman in the boardroom many times. We discuss the great opportunities for women in B2B sales enablement roles and Tamara's love of the field is in everything she shares. 

Hannah and I had a rousing conversation about all things sales. Hannah is founder of Revenue Funnel and is based in London. She and I talked about many topics - including: 

A Conversation with Hannah Ajikawo - Journey from Sales to CEO and Founder of Revenue Funnel

In this episode, Hannah Ajikawo, CEO and Founder of Revenue Funnel, discusses her journey through experiences in Sales to forming her company. Raised in inner-city areas heavily influenced by crime, Hannah obtained a degree in Criminology and Social Policy before finding her way into Sales. She discusses her experiences working across various companies, and how her curiosity about the functioning of companies led her to setup her own business. Hannah also talks about the importance of networking and continuous learning for success in Sales. She advocates for keeping focus on improving specific areas based on individual needs. Furthermore, she emphasizes the critical role Sales plays in personal development, stepping into power, and generating wealth.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Presentation
00:38 Hannah's Journey into Sales
01:01 Transition from Academia to Sales
02:24 Challenges and Triumphs in Sales
05:42 Personal Struggles and Career Progression
09:32 The Shift to Consulting
10:34 The Importance of Authenticity
12:24 Advice for Job Seekers
18:09 Hannah's Involvement in Sistas in Sales
21:32 Recommendations for Aspiring Salespeople
28:32 Conclusion and Contact Information

Reach Hannah on LinkedIn: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hannah-ajikawo/

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/scoremoresales/

Nancy McNeill is Chief Revenue Officer, responsible for global sales strategy for Dow Jones' suite of professional information products. She has more than 20 years of management experience, leading global sales organizations in the financial services information industry. We talked about supportive company leaders, mentors, and how sales can be successful working remotely.

Jill Fratianne is Partner Channel Manager at Hubspot, where she has been in various sales roles for over 10 years. Jill came to Hubspot when it was a startup and has been through massive growth of the company, including seeing it go public. Jill received her Masters in Music from Northwestern University and was going to be a Violist but ended up getting an insurance sales job right out of school. Jill talks about the great lessons she learned in this role and how it made her appreciate future sales roles. 

This is the beginning of "Act 2" for Conversations with Women in Sales. Lori Richardson and Women Sales Pros will continue to publish episodes with interviews of amazing women in sales roles. We want to carry on Barb Giamanco's vision and mission. Your feedback and support welcome. This conversation was with Lori, Joanne Black, and Deb Calvert on Barb's passing and the future for CWWIS. 

There is often a stigma associated with failing but never making mistakes means never learning and growing. In this episode, I talked with Ashley Zagst from Zagst Consulting. She is a professional dancer/choreographer turned digital marketer. She is the former Head of Marketing at Bravado.co, the first digital community exclusively for sales professionals committed to elevating the profession by changing the stigmatized perception.

Hilda Kwa, Regional Director at VMware is my guest in this episode. Your employees are your company “brand ambassadors”, as such they are your organization’s greatest asset. Too often companies forget that employees drive the customer experience – either positively or negatively – and that impacts revenue in the same way.

Julie Hansen is a sales presentation expert and the founder of Performance Sales and Training, helping sales professionals communicate with greater confidence, clarity, and influence.

Julie spent 20 years as a sales contributor and leader. She also worked as a professional actor, performing in over 75 plays, commercials and television shows including HBO’s “Sex and the City.” 

Mary Grothe, is CEO and Founder of Sales BQ. She is a former #1 rep in the MidMarket B2B SaaS Payroll / HR industry. After 8 years and millions in revenue sold, she founded Sales BQ, and leads a team of fractional VPs of Sales across the country as they rebuild their clients' sales departments, all while focusing on the behavioral quotient.

In this conversation, I was joined by Kate Bradley Chernis the Founder & CEO of Lately, which uses Artificial Intelligence to automatically turn blogs, videos and podcasts into dozens of amazing social posts, which is then syndicated across unlimited channels. Lately customers use the platform for personal branding communications, brand marketing management, executive thought leadership, employee advocacy and social selling.

Marietta Davis is VP North America Communications and CSI, IBM Global Markets. Marietta is a seasoned sales executive with an extensive career in the technology industry holding high impact positions at IBM, Lotus Development, Ameritech, and Tata Consulting. At Microsoft, the highest ranking African American in North America, Canada and Latin America, Marietta led an organization of more than 400 sales, marketing and technical experts serving Microsoft’s business customers with Dynamics ERP and CRM Solutions. While at Microsoft, Davis successfully managed and grew multiple businesses to $1B and triple digit growth milestones. Her diverse leadership portfolio extends to mentoring strong leaders into key roles and acting in an advisory capacity to incubation and small startups.

