In Women We Trust — book review

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of being a stop on author Mary Hunt’s virtual book tour for In Women We Trust: A cultural shift to the softer side of business, published by and available from Windsor Media Enterprises.

First, here’s my short review of the book. Next, I’ll post some tidbits from our conversation.

Mary’s thesis is pretty simple, and not totally unfamiliar. Women have significant buying power, and businesses should pay attention. That’s the really familiar part 🙂 She discusses how women are taking that buying power and using it with companies and service providers that sell to them in a female-friendly manner. And she doesn’t mean packaging it in pink.

The key, she says, is to approach and sell to women in a manner consistent with and respective of women’s culture. Women buy differently than men do. In order to sell your product to her, you have to approach her the way she wants, answer her questions, deliver a level of customer service that she demands, gain her trust.  She identifies nine "Trust Points"  Community, Respectful, Considerate, Fun, Safety, Honesty, Reliability, Thoughtful and Loyalty. If you deliver on the trust points, she says, women will buy.  And you’ll reap untold benefits because women will tell each other about their good experiences with you, your store, your products. If you don’t….

Now, none of this is big news. Especially if you are a woman

 🙂

What makes this book really worth adding to your marketing bookshelf are the checklists she gives for the Nine Trust Points. Even though the concepts are fairly easy to understand,  this stuff is hard for many companies to do. In part because it means giving back some control to the consumer, which is really really hard for corporate America’s command and control culture. The checklists give you a place to start … asking the right questions, evaluating your performance and delivery and service, and so forth. 

This would be a very useful book for marketers who want to reach out to the female consumer, and don’t know where to start. It’s a quick read and it will get you going. And if you already know where to go, but just need a little help convincing others, leave a copy on their desks 🙂

Next post: my chat with Mary.

Tags: gender, in women we trust, Mary Hunt, marketing to women