It’s not often that you get a free kick in business, but I was given one yesterday while sitting aboard the Seabourn Spirit which had just berthed at the sailing port of Hvar, Croatia. In fact, I was parked inside the Amundsen Lounge which was doubling as the presentation hall for the Narta 2010 Seminar.

 For those who may not have been following my tweets, Narta is Australia’s largest consumer electronics buying group for independent retailers. Every year the group takes around 200 industry executives to premier locations (last year it was the snowfields of Whistler, Canada) and I am also privileged to attend.

Yesterday’s session commenced promptly at 8.30am and there was a fission of excitement in the room as the celebrated management ‘guru’ Tom Peters was giving the keynote presentation. It’s always exciting to experience a “celebrity” in person and despite his slightly avuncular demeanor Peters, whose seminal work ‘In Search of Excellence’ co-authored with Tom Drucker, reshaped the way business looked at management practices in the nineties, was in good form.

Peters is a commanding speaker and his well-honed presentation style dominated the room. So it was difficult not to pay attention. But it was when he started waving over his head a Panasonic toughbook computer emblazoned with the slogan ‘Women are born leaders’ that I really leant forward. It seems that Peters is a pragmatic feminist (my term). By his own admission he knows that the power of the female purse drives the world’s economy and taking this market seriously makes good business sense. To back this up, he cited research published by The Economist and The Harvard Business Review which includes facts such as, “ In developing nations, women’s earned income is growing at 8.1%, compared to 5.8% for men. Globally, women control nearly $12 trillion of the $18 trillion total overall consumer spending, a figure predicted to rise to $15 trillion by 2014.”

While Peters session surprised many executives in the audience who are rarely exposed in such data (with the exception of this blog) his passion on the subject was powerful. It was the strongest takeout from his presentation and it remained a dinner table subject that evening.

But Peters’ world is much larger than mine and most of the industry’s executives, both male and female. As a native to North America he has watched the emergence of understandings of how gender intelligence can impact on the bottom line first hand.

Two of the key pillars in his message was that if independent businesses are to survive against the corporate giants, then they needed to start listening to their staff and customers and in turn create ‘intimacy’ in their business, a condition that corporations can’t hope to match. Both listening, and the ability to be intimate with one another, are skills that the female gender possesses in spades.

But what wins Peters more points in my book is that like even a closet feminist, he knows the power of sharing. So, if you would like to hear just what one of the world’s leading experts on management has to say about women and how you need to start connecting with them have a look here.

Last week I covered off the latest comScore report which revealed that social networking sites reach a higher percentage of women than men globally, with 75.8% of all women online visiting a social networking site in May 2010 versus 69.7% of men.

This has been further re-enforced this week by the release of the State of the Mobile Web Report archive: http://www.opera.com/smw/archive/ by Opera. The results from this survey are remarkable: In just two years, the percentage of women on the mobile web has risen 575%. South Africa leads the world’s push for gender equality on the mobile web, with women accounting for nearly 44% of mobile web users.

Combine this with the fact that it is women who are either primary purchasers or influencers of your brand and you have just been offered a set of compelling figures to reach her.

But despite the continual release of data which reveal the almost addictive use of mobile technology by women, the message just doesn’t seem to be registering with many corporate executives. Many seem to waiting for an epiphany to make the leap or I suspect, just hope the trend might dissolve. I can understand this. It is the rare office I visit in the CE industry where the female sits in the CEO’s seat. And this flows down to the senior executive team who are usually male, even in traditional female centric categories such as kitchen, laundry and floorcare.
 
It means that the resistance to hearing these extraordinary growth trends about 50% of the population is strong and that the will to implement strategies to capitalise on them is weak.
 
If an executive doesn’t have any day-to-day contact with women in powerful positions, it can lead them to believe that they don’t actually exist, except in Canberra.
 
 This means that the leap to embrace a gender intelligent strategy is almost impossible if not overwhelming. So, here is a checklist from Krishna De that may help the process to be less daunting:

1. Don’t just look to connect and reach women on women’s magazines, celebrity gossip and baby sites – the report comments that “women are more engaged than men on the Internet -you just have to know where to look”. Think beyond the obvious suspects when looking for online communities where you can reach the female consumer.

