| Women In Network Marketing
And why do they still earn less than men?
What is the difference between
men and women? This question has
confounded philosophers
from the beginning of time. But it would be
valuable to explore this
issue from the perspective of today’s
business world. What’s the
difference between men and women in Network
Marketing and how
can we as women use our attributes to rise to our
full potential?
A Historical Perspective
First, let’s examine the
past 400 years of men and women working to
support the family.
Going back to the 1600s and early 1700s, business
was primarily made up of
farmers, artisans, and small shopkeepers who
worked at home or near home
with the women working closely with them.
Business was about a unified
family economy centered in the home.
By the industrial period
through most of the 1800s, factories began to
produce goods for the marketplace
that previously had been made only
for personal consumption.
As families began purchasing some of the
labor-saving machinery,
women and children went to work outside the
home and became an important
source of wage labor in the factories,
while the men stayed home
and tended to the regular farm chores.
By about 1890, all of that
changed as opportunities began to present
themselves for men to earn
more money off the farm. For the first
time, men were leaving the
home to go out and become the
bread-winners, while
women stayed home and nurtured the family.
During these last 100 years,
a man’s worth was measured by being a
“good provider,” while a
woman’s was tied to making a “good
marriage.” Being a good
husband or father or having strong spiritual
values had little
or no bearing on the male image. Those kinds of
values were left up to the
woman, who began to lose contact with
politics, law and the economy,
as her energy was focused on raising
the family. Women
became dependent on men’s wages and lost their
marketable skills and psychological
benefits that come from publicly
recognized work.
By the early 1940s, women
were going back into the work place to help
out during World War II;
by 1970, 40 percent of all working-age women
had jobs outside the home.
By the ‘80s, that had nearly doubled.
During the 1980s, it was
the norm to have a family with both the
husband and wife holding
down jobs outside the home. Even though they
could now afford to have
more luxuries, this complete separation of
the spheres of the economy
and the family placed considerable tension
on the family unit.
Today, in the 90s, we seem
to be entering yet a new era.
This new era bears many similarities
to pre-industrial times — almost
as if we have come full
circle. All the evidence suggests that a
shift in values is taking
place as both the younger and older of the
baby boom generation are
much more caught up in family life.
For the first time in 50
years, the entrance of women into the
workplace has peaked and
is now dropping. Many are leaving to go
begin their own businesses
where they don’t have to fight against
unfair odds to rise to the
top.
Women represent more than
one third of all small business owners. Last
year alone, nearly a
half a million women began their own businesses.
By the year 2000, experts
predict that 40 to 50 percent of all
businesses will operate
from the home.
More and more men, facing
burnout, layoffs, and down-sizing, crumbling
pension programs and
disillusionment with Social Security, are moving
into, or joining their wives
in, home-based businesses. As men’s and
women’s lives are once again
merging back on the home front and
they’re seeking a
more unified family economy centered in the home,
the timing has never been
better for the Network Marketing Sales
industry.
Given their different backgrounds,
do men and women approach this
business differently?
More importantly, should they?
Of course we approach business
differently — and I propose that we
should.
Given our different orientations
over the past century and our own
intrinsic differences,
both sexes have something extremely valuable
to bring to Network Marketing.
Each has something to learn from the
other.
With few exceptions — like
those men who may be entering this new era
following an unsolicited
layoff — men are feeling very self-confident
about themselves and what
they have to contribute. Women, on the
other hand, are feeling
a bit downtrodden — still stereotyped by the
years they were out
of touch, financially dependent on their
husbands, and perhaps overlooked
for promotion in the workplace.
I’m writing this article
not as a feminist, but woman to woman,
challenging you to join
me in a renewed awareness of our own
self-worth, so that we can
carry our weight and contribute our share
to the balance of the world
around us. We have much to offer our
industry, our companies,
our husbands and male partners, and
certainly the members of
our Networking organizations.
The problem has been a lack
of realization of just how much we have to
give and how needed
our feminine qualities are in today’s world.
Clearly, there are men who
have a hard time coping with this evolution
of women’s role in our society.
Given our history, that’s
understandable. Men are
comfortable with women doing the shopping,
the cooking, community service,
cleaning up and scrubbing down the
house, changing the diapers,
chauffeuring and taking care of the
kids. As one man put it
so well: “I can handle almost anything except
having my wife working.”
Women have always worked
hard, but our role is on the threshold of
significant change
and along with it, so is our image. Together, if
we shake off any residue
of negative self-image baggage we’ve been
carrying around with us
— and begin with renewed determination to
take pride in ourselves
and our womanhood with our heads held high and
our confidence blooming
— we will see a difference immediately in our
general acceptance, our
leadership success, and our income.