Tracy Eiler is the Chief Marketing Officer at InsideView. She has been driving marketing strategy at both cloud-based and traditional enterprise technology companies for 25 years. At InsideView, Tracy leads the end-to-end marketing strategy and initiatives. Tracy came to InsideView from her own marketing consulting firm. Previously, Tracy held executive roles at Replicon, Cloud9, MarkLogic, Postini, and Business Objects. She also founded and ran a successful technology communications agency.

In a candid conversation, communication expert and sideline reporter for the Seattle Seahawks and the Seattle Mariners, Jen Mueller shares her perspective on maintaining focus and supportive beliefs amidst challenging times, such as a difficult economic climate or personal setbacks. She discusses the significance of honesty in assessing failures and emphasizes the importance of competing against oneself to improve. Jen also highlights the value of small, incremental successes in boosting confidence.

She provides insights from her experience with athletes, drawing parallels between the sports and professional world, underscoring the need to start fresh after every setback, utilizing team support, and focusing on strengths. Finally, Jen suggests proactive measures such as celebrating small victories to build momentum towards success.

00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:40 Discussing Mindset in Difficult Times
01:39 The Importance of Honesty and Self-Competition
03:02 The Power of Starting Fresh and Focusing on Strengths
05:20 The Role of Teammates and Celebrating Small Wins
07:03 Conclusion and Contact Information

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Find all of our episodes on iTunes or at https://womensalespros.com/podcast/

Your host for Conversations with Women in Sales is Lori Richardson.

Keri Schull grew from a real estate solopreneur to one of America's most successful real estate agents, according to REAL Trends and The Wall Street Journal. She has scaled multiple businesses including The Keri Shull Team, with over 80 members and counting; DKA Development; and the HyperFast Agent coaching platform and academy, which teaches real estate agents everywhere how to grow and scale their real estate businesses.

Monique Russell teaches individuals and teams to have positive and productive relationships at home and work using effective communications strategies and tools. She is the managing partner of Clear Communication Solutions, LLC and is a frequent guest on local, national and international radio sharing her advice as a subject matter expert in leadership and effective communications.

Joanne Black is America’s leading authority on Referral Selling. She is an author, speaker, and sales contrarian. She's written two books, No More Cold Calling™:The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust, and Pick Up the Damn Phone!: How People, Not Technology, Seal the Deal. 

Alli Rizacos is a Regional Sales Manager at Salesforce, and she has been in sales for over 10 years. We talked about why sales leadership suffers when not provided enough training or support.

Rakhi Voria, is the Director of IBM Global Digital Sales, and she manages a team that is responsible for the strategy, implementation, and revenue of the Digital Development Representative sales function globally. We talked about how she made the big decision to move to IBM to take on a new leadership role.

Catie Ivey is the Regional Vice President of Sales at Demandbase, which is a leading B2B marketing platform. Prior to joining Demandbase, Catie ran revenue teams at Marketo, Insightpool, Salesforce, and Meltwater. She has deep expertise in MarTech specifically and how to better leverage technology to scale revenue teams. Catie is a huge advocate for getting more women into sales and sales leadership, so many of the topics we talk about here on ‘Women in Sales’ are topics she speaks passionately about.

Diana Cappello brings over 15 years of experience in sales, marketing and revenue operations to her current role as Lead Sales Engineer at Clari. Prior to Clari, she was a SE Manager at Apttus. And before becoming a SE, she was a Business Systems Manager for several startups. If she’s not selling through demos, you can find Diana exploring Tahoe with her husband and 2-year-old daughter.

Judy Frank, Consulting Partner at RAIN Group is my guest in this interview. She has been building and leading sales teams in the Fortune 50 to achieve aggressive growth for over 30 years. Years ago, Judy taught 5th and 6th grade and many of the lessons she learned then has proven to be invaluable in creating and leading teams.

Alexandra Adamson is the Executive Director of Women In Sales Everywhere (WISE), a digital platform dedicated to developing the next generation of female sales leaders. She is also the Head of Organizational Strategy at CloserIQ, a modern recruitment firm offering a holistic talent solution for building engaged, diverse and high-performing sales teams and parent company to WISE.

In this interview with Kelly Del Curto, Director of Sales at Lever, we talked about imposter syndrome and how that can impact your success. At any stage in your sales career - especially when you're new in a role - it's easy to get this sense that somehow you ended up in that role by accident and you don't really belong. Our fear leads us to try to fake it until we make it when opening yourself up and asking for help is usually the better way to go. 