2. If you want to connect with women you need to understand how they interact in social networks – the report states “social networking is central to women’s Internet experience”. Women of all ages connect on social networks sharing photo’s, playing games, and watching online video. Globally, women spent an average of 16.3 percent of their online time on social networks in April 2010, compared to only 11.7 percent for the men.

3. Women (in the US) control the cash – more women than men get engaged with online transactions and collectively spend more. What does this mean then when it comes to the tone and content of your online marketing?

 4. Act global but understand local influences – we need to deep our understanding of regional and cultural differences impact in Internet behaviour. The report goes into some depth about differences they have found across the globe.

 5. Stop making the excuse that Social Networking is only relevant if you are marketing to a youth audience – the 45+ female segment is driving the greatest proportion of growth for Social Networking sites, in terms of both visitation and time spent. Yes the 15-24 may use these sites more frequently and use them more however the 45+ age group visit and use Social Networking sites just as much as the 25-34 and 35-44 age groups.In fact older women are using Social Networks significantly more than men do. In North America, with 9 out of 10 female Internet users visiting a social network site in April 2010.

6. Men and Women use Twitter differently – the report comments that in an April 2010 comScore survey, men were found to be more likely to post their own Tweets than women; women on the other hand used Twitter more to find deals and promotions, as a place for conversing online and to follow celebrities. How does that change your content strategy for Twitter?

Let me know if you are able to implement any of these suggestions to begin connecting to women.

It’s the time of year for conferences, I’m heading off to an enviable one in Europe’s Mediterranean next Friday with some of Australia’s leading consumer electronics retailers. We will be hearing from global speakers in retailing and new technology including the CEO of Zappos.com.

But one of the world’s most powerful conferences was held in New York just over a week ago has flown under the radar in our Southern Hemisphere. It was the BlogHer conference and it was designed for the 42 million American women who blog, tweet and update their social networks every week.

Yes, that figure is 42 million and according to BlogHer research, about 55.6 million American women read blogs monthly, and more than 20 million women write blogs or post to someone else’s.

For many Australian business executives, who are still trying to talk (in some cases scream) at women through the traditional mediums of print, radio and television, it’s difficult to grasp the scope of that number. It is after all, double the size of our population.

And if you think that trend isn’t occurring in Australia, then think again. Women who blog are the strongest growing edge online (women over 45 is the fastest growing demographic on Facebook).

In Australia, there are a huge number of women who blog and I’m happy to be one of them. Already this morning I have tweeted across three twitter accounts, updated my Facebook Fan Page, written this blog, replied to posts on previous blogs, all before 7am.

Research on the women who are blogging refute the notion that blogs are just an online diary. In fact, they act as a thermometer that records the issues that matter most to her. Women are blogging to express themselves, for fun, and to connect with others, according to BlogHer research. And they are also using their voices to successfully build their businesses and in some instances in countries in the Middle East they are risking their lives by talking about the repressive conditions in their countries.

The recorded instances of women exercising their power through blogs is also growing, and Motrin, a leading brand of ibuprofen, was forced to pull an ad that mocked mothers who carry their babies in slings when women voiced their concern by tweeting.

This year the BlogHer conference was sponsored by 100 brands, a 60% increase over 2009 at a time when the US continues to be mired in recession.

The thinking behind this level of support is simple. US marketers know that women control 85% of buying decisions and they are eager to connect with her. They know that women trust the women in their online communities and to become part of the conversation, sponsors provided product samples and paid the cost of the conference.

If you want to be part of this world, it’s simple: start blogging.

Have you noticed how commoditisation creeps up into the industry like a virus that can’t be shaken?

I thought about this last Friday evening when I watched Ruslan Kogan promoting his ‘one-size-fits-all’ range of home branded TVs on a Today Tonight segment badged ‘TV wars bringing down prices’.

Kogan with the wisdom of 27 years, gleefully explained that he just trips off to the Asian factories where Sony, Panasonic, Samsung and other established brands make their TVs. He then puts in his order for a Kogan range and then sells them locally for a fraction of the retail price.

He explained: “We’re cutting out all the middlemen so traditionally products go from agents to importers, wholesalers, retailers they all want their cut,” he said.

You and I know that it’s too good to be true, or as my Irish father-in-law used to advise, “If it where that easy everybody would be doing it”. But the trouble is the consumer (or million plus viewers watching) believe Kogan, because frustratingly, he actually sounded plausible.

