Along with 150 of Sydney’s heavy hitting female business networkers, I also enjoyed lunch with Ray Martin at the fabulous Tearoom in the QVB building on Wednesday.

As usual, there were no guests from the consumer electronics industry (although their stores are dotted around that graceful building), so they couldn’t learn how Ray Martin was able to connect with those powerful women, get them to buy his book and to recommend it to all their friends.

They also missed out on studying the high level of viral micro blogging that was happening about Ray throughout the event and has been ongoing for several days.

Just take a look at this post from my respected media colleague, Valerie Khoo. An expert in communication and a committed supporter of the leading women’s networks, Valerie puts the value of our women’s networks  into perspective.
Over the half dozen so years I have been a member of these networks, I have watched them grow into powerful forces whose primary aim is to encourage women to grow their businesses by supporting each other.

Speaking out about women’s workplace issues such as the woeful lack of women on Australian boards is at the top of the list. A great advocate on this topic is another colleague, founder of SheEO, Australia’s thought leader on gender balance,  
Jen Dalitz.

It’s a wonderful environment to work  within, with most groups operating with a flat hierarchy resulting in a low incidence of poisonous politics.

But, despite the growth in these networks and the fact that over 72% of Australian women control the household budget, I am yet to meet either a female or male (yes, men are most welcome to attend and many do so) executive of the CE industry voluntarily investing a few hours a month to attend a function and meet these women.

As a famous scientist pondered: why is it so?

Well, I haven’t done a poll on the subject yet (but watch out) but my sense is that they are uncomfortable in a room full of powerful women due to lack of experience

I have worked in the Australian CE industry for almost 18 years and I have never walked into a room of industry leaders who were all female.

This is because I believe that they are not encouraged to show up en masse.

And without an awareness of the leverage that these women can offer to businesses, many industry CEO’s just don’t include such networking events in their professional agendas.

It has also been suggested to me that many of the male leaders in this industry, who report to head offices in the Asian region do agree that they need to be more proactive in creating a gender intelligent operation.

But an attitude of “not on my watch”  towards such change overrides any other intentions.
As a result, these businesses continue to lose revenue to savvy operators such as Ray Martin, a man very comfortable with powerful women.

I would like to extend an invitation to any CE leader who feels they would like to talk to these women about the benefits of technology, or just to meet them and start to build relationships with them to let me know…we would love to see you onboard.

While all eyes have been trained on Barack Obama’s visit to Australia this week, it’s his wife Michelle Obama who wields the stronger influence over the world’s primary purchasers: women.

She is joined in these elite ranks by the Duchess of Cambridge who, like Michelle Obama, is publicly active on the world stage and possesses a supreme selling power.

Why?

Because the decisions these women make in their everyday lives from what they eat, wear, decorate, read or watch is copied religiously by other women around the world. And this isn’t just a trend, the impact of their influence can take just minutes to reverberate around the world and is significantly change the fortunes of many businesses.

Since her engagement to Prince William last year, almost everything the Duchess of Cambridge has worn has sold out within minutes, such as the nude Reiss dress she wore to meet Obama at Buckingham Palace in May. As soon as pictures of the Duchess wearing it appeared, the British retailer was selling the $316 dress at a rate of one a minute.

Meanwhile Obama was dubbed the $3 billion woman after a study by New York University’s Stern School of Business found a company’s stock skyrocketed when she was photographed in one of its garments.

Identifying your SuperInfluencer

While not all businesses can be gifted with the grace that flows from these two iconic women, there are some steps you can take today to being engaging with a SuperInfluencer in your own community.

There are a wealth of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand, see what type of content they’re sharing and with whom, and how they are sharing it . Once you find these influencers,  you can them begin  to engage with them with the goal that they will continue to share about your brand.

Ben Straley is the CEO of Meteor Solutions, provider of word-of-mouth analytics and optimization platform that enables marketers to measure, manage, and monetize earned media. He suggests that you try these three tips to help you activate your top influencers.

