Earning Her Business
The Importance of Tailoring Your Brand Experience to the Female Consumer
Katie Mares draws on her leadership coaching expertise in Earning Her Business, a primer on achieving success in business by focusing on the needs of women customers and employees.
Arguing that brand perceptions and consumer behaviors differ between men and women, the book laments that companies make most product and marketing decisions without considering women’s perspectives. It says that companies that meet women consumers’ needs generate higher sales, earn more repeat sales, and motivate more referrals, thereby leading to higher profits.
The book’s brief, accessible chapters cover an array of relevant topics related to meeting women consumers’ needs and hiring and promoting women leaders. Its messages are supported with credible statistics and personable language, though some of the book’s juxtapositions of women against men consumers are without nuance, including the assertions that, as shoppers, women are emotional rather than logical; that women love to shop; and that, compared to men, women care more about the experience of shopping than about the outcome. Elsewhere, amusing stories illustrate what happens when men leaders don’t consider women customers’ perspectives: men leaders who had never been inside of a women’s restroom, for example, express shock over how little care is given to meeting women’s basic needs.
Mares’s advice is general in scope, not limited to any one industry. Her helpful tips for product managers and marketers include designing a woman customer persona based on research of women’s attitudes, perceptions, and shopping behaviors. Such tips are pertinent but not specific, sans the implementation details and examples that might make them more helpful.
Earning Her Business is a useful guide toward achieving business success by focusing on the needs of women consumers.
Reviewed by
Carol Booton
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