But what Kogan, TDT or even Gerry Harvey who was asked for a rebuttal, didn’t explain was that it was the global CE companies who over the past 80 years (after actually inventing TV and every other CE technology) have invested constantly in developing the industry which he now desires to exploit. If they hadn’t, the Korean and Chinese factories wouldn’t have anything to copy and then to sell onto the Kogan’s of this world.

As for the “middlemen” which Kogan refers to as if they were somehow undeserving of any income for doing a decent job, they are you, me and the people sitting next to you on the motorway or the train. If we don’t have jobs to service clients and customers then how can this industry or country continue to progress and develop?

If you are annoyed by this unbalanced coverage like I am, you can let me know what you think on my Facebook Page.

There’s something energising about standing in a room about with a hundred businesswomen, keen to hear about how to grow their online presence.

That’s how I felt last night at the monthly Social Media Women event, listening to the online expert Valerie Khoo speak animatedly about her success also helped.

A recent winner of the NSW Telstra Small Business Award, Valerie related an insightful, if not amusing tale about her journey to success that may make some of our very serious corporate business readers wince, as it doesn’t fit into any sanitised templates. That’s because it’s a story about the application of very basic leading edge technology with an entrepreneur’s creativity.

In 2006, Valerie established her business, Sydney Writers Centre. Like most small businessowners, she had non-existent funds. But what she did have was a cat: Rex.
Valerie decided to use Rex as the star of an experimental social media campaign which only cost her time. So out came the Rex Catbook Facebook Page, Rex on Flickr, Kitten Rex TV on You Tube and The Adventures of Kitten Rex Blog.
 
All this was done anonymously with no linking back to Valerie’s business. It wasn’t long before Rex became a cyberstar and he began receiving hundreds of and emails and posts from around the world while PR companies also began sending him catfood! But it was when Valerie overheard an unknown woman in a pub one evening showing Rex’s blog to a friend that she knew that she had come upon a very powerful marketing tool.

She then knew that she could take the project out of the incubator and apply the learnings to drive her own business to profitability.

What impressed me was the ingenuity that Valerie showed by trying to learn how to use the new technologies. She acknowledged that she spent hours over the weekend setting up the campaign and that she needed to stay on top of it while it was running. But this investment is one that many women can make to drive their own businesses forward, and take continue to take the lead in online innovation.

Did you wince when you heard Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott plead ignorance about the peak broadband speeds last Tuesday evening when quizzed by the 7.30 Reports Kerry O’Brien?

I did because it also reminds me of the response I hear from many senior marketing executives when I raise the subject of connecting with women on line.

Many just go blank.

I know those execs may have already read my column in ConnectedWomen this week and posted below, relating the curious tale of Valerie Khoo’s social media experiment with her cat Rex.

I suspect many would have glanced over this, had a laugh and then gone back to working out how they can continue to pump thousands of their company’s dollars into traditional media.

But some smart ones may be thinking: “ If she can achieve that sort of reach and success with a blog about a cat, then I may be able to do the same with my new  beautiful shiny product” (or at least I hope you are!). Because if you aren’t and you are in possession of your company’s marketing budget, then you are steering that company towards oblivion.

Projecting into the next five years, the continued migration of women to the social media channels and their high level of skills in being able to create these channels for themselves (Valerie is a good example and she teaches executives how to do this) means that businesses who don’t start to connect now will be left out of the conversation.

For example, do you know right now what is being said about either your product or your company in the social media right now? If you don’t why not?

Reasons that I hear for not paying attention to the social media range from “not enough time” to “I don’t think it really works”.  And these come from executives with the word ‘marketing’ in their title and who earn well over $150,000 per annum.

What I really imagine they are saying is that, “I am too afraid to look at that because I may have to change my thinking and learn something new. And I may get it wrong”.

Just as we all reeled back when  Abbott bluntly told Kerry O’Brien last Tuesday night on The 7.30 Report that he wasn’t Bill Gates when it came to the Australia’s broadband needs, I often feel the same when I hear business executives continuing to ignore this critical communication platform.

We know that 72% of Australian women control the household budget and we know that they would prefer that companies hear them and engage with them authentically.