1. Reserve Your Best Content for Influencers Only

Create exclusive content you share only with your key influencers, and let them know they were one of a select few to receive this special offer. This makes your brand advocates feel appreciated and provides them with exclusive information they can use to boost their reputation as a source of inside deals.

2. Mine the Blogs and Forums

When you’re looking for super influencers, chances are you’ve already determined who shares the most on Facebook and Twitter. But, in many cases, the people who really influence traffic and conversion on your site are the bloggers.

Once you’ve used analytics tools to find exactly which individuals are driving the most traffic to your campaign sites, you need to reach out to these people individually. Treat them like the real VIPs they are. Let them know you appreciate their loyalty and interest in your products. We’ve found influencers appreciate your attention and kind words even more than exclusive promotions.

3. Differentiate the Influencers from the Super Influencers .

Not all influencers are alike.

When you plot the influence of individuals, you’ll see a curve that looks a lot like the long tail distribution of search terms. Influence follows a “power law,” where a relatively small number of individuals influence the lion’s share of referrals. Those at the peak of this curve are the super influencers, and those in the tail are regular influencers.  Super influencers have large, loyal followings and audiences who trust their insights. The latter are people who pass along info to friends and family from time to time via e-mail and Facebook.

Understanding these differences is key to crafting your influencer activation strategy. You need to interact with super influencers on a one-to-one basis, but you could target the rest of your influencers a bit more broadly.

If you want to tap into some of that magic  that women like Michelle Obama and the Duchess of Cambridge own, just identifying your key influencers is not enough: you’ve got to find them and then motivate them to share.

Over the long term, you need to increase the size of your influencer base. By finding and engaging in a direct dialogue with your super influencers, you’ll get a clear idea of what motivates these brand ambassadors to share. Then, armed with that knowledge, you can begin reaching out to your influencers — and even your fans who never share — to offer the right kind of content and rewards to turn more “followers” into “sharers.”

More than 150,000 community sector workers are about to receive a long-awaited pay rise and the majority are women, who will now be seriously thinking about how they will spend this bonus. Additionally, the community organisations where many of these women work will also benefit from a government contribution of $2 billion over six years.

This means that the women running these businesses will need to invest in new technology, products and services to support the expansion which will now follow.

But if you still don’t have a gender intelligent culture within your business which recognises these women when she walks into your store and then genuinely connects with her, then you will be left behind as she and her friends continue to migrate where they feel understood.

Going back to basics, we need to remember that men and women operate from a different mindset when they  make decisions and this includes shopping for either their businesses, themselves or  their families.

Her system of problem-solving takes a long time and involves making everything personal and leading with her emotions in a quest to see how she would feel about each possible solution.

Now this may be frustrating for a male sales assistant who doesn’t understand that the female shopper is taking due consideration about the purchase. They can appear pushy and insincere when they try to close the sale.

They may even unconsciously communicate to the shopper that she is somehow not “up to the job” particularly if she is shopping with a male, where they obviously make an immediate connection.

As Australian shoppers have snapped their purses shut during 2011 this situation may even be exacerbated as she takes even longer to makes up her mind, while the sales assistant become even more anxious to push her towards a decision.

What they need to remember is that  while the language used to describe a woman’s problem solving process is often negative, the end conclusion is, “her decisions always end up being the right ones.”

Stephanie Holland from She Economy explains why understanding a woman’s buying process is crucial when you are in a sales situation.

1.Give her enough time – if a woman says “she needs to think about it,” she is not saying no. Women complain that men move in too soon for the close.  If she’s not ready to buy, ask her “do you have any questions or concerns I haven’t addressed?” to see if she is missing crucial information, then let her go do her processing and set up another appointment.  She will appreciate this! 

2.Make an emotional connection-  Ask her questions, find out everything you can about her situation, her concerns, the people her decision will affect.  By asking questions and really listening to her answers, you are building trust – the most important emotion in a sale to a woman.

By understanding theses simple differences between how men and women make buying decisions and implementing them into your sales force, not only will you increase sales but you will be way ahead of the competition that just don’t have time to be gender intelligent.