Women in Sales

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Women in Sales Event hosted at the PagerDuty office. The evening started off with a casual networking session in the high tech office with a gorgeous view of Toronto.

The panel was led by Joanne Modugno. Panellists included Deidre Lipton (Director of Sales, Central Region at Microsoft), Sarah Fleming (Head of Sales and Uber Eats), Kalsang Tanzin (Regional Manager - Mid Market at LinkedIn), Shimona Mehta (Head of Revenue Acceleration at Shopify), and Tami Rogers (Account Manager at PagerDuty). The discussion began by talking about the qualities they each think a strong leader possesses while sharing personal stories within their roles. They focused on the importance of leading from behind along with the importance of learning from your team and building meaningful relationships. They mentioned that a leader is nothing without their team and highlighted the importance of hiring the right people who can cultivate a positive culture along with how a hire who isn’t the right fit can be detrimental to a team’s success. Kalsang from LinkedIn shared that in the workplace, it’s important to have a “coat of arms” which serves as your main values and traits you want to have people think of when they think of you. She encouraged the audience to think of their coat of arms and ways to develop those core values everyday – both in and out of the office.

The panel continued to discuss women in sales and why women traditionally don’t find themselves in sales roles. Tami from PagerDuty believes that this is all based on how we’re raised. Women are nurtured to act differently than young boys which typically causes them to be more attentive, and have a softer approach - a trait sales people typically aren’t known for having. What I loved about her insight is that she was able to turn her softer approach to sales to her advantage. She found that by using her gentle approach, she was able to have clients let their guards down, resulting in them being more receptive to her ideas and her gaining their trust. In addition, she used her active listening skills to really hone in on the clients’ needs, resulting in a mutually beneficial, long-term relationships.

Finally, the women each touched upon a topic woman in all careers are often questioned about - the work life balance. As the quote “They say we can have it all, we pretend we can have it all” was written across the screen. One of the panellists saw the work life balance as a “harmony” rather than a balance and motioned that some days you may be strong in one aspect of your life such as your career and lacking in another such as your family. It’s important to be aware of your priorities and how they change at different points of your life. One panelist stated the importance of taking off her “CEO hat” when she steps into her home and to focus on her role as a wife, mom and friend. Majority of the women believed that you can’t have it all and that something will always have to be sacrificed, but Kalsang mentioned that “you can do anything, but you can’t do everything”. In addition, Tami said that you can have it all, but just not at the same time. She took time off work to raise her kids, then focused on her career as they grew older, so she highlighted the importance of knowing your priorities at different times of your life.

I was very impressed at the quality and knowledge of the speakers, I was continuously engaged and found it inspiring to hear from women in leadership roles. I was also happy to attend with Sheila Cassidy from the Great Canadian Sales Competition and my colleague Stanley Sik as we’re the campus ambassadors for the competition at Ryerson and are continuously trying to find new ways to inspire students to think of a career in sales, especially for girls who often believe they can’t take on a sales role or have the proper skillset.

I look forward to taking the advice from the women at the event and bringing the knowledge I’ve gained to Ryerson students to encourage women to learn more about sales.