So I pose this challenge to CEO’s: ask your marketing heads why they haven’t created a blog for women about either your company’s expertise, or for its greatest product and let me know what they say.

And if they don’t know why they haven’t done this, find someone who can.

Now that some of the dust has settled on the $37million bombshell that was lobbed by Kristy-Fraser-Kirk’s legal team into the David Jones empire last week, , the company has the best opportunity to stop selling to women and start connecting with them.

David Jones has been masterful at presenting a polished, stylish face to its ‘stakeholders’: customers, shareholders, suppliers and media. Many have bought into this, believing that this ‘persona’ was in fact real, a true reflection of the heart and soul of the business .

Now we know differently, that the soul of the David Jones is very similar to that of any other Australian monocultural business run by middle-aged, white, Anglo-Saxon men. We know that, by the nature of their devotion to fiscal performance and ambition, these men (and some women who have adapted to this environment), are terribly disconnected from the female market and workforce which they are ironically charged with serving.

The impact of this disconnection was highlighted in the the global Report ‘What Women Want’ published in late 2009, detailing women’s disillusion with corporate brands. The research was conducted by The Boston Consulting Group, a leading global advisor on business strategy.

This is not a criticism of David Jones, but an observation born from the decades I have spent studying and working within the Australian retail landscape. It’s also a cry I hear daily from women who feel many Australian retailers hold them in low esteem.

I don’t want to add any further to the humiliation that the board, management and staff of David Jones are presently experiencing. But, I would like to suggest a path forward for this retailer that will restore its dignity in the minds of our community and give them the best chance of ensuring they  lead by example.

This path is not original, one of the world’s most successful retailers, Best Buy has already shown them how. By making a commitment,  Best Buy  harnessed the power of its sizeable female workforce to carve a new culture which could only be described as ‘gender intelligent’.

Instead of targeting women purely as sources of revenue, this model embraces and honours their contribution and gives them permission to organically mould and influence their business footprint.

All this from a retailer who sells TVs and computers. But as a result,  Best Buy’s revenue was lifted  by US$4.4 billion from female customers over four years.

 We can only imagine how David Jones could transcend its present difficult circumstances, if it had the willingness and courage to look deep into its organization to find the female influencers and harness their power to build a new business out of the rubble, and heal the old one as well.

Claire has developed a program  which enables  business executives to learn how to create gender intelligent cultures that lead to success. To hear Claire present her Seven Steps to Connecting  to Women click here.

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Slice of life: Yesterday, I had enjoyed a brunch in Sydney’s Hawkesbury region and following a request from my husband to track down a battery charger for a camera, I found myself inside a local Dick Smith store (his suggestion).

I was hopeful that the task could be completed successfully and we would soon be up and shooting. When I stepped foot into the store, I could immediately see that it held a myriad of other treasures that I could use in my home office, for my staff and just for fun. I could even see that at the far end of the store there were some large screen Tvs and I was interested in seeing what they stocked.

Like many women out for shopping on the weekend, I was happy (just enjoyed great company) and more importantly I was cashed up and in the mood. So, this was the conversation I had with myself in my head in the Dick Smith store at that moment, as many women reading this will understand.

“I would really like to look at some of the things they have in here, but I don’t know where to start. It means I will wander around looking and feeling stupid, become confused and probably sound that way as well.”

You can imaging that within seconds I was starting to feel unsettled (not a good feeling for a woman wanting to spend, as it starts to take the joy out of the whole experience). This is what I heard in my head next:

“If only someone could understand me and come and guide me, then I could make a start.”

That didn’t happen. Instead I put on hold my desire to browse, enjoy and buy and just stood uncomfortably behind the person at the counter who was being served by a young male assistant.

I started to have the sinking feeling that this wasn’t going to be a successful venture on any level. He didn’t acknowledge my presence either while he was serving or when the customer left. I had to walk directly up to the counter and ask my question.

By now I am starting to feel that I am interfering in his work and that my question was foolish anyway I asked it. I was obviously on the right beam with this feeling as he took several steps back when I asked my simple question and actually moved his body away from me.

(This transfer of negative energy from the male sales staff to the female customers would be happening in many stores owned, managed and staffed by males everyday. Most particularly in the CE and automotive industries).

