In Women We Trust:
A cultural shift to the softer side of business
By Mary Clare Hunt
Publisher: WME Books
176 pages
ISBN 0-9777297-2-9
Women account for 80% of all consumer purchase decisions, and are much more likely to base their buying choices on recommendations from other women, rather than on traditional marketing and advertising media. According to Mary Clare Hunt (photo below left), author of her new book on the rapidly growing women's market titled In Women We Trust: A cultural shift to the softer side of business, trust and relationship building with current and future customers, are far more important than price or even the product quality itself.
Mary says women's voices matter in the marketplace, both as buyers and sellers of products and services, and the female influence is growing. She says women talk among themselves, forming communities and networks at a faster rate than their male counterparts. These informal groups fuel the power of word of mouth advertising that is important to women. If a woman likes or dislikes a product or service, she will tell her friends about both experiences. To build a strong presence in the women's market requires building her trust and respecting her opinions.
For me, the key to this very important book is the need to build values into the company culture. Customer service and marketing involve everyone in the business, and not just those specific departments. Indeed, compartmentalization is a male trait. Women prefer to remove those barriers and work across those invisible lines; erasing them entirely. Treating employees and customers with respect, and building a long term relationship based on that trust with ongoing consistency, is simply good business. Mary provides the statistics in the book to back up that concept as well.
Mary Clare Hunt (pictured left)
As more and more women gain financial independence, make more individual decisions, and form their own companies, it is essential that female friendly policies become part of the corporate culture. The traditional techniques of production, marketing, distribution, and retail service will send those savvy women to a more trustworthy company. You can bet that she will take her friends, family, and all of the members of her informal communities along with her as well. Women are the driving force of consumer buying decisions, and the most important builders of word of mouth advertising.
Mary Clare Hunt has done her homework well. Her interviews with women business owners and professionals, corporate and small business employees, and consumers are sprinkled throughout the book. Along with each chapter are deeper insights into the increasing empowerment of women in the marketplace. Women talk and other women listen, is one of the major themes of the important and must read In Women We Trust: A cultural shift to the softer side of business.
Relationship building, trust, and respect are the cornerstones of marketing to women. They are the keys to a successful business in the 21st Century. Women's values are simply too important for any company to ignore any longer.
As the title of the book says: In Women We Trust.