What leadership qualities
do women innately possess — and how do they
differ from the styles of
most men?
According to John Naisbitt
and Patricia Aburdene in their book
Megatrends For Women,
men’s leadership style is generally
characterized by a more
traditional command-and-control mode:
Pay attention...I’ve got
the answers...Stay in rank...Manage from the
top...Follow orders... Do
what I say...Keep people on their
toes...Here’s the bottom
line...Power...Rigid rules... Discipline.
Female leadership, on the
other hand, is characterized more by
transforming people:
Encourage participation...Open
to change...Empower others...What are
your ideas?... Be a role
model...Creativity...How can I serve
you?...Share a vision...Being
flexible... Facilitate and
educate...Nourishing your
environment...Manage from the
center...Networking. Let’s
be clear about one thing, though — the
care-and-share female style
is not merely about “being nice,” as
opposed to a masculine control
approach of “being tough.”
For example, sometimes the
best way to empower someone may be to
express anger or set rules.
Supporting people is not synonymous with
being “nice.” That approach
alone won’t cut it in the business world.
Clearly, we are in transition
with regard to leadership styles. The
command-and-control approach
is on the downswing, while the
transformation and empowerment
approach is on the upswing. It’s the
belief of Naisbitt
and Aburdene that men who are still operating in
the command-and-control
mode will find it more difficult to succeed
in today’s business world.
If you share the belief that
this changing leadership style is more
acceptable and effective,
then the point is this: Women, who
instinctively lead in this
manner anyway, will find it easier over the
coming decade to move into
a leadership position.
So why do the vast majority
of women still earn less than men even in
this industry?
Women’s time has come.
The world has never been more ready for more
women to become leaders
in all career phases; politics, religion, and
business. The world is ready
for them.
Direct Sales was responsible
for over $14 billion of annual retail
sales, of which Network
Distribution was responsible for over $11
billion in 1992, sold by
over five million independent sales reps.
Ninety percent of all new
participants in our industry last year were
women. Yet, in companies
with both male and female marketers, I have
heard figures as high as
90 percent of all income was earned by men.
Why?
For years women have seen
themselves as victims. It is corporate
America that is dishing
out the unfairness to women. Women don’t
receive equal pay for equal
performance. They are not promoted as
readily as men. There is
always someone to blame for women’s lack of
equality.
But, ladies, what is our
excuse in Network Marketing?
A 1991 Catalyst poll of Fortune
1000 CEOs found that 81 percent of
them believed “stereotyping
and preconceptions” by men were major
blocks to women reaching
top levels of management. And there is still
some carry-over of this
into our industry.
Let’s face it. A powerful
male exec may be introduced to this business
by a woman, but most
will need the reinforcement of a strong
successful male already
in the business to close the deal.
So, okay, we accept the fact
that men still have preconceived ideas
about us. But, that alone
doesn’t justify our failure to rise to our
own potential. Who or what
is really holding us back?
We have met the enemy and
it is us.
We are holding us back.
So what are we going to do
about it? How can women overcome the
preconceptions — both
from ourselves and from men — that hold us back
in the Networking business
world?
To answer that question,
let me offer four success principles for
women in business.
1. Strengthen your self-confidence.
We women are lacking in belief
in ourselves. We don’t have all the
self-confidence that it
takes to be regarded as a leader. We must
continue to work on and
project our personal power, remembering that
attitude is more important
than ability.
If anyone can do it, we can,
too!
Do everything within your
ability to work on strengthening your own
belief in yourself. Read
books, listen to tapes, attend a Tony
Robbins seminar. Not a day
goes by that you can’t wake up saying to
yourself, “I am making
a difference in my world! I have even more to
give today than yesterday!”
Think with conviction and
then speak with conviction.
2. Emulate the person you
are addressing.
Get your head inside the
head of the other person. If you are
prospecting a man — think
like a man.
Most men will not be turned
on by great skin care or even your
effective vitamins.
They will by big money and free time potential,
and the lifestyle that goes
with it. Then they’ll need to know that
this business is based on
solid product. Lead with the opportunity
and close with the product
— not the other way around.
3. Lead like a successful
woman, not like a take-off of a successful
man.
The new leadership qualities
that are emerging today come naturally to
women. It is men who
may find that they have more adjustments to make
in the coming years.
Don’t be afraid to be who
you are and let your own innate leadership
style emerge. If you
are a caring, nurturing person, be that.
Remember: No leaders ever
rose to the top in Network Marketing
without bringing a lot of
other people with them.
Women have that innate ability
to make others feel very responsible —
and yet very supported.
