SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE…PROMOTING IDEAS WOMEN GURUS – THE BRAIN TRUST By Sue Van Der Hout
by Sally Helgesen
The list of male speakers who purportedly electrify audiences apparently attracts more attention than their female counterparts. Ten women, leaders in their own right, recognized that not only were the boys getting more of the gigs, but they tended to make far more than what the women were making for delivering the same quality product. Is there no end to the ways in which the marketplace is weighted against women? What can we do to change it?
It’s said that women own the gift of gab. Apparently, that’s not the case in the speechifying/training arena.
Sally Helgesen is an expert in leadership development. Since 1990 she has been working as a speaker. She’s worked with the best of the best – including Tom Peters of Excellence Fame. Notwithstanding the quality of her work and that of other women she knew, the calls were just not coming and when they did women were being offered up to 2/3 less than men to speak. She was told that it’s hard to find women to speak.
Sally recognized that there was a problem and it wasn’t a lack of speakers. The problem was a failure to recognize and reward women speakers’ and pay them to scale with their male counterparts. Women were just not being called as often as men, they weren’t getting the big conferences and when they were invited, they were being offered a whole lot less money. Seems that corporate audiences, who are largely male, wouldn’t attend for a female speaker unless the head honcho showed, which he rarely did. Men assume, female speaker, is for women. Even breaking through to big mixed gender conferences was trailblazing. Women speakers still hadn’t cracked the big corporate markets. So she got on the phone.
Sally contacted women with profile in the field of training and development and persuaded them that there was power in numbers. Eventually ten women, all authors and nationally recognized speakers decided that the way the to attack that inequity was to band together, support each other and beat the drum more loudly by promoting and supporting each other. They agreed on membership criteria: each had a be a recognized and leading expert in her own field; she had to be a published author; be actively engaged in speaking as a career; have demonstrable value in the field; easy to contact, quick to respond and fun to work with.
They call themselves the WomenGurusNetwork.com, covering the waterfront – the workplace, the marketplace and real life. Their menu of topics that benefit men and women alike run the gamut from: Staying Competitive with People, Margaret Heffernan; Trend, Design and Innovation, Robyn Waters; Using Your Untapped Power, Women Supporting Women and the Unwritten Rules of the Game, Gail Evans; Women in the Workspace, Communications the Connect with Women, Marti Barletta; Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Made Easy, Susan Bird; Worklife Balance, Sally Helgesen; Workplace Satisfaction, Career Development and Coaching Bev Kaye; Women in Leadership, Connie Glaser and Sally Helgesen ; gender communications and communicating effectively, Connie Glaser; engaging in leveraging networks, Susan Bird and Susan RoAne.
| They’ve been working well together, referring work to one another and shaping niches within the network. |
Rethink leadership. Rethink teams. Redefine Success. New ideas? Ask a woman.
01.10.2007
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 Sally Helgesen
Sally Helgesen founded the The Women Gurus Network. It is a consortium of world-class thinkers, writers and consultants dedicated to building business through improved leadership, workplace effectiveness and communications with stakeholders. Available to both organizations and media, the respected individuals of The Women Gurus Network are all extraordinary professional speakers who leverage decades of in-depth work with global corporations, government agencies, major associations and higher education institutions around the world to bring fresh perspectives on timely topics of interest to audiences everywhere. www.womengurusnetwork.com
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