This is because women are acutely aware of people’s feeling towards them. They pick this up from body language and other non-verbal cues which feed into their highly tuned intuitive system. This is not generally the case for men).

His answer was succinct: “No, we don’t sell battery chargers” .

And in that moment, I had the uncomfortable feeling that I should have know that before coming into the store.

As I don’t normally give up easily, I pressed him further: “Where could I get one?”

“Try a camera specialist or the manufacturer,” he replied, as he walked away from me.

I need to say, that this assistant wasn’t unpleasant or rude. He was just disinterested.

Disappointed, deflated and somewhat frustrated, I left and walked straight into the store next door which sold fashion (it could have been food, homewares, books). The female assistant hovering at the entrance commented on my attire and my spirits lifted.

She invited me in and I spent an enjoyable 30 minutes in her company and walked out with a smile and a bulging shopping bag. Now that’s simple gender intelligence.

Have you ever watched groups of women enjoying lunch together, meeting for coffee or just standing chatting at the school gates, supermarket or car park?
 
Once this would have described as “gossiping,” but now we know better. Women are sharing their experiences, listening to others and usually making plans for their day and their lives.

 This behaviour often seems a mystery to many men and when it comes to harnessing its power in the workplace, more restrictions seem to be being built  to shut it down rather than nurture it.

 Over the past year I have been talking and presenting to male executives within the Australian consumer electronics industry on this very subject: connecting to women. In all of these discussions I am yet to discover any internal mechanism that has been established to garner information from women, to nurture it and then to put it to work for the good of the country and hopefully, our  society.

Even more startling, I continue to hear that men are developing products for women, and when it comes to selling them to this gender, they ask male retailers for their opinions.  It’s little wonder that at a time when women are flocking to the internet to buy anything from shoes to travel, bricks and mortar retailers are closing down.

 But it is even more baffling to see multi-national companies, particularly with products that women enjoy using such as mobile phones, cooking products and personal care refusing to come on board with social media. Again this week,  a  senior  retail executive selling products to women, explained to me that his company doesn’t have any access to social media.

 This is because it is the company’s policy to block it. Yet this retailer  has stores in every shopping mall in Australia.

 For example, if this retailer really wanted to know  the reaction to the female dominated Sydney Good Food & Wine Show and how to capitalize on this trend, he could have read the 549 social media mentions which were made about the Show. He could then have discussed this with his team and immediately tweeked his offer and messages to be in line with how market was responding.

 But because he can’t access social media to listen to what his female customers are saying in real time, he can’t.

Have you ever thought of touching your mother-in-law’s heart by giving her an oven? Well this is how one man connected with a woman and is reaping the benefits.

Murray Richardson is a 40 something senior sales manager with the Korean company LG Electronics and he knows his kitchen appliances. But when he’s not travelling the world finding new products for LG to sell to Australian retailers and consumers, he’s married with kids. And he has a mother-in-law.

We got around to talking about this important relationship when I met him on the LG stand at Sydney’s Good Food and Wine Show, last Friday morning. It was early and I had been part of the media pack watching chef Darren Simpson demonstrate LG’s new fridges, ovens and cooktops.

It was then that he was given the insight that was to change his life so dramatically. He decided to offer the free oven to his mother-in-law, a woman who actually needed one.

What did Murray do that was so transformative to the relationship after 18 years?

According to John Gray in his multi-million dollar best seller ‘Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus‘, “The most frequently expressed complaint women have about men is that they don’t listen.”

Murray ‘heard’ that his mother-in-law need a new oven, and being in a position to act, he went one better by giving her what she needed. In return Murray can expect:

• Blue-ribbon authentic product endorsement directly to at least 15 of her female friends, who will most likely tell another 15 women each about this marvellous experience which happened to one of their tribe. In total, Murray’s action will potentially reach 225 women associated with his mother-in-law by word of mouth
• For every woman (such as myself) who hears this tale from Murray, similar word-of-mouth reach through our tribes
• Additional reach of hundreds of thousands as I write about this and it becomes live through the social media
• Free meals at his parents-in-law’s home indefinitely
•  A warm feeling from his mother-in-law for the next little while

The takeout from this is simple: if you have the time, listen carefully to every woman you meet with the understanding that women are primarily driven by relationships and the desire to help.

So if you can listen to her, then she will help you: in ways you could never imagine.