Those women who attempt to become leaders
often fall into the trap
of role-modeling themselves after the male
leadership style, trying
to conform to their standards. And the sad
part is that really aggressive
women are not terribly appreciated in
the workplace.
We’re in transition, so this
may take some time, but most men will
admit that they admire
and will pay attention to a woman in business
who is logical, business-like,
not too pushy, and yet still very much
a woman.
4. Create big-picture thinking
(if your goal is to reach one of the
top levels in your company.)
Women outnumber men in successful
retailing. But it is impossible to
reach the back end
of any compensation plan in Network Distribution
on your own retailing efforts
alone. You must leverage yourself and
begin finding other marketers
who will use and share the product, and
leverage themselves for
the full power of the pay plan to work for
you.
Think big. The majority of
women sold most of the $11 billion of goods
through Networking last
year, and yet they made a pittance of the
total commissions paid out.
Why?
Because women are still more
comfortable seeing themselves as
retailers than as head
of an organization of retailers and
recruiters. They still prefer
30 – 50 percent of their own personal
effort to 2 – 5 percent
of everyone else’s.
Do we have different values?
You bet we do! As the new
paradigm of leadership takes hold, women are
in a position like
never before to influence politics, religion, and
business. We will see a
woman president of the United States in our
lifetime. We will see women
priests in the Catholic Church — not a
female Pope, mind you, but
definitely women priests.
We will see many more women
at the head of Fortune 500 companies
managing with the
new leadership style I’ve described. And we will
see more women rising to
the top of Network Marketing companies,
achieving the highest pay
level possible.
All of this will change the
face of the world as we know it. Politics,
religion, and business
will look and feel differently than they do
today.
Why?
Because women’s values will
be woven into the system traditionally
dominated by males.
And we’re already seeing it happen.
Let’s examine three areas
in our industry where we are seeing the
female influence:
balance, nurturing, and integrity.
Balance Without the female
influence, given our history of the last
100 years, most men
would be pushing money, money, money as the
reason to get involved in
Network Marketing.
With the female influence,
we balance it. We talk about having enough
money to do the things
we really value, enough time to enjoy it with
the people we love, and
enough security to go into the future without
worry.
Women have come a long way
at developing balance. Men are newcomers to
this idea. As Naisbitt
and Aburdene point out, in 1964 men didn’t sit
around and say,
“Well, we’ve done pretty
well at work, in business, on the golf course
and on the battlefield.
But we’re not well-rounded human beings. We
haven’t done as well at
parenting, we don’t really get too deeply
into relationships and it
would probably do us good to learn to be
more caring and spiritual.”
But somewhere over the past couple of
decades, women did begin
saying this:
“We are good mothers, wives
and friends. We’re pretty good at
supporting and caring for
people. We are sharp dressers and pretty
good cooks. But there has
to be more to life than this. We want to
make something of ourselves
and make a contribution to the world
around us.” Today, nearly
30 years later, women as a whole have
achieved more balance in
their lives and bring this as a gift to our
industry.
Nurturing Without the female
influence, there is a certain dog-eat-dog
competitiveness that
would pervade our industry. With the female
influence, there is a nurturing,
suppor-tive quality that comes
through and can’t be mistaken.
Beyond all of us making money
is the personal growth, free time,
support, bonding, friendshipping.
There is no other business in the
world where your success
is generated the more you help others
succeed. This aspect of
our business — really showing our love for
others — is ideally
suited for women and is their second gift to the
field of Network Marketing.
Integrity Without the female
influence, integrity could be reduced to
the philosophy that
“anything goes in business.” It would be about
conquer ing and winning,
often at the expense of others. “I wouldn’t
think of cutting you out
as my friend, but this is business.”
With the female influence,
integrity is defined in terms of fairness
to everyone, equal
opportunity for all, helping others succeed. It’s
about everyone winning.
Women have already experienced
unfairness in the workplace for the
past 50 years in corporate
America. Do you think they are going to
sit back and let that happen
all over again in their new chosen field
of endeavor?
Not a chance.
Most men would hip-hip-hooray
Vince Lombardi who said: “Winning isn’t
everything. It is the only
thing.”
Most women would hold in
highest esteem Cathy O’Brien, the woman
marathon runner, when
she did something few men could understand:
Remember the 1992 Olympic
Marathon trials? Two women’s lives came
together here that
would change their fate forever.
The runners were off. Both
had been pacing themselves perfectly. Then
there was a jam-up
at the water table at the 15 mile mark. One minute
Janis Klecker was leading
the pack, the next she was crashing to the
concrete, flipped over on
her back, forcing Cathy O’Brien to leap
over her. O’Brien came back
to help her up — and Klecker went on to
win the race.
