Wemen

"How do women do network marketing differently than men?" My first impulse is to answer, “Not nearly as differently as some seem to think.”

One of the fundamental values, benefits and joys of this jewel of free enterprise is that by its intrinsic nature, it is not a genderly partisan beast.

Getting results from a product you love, sharing the story with your sphere of influence, enrolling others and coaching people to grow big dreams and follow them with big actions . . . it’s an X-and-Y- chromosome-friendly way of working and living.

I’ve noticed virtually identical tendencies among both male and female networkers. Just as many men are timid about declaring their own goals as women; just as many women are as sky’s-the-limitish about theirs. Statistically, there are more women doing the business than men. But as far as how they’re doing it, I don’t really see many glaring distinctions between the genders in their attitudes, strategies or results.

Hence the title. Did I misspell “Women,” or misspace “We men”? Neither. Both.

That said, I do see one major difference.

To generalize (and it’s generally true, so I will): the women networkers I know are better listeners.

And while the men are not necessarily better talkers, they do seem to want to talk more, to place a greater value on talking about what they’re doing.

Theoretically, “better listeners” should mean a better ability to grow deeper roots; that is, a group with staying power and greater genealogical depth and cohesion. If you listen to people well, they’ll feel it, get more emotionally invested in your group and, in the long run, drive that leg deeper.

If men are more committed to talking, then they will be—again, as a broad generality—stronger at growing wide front lines. More talking, more comfort with being “out in front of people” especially strangers, means more personal recruiting. And you know what? I find this to be exactly so. I’ve known more men than women who grow huge first levels with lots of breadth but less depth.

Question: if the women in this business accomplish at least as much as the men, and most likely more (since there seem to be more of them here in network marketing, and I’ll bet they create longer-lasting network relationships overall), why don’t we see more woman-authored books on networking? Why aren’t there more female “generic” trainers and consultants? Is it that men are more inclined to spread the word, telling everyone what they’ve done and giving how-to advice in a public forum, while women tend more to keep out of the limelight and focus on helping individual people, up close and personal? I think so.

Men and women both make great networkers. Men like to talk about it more. Women listen better.

Time for me to shut up.

Reprinted with permission from The Zen of MLM (www.zenofmlm.com), Copyright © John David Mann 2007.

John David Mann is one of the most recognizable and well-respected names in network marketing. As co-founder (with John Fogg) and senior editor of Upline®, Editor in Chief of Network Marketing Lifestyles and the current Editor in Chief of Networking Times, he has been keenly observing and insightfully commenting on the Network Marketing world for more than 15 years. And... John has been one of the top-earning distributors with the same networking company for nearly 20 years.

The Last Word is an i-book in process, an ongoing collection of short essays on the experience of network marketing. Each article is linked to an interactive forum for "reader comments" so now, you can have the last word. John says he may eventually ... finish... and publish this book (on, you know, paper). For now (and maybe forever), it exists as a living, growing conversation on the Internet. Just click the link to visit John's website: JohnDavidMann.com