Show notes
As Nokia Today’s Women in Tech series marches on, hosts Tyler Kern and Marriane Strobel, Nokia Vice President of North America Customer Marketing and Communications, were joined by Andrea Austin, Vice President of Sales for Nokia Software for a discussion on a topic Austin has plenty of experience in – women in sales roles.
A study cited in Forbes reports that women represent 39% of the workforce in sales roles, yet that percentage decreases as seniority increases. That means women aren’t penetrating the upper echelons of revenue organizations and sales roles.
This isn’t for a lack of talent, passion or capability, Austin said.
“I think one of the myths might be that women are risk-averse to the high-stakes jobs,” she said. “I personally think that’s nonsense. It’s not a skill set or a trait. There are certain attributes when you’re in these high-stakes jobs, and I think they’re somewhat genderless.”
Those attributes include acquiring and cultivating customers, being able to fail and “fail forward” by learning from the scenario, and being comfortable in your skin and being able to “speak your truth.” Those are all attributes Austin knows don’t depend on gender.
To be able to achieve that final trait of being comfortable in your skin, Austin said she has a variety of best practices and helpful tips. The first and most prominent, however, is that women “have the confidence [they’ve] earned.”
“If you’re in that room, take a seat at the table. Don’t sit in the back,” she said. “Have the confidence to speak up, and, as I said before, speak that truth. You have an opinion. You’ve earned the right to be in that room.”
Some changes are being implemented to help women take that seat at the table, though Austin said even a base-level awareness and intention to do better has helped propel women toward the positions they’ve earned.
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