Yes. Cathy O’Brien lost the
race — but she won in the hearts of
everyone looking on.
That kind of behavior is
the stuff Network Marketing is made of —
people winning by
helping other people win. Women are naturals at
this. They have done wonders
to help raise the level of integrity in
our industry.
So, given all these differences,
how can we extract the best of both
worlds — couples doing
the business together?
In a book called The Chalice
and the Blade, Riane Eisler talks about a
partnership society
where collaborative couples move away from total
separation in the workplace
to pooling their creative talents into a
satisfying new enterprise.
For example, my husband Mark
and I have seriously contemplated running
for public office
together, pooling our respective talents — not as
Governor and “first lady,”
but together in a shared capacity.
The idea is still way ahead
of its time, but the coupled team approach
has merit. In our
business, it can work. My husband is without a
doubt a master recruiter
and motivator. But I am the better teacher.
Mark is the big picture
person — the visionary. I’m the one who pays
more attention to detail
— to follow-through.
Other women give balance
to the partnership by nurturing,
organizational skills,
being good listeners, drawing others out, and
giving a balanced perspective
to the very essence of showing people
what this business is really
all about.
Money is great but what is
money without time freedom?
Having time is great but
what is that without your health?
And all of that is great,
but what is any of it without the nurturing
of love and friendship?
It is my belief that men
and women can bring all of this in
perspective better together
than individually.
So, what about single women?
Before marrying Mark, I built
my organization as a single woman for
four years while serving
in an elected public office. I am convinced
that single women have never
been better positioned to succeed at
this business than now.
In addition to making the
changes we have already discussed, add just
one more step: Team
up with a male counterpart — an upline, downline,
or sideline — who can help
project the necessary balance to those men
who still stereotype us.
This needn’t be a formal partnership, but
rather an informal team
approach to the business. Given our history,
it is understandable that
it will take time before most men shake
their preconceived ideas
about us and our role.
To lead in the new paradigm,
women must understand how the new
approach looks to those
still locked in the old. “Gushing with
enthusiasm” can come off
as shallow and naive. Asking for opinions, a
woman can come off looking
like she doesn’t know what she is doing.
And if you empower others,
you may appear powerless to those who still
think in the old mode.
But remember: in the team approach, you have
something to give, not just
something to receive.
To lead in the new
paradigm, women must understand how the new
approach looks to those
still locked in the old.
Whatever your contribution
to the partnership is — nurturing,
organizational skills,
attention to details, listening, teaching,
drawing others out — recognize
it and be proud of what you bring.
So there is a difference
between the sexes — and thank God for it! To
point out that we
need each other is to say the obvious. We have a
contribution to make, each
in our own way.
I believe the secret to women’s
success in the field of Network
Marketing is to renew our
awareness of our own self-worth. We have
much to offer our industry,
our companies, our husbands and male
associates, and all the
members of our organization. Our feminine
qualities are very much
needed in today’s world.
Shake off those feelings
of low self-esteem; begin to take pride in
yourself and your womanhood.
This one giant step can, in and of
itself, lead you to see
an immediate difference in how others accept
you, how others follow your
lead, and how successful you become.
We are in an industry perfectly
suited for us that can and is
transforming people’s lives
for the better.
We are in an industry that
is helping put priorities back in order —
with family values and home
focus.
We are in an industry that
encourages and promotes close friendships.
We are in an industry where
people with like values can more easily
meet and find each other.
We are in an industry where
loving and nurturing others can lead to
the ultimate success.
Let me share with you a story
out of my past. I was a Roman Catholic
nun in the ’60s, in St.
Louis. As part of my mission, I used to visit
an old folks home nearby,
where I got to know Harold — a 106-year-old
man who used to mesmerize
me with his stories.
One day, as I was leaving,
Harold said, “In case I’m not around
anymore on your next visit,
I want you to know something, Sister. My
last relative died when
I was 86 years old. That was the last time I
had been hugged...until
you. Twenty years is a long time to go
without human touch. Whatever
else you decide to do as a young nun,
don’t be afraid to
let your caring show.”
By my next visit, Harold
had died. I never forgot his words.
Women are caring, nurturing
people by our very beings. Let’s use our
gifts to lead others
into the 21st century. Whether we are leading
our country, our community,
our church, our corporation, or our
Networking organization,
it will be through the development of our
innate talents and our ability
to give love that we rise to our full
potential and begin
to make a real difference in our world.
The French priest/paleontologist,
Teilhard de Chardin might as well
have been speaking
to women when he wrote:
“The day will come when,
after harnessing space, the winds, the tides
and gravitation, we
shall harness for God the energies of love. And
on that day, for the second
time in the history of the world, we
shall have discovered fire."
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