Carole Mahoney has written an excellent book for sales professionals and entrepreneurs on collaborative selling and in changing the sales industry. She mixes in stories, anecdotes and statistics to help one learn and improve around critical sales skills and mindset for success. 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Background

00:59 Carol's Journey and Book Contribution

02:48 The Impact of 'Buyer First' on Salespeople

04:57 The Concept of Collaborative Selling

09:20 The Importance of Mindset in Sales

10:56 Overcoming Non-Supportive Beliefs

17:49 Personal Growth Through Writing 'Buyer First'

19:39 Dealing with Bad Sales Days and Final Thoughts

Find Carole on LinkedIn 

Order BuyerFirst on Amazon or here: https://carolemahoney.com/books/buyerfirstbook/

Caroline Gregory is an Enterprise Regional Sales Manager with Okta. She has 16+ years selling IT infrastructure and software to CIOs and CTOs to medium - fortune 500 companies for Workday, EMC and Okta. In our interview, we talked about the importance of salespeople remembering to choose the right culture fit at a company for them.

Rachel Gray has been selling for the past 10 years after fleeing from the career she first thought she wanted, which was being a lawyer. We talk about how important it is for salespeople to look after themselves mentally and physically every day. If you don't take care of number 1 first... you are ultimately no good to anyone else.

Heather Combs is the Chief Revenue Officer for 3Pillar Global, an Inc. 5000 developer of client-facing web and mobile applications. She oversees marketing, business development and operations for the nearly 1000-person multinational company, creating the revenue acceleration strategies that drive 3Pillar’s continued double-digit growth. Heather has been named one of Software Report’s Top Female Tech Services Leaders and Member of the Year by the Institute for Excellence in Sales.

Kristie Jones is the go-to expert for companies looking for help evaluating, building, training and scaling their Sales teams. Her 19+ years in the SaaS space, willingness to get her hands dirty, and “take no prisoners” approach is what makes her so valuable to her clients.

Brooke Bachesta is an SDR Manager at Outreach, a leading Sales Engagement Platform. She is passionate about diversity and inclusion and specifically, bringing more women into sales and sales development organizations.

Lauren Rearick is an Account Executive for Lessonly-- a team training software company on a mission to help teams change how they work, so they can live better lives. Barb talks with Lauren about being vulnerable and how that can positively impact sales success. 

Barb talks with Alyssa Merwin, Vice President, LinkedIn Sales Solutions, Americas about her passion for supporting and guiding the next generation of women in sales. Alyssa leads a team over of 250 people within one of LinkedIn’s fastest growing businesses.

In this episode, Barb's guestis Caryn Kopp. She is the Chief Door Opener® at Kopp Consulting, an Inc 5000 winner, recognized for the Door Opener® Service where they get their clients meetings with high level decision makers in almost every major company. 

In this episode, Barb talks to Kristina McMillan, VP of Research at TOPO about why it is so important to FOCUS on the right activities if you want to achieve the right sales results.

In this episode Barb talks with Amanda Georgoff, Enterprise Sales Rep at SalesLoft about how personal authenticity is a competitive sales advantage.

I hadn't planned an episode about "She Sells" but jumped at the chance when a wonderful interviewer, Caroline Jones, offered to ask me about it. This session is dedicated to those who helped me with their stories and stats which are included in the book. It is exciting, too, that it just won "FIRST PLACE" in Top Sales Magazine's Sales Book of the Year. Wow. 

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:26 Discussing the Impact of 'She Sells'
03:06 The Importance of Male Allies in Sales
05:20 The Journey to Writing 'She Sells'
07:11 Addressing Gender Disparity in Sales
07:50 The Impact of the Pandemic on Women in Sales
15:21 The Importance of Diverse Representation in Sales
18:59 Overcoming Biases in the Hiring Process
26:13 Career Growth Opportunities for Individual Contributors
28:51 Promoting Diversity and Inclusivity in Sales
33:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Thanks to Caroline - check out her podcast, "Rep Matters" 

Find "She Sells" on Amazon - Kindle or paperback. Writing a review really matters - please consider it for either the book OR the podcast! 

Join the Women Sales Pros newsletter where we share interviews and discuss upcoming events from all of the women in sales communities. 

Need some help finding more women for your sales team or retaining them? Check out Women Sales Pros or reach out to Lori directly through website or LinkedIn. 

Visit us on Instagram or X @womensalespros 

In this episode Barb interviews Cynthia Barnes, Founder of the National Association of Women Sales Professionals. Our topic of discussion is Reaching the Top 1% in Selling.

In this episode Barb interviews Dana Dupuis, founder of ECHO Listening Intelligence. You'll learn how listening is a critical component of sales success.

In this episode Barb interviews Sydney Sloan, Chief Marketing Officer at SalesLoft about The Customer First Advantage in business and sales.