MarkM--Hah! Yes, I've always worked with salespeople. I've never been exploitative, so I cannot say that I've ever consciously used my feminine wiles for evil--only good.
I will say the nicest compliment I've ever received was from a couple of young professional women on our staff. They considered me a role model. And when you have drop-dead gorgeous young women 10-15 years your junior calling you smart, sexy and powerful who cares what the men think!
Did you know that some studies I have read show that females make better INVESTORS than men? All that testosterone is not so good for the investment account it seems. Maybe chasing the newest hottest "babe" isn't the right way to go? Better maybe to stay with the model you have even if she is "10-15 years older" than that slinky "skirt" you've just oogled, eh?
Oh I don't think it is evil Leisa, just smart. Patience (to take one character trait as an example) is very valuable. Of all the men you know, how many possess PATIENCE in spades? In my experience I have found that trait more often in women than men. (Others can disagree.) How many times has Bill said "Let the price come to you" or some variant? Anyway, what I am trying to say is that men and women (WHILE CREATED EQUAL OF COURSE! ;) ) are not the same. Use what you have to your advantage. If that is patience, more power to you. (It's NOT one of my strong suits and I have to fight it all the time.) I'll have to think about how you use that "powerful and sexy" angle in trading the markets though. :)
I'm a big believer in leveraging the gifts of the group. We did lots of team selling in my last job--multi-discipline approach on both the customer side and our side. The negotiation and contract process took months. We had a terrific mix of disciplines and personalities. We also carefully carved out our roles and determined who had better camaraderie with our client team.
After working for months on a contract (I worked with their counsel over xmas holiday and New Years because "time was of the essence") by April (yeah, 4 months later) they gave us a final draft that I had to review over a weekend for a Monday meeting. That f'in contract was unregognizable!
There were three deal breakers. We spent some time over the weekend strategizing how to handle our next client meeting. We agreed that I would be the heavy (that happened alot) to give our sales team a back door.
I walked in (we had to fly to see the client and we had the balance of the team on the conference call) with my contract tagged with those flags. I had yellow ones and 3 pink (fuscia to be precise)ones. So I said in my quiet voice (and interestingly not one of the client's team members would meet my gaze) "Thank you for sending us this contract. I have to admit that I was very surprised. It reflects a number of things that have never been discussed though we have been working on the contract for months. I've tagged by comments in yellow and pink. We'll go over the three clauses marked by the pink flags. If we cannot agree on those items we will have a very short meeting." And then I just shut up and watched them fidget, for they knew they had pulled three fast ones. My VP of Sales immediately took over and all was right with the world! We had a terrific meeting, successfully negotiated each issue.
It was hard work, but we worked together really well as a team--lots of respect and support to get the job done.
So, that same skill you just described was just on display this morning. You anticipated what reactions were going to be then forced a favorable outcome. Yesterday on Bill's blog I said I would not close out my short until Japan and Europe had its crack at all the bad data from yesterday. Viola, early sell-off caused by traders being forced to re-balance due to JPN and EUR weakness, then and only then did I cover. The tricky part was how did I know Wednesday was going to be Red Letter Day? Oh, that's right, no one can call these things! (What is that, eight in a row? (Insert picture of male display of feathers here.) ;)
7 comments:
You didn't short on my "call"? Why do I bother posting at sites you frequent then? :)
Well...I'm plenty short in my real portfolio. I should have kept my ANPI--it went up during the Fed's news.
And...how is any of that a surprise? I really just don't get the market. It reminds me of a teenage boy--always a hard on and now real sense.
(sorry if I've offended anyone).
So you DO understand the psychology of the market then! :)
If in your career you've worked around guys in sales, IT IS THE SAME THING. Now, how do you exploit that with your feminine wiles?
(Not so sorry if I've offended anyone. It's the way I am.)
MarkM--Hah! Yes, I've always worked with salespeople. I've never been exploitative, so I cannot say that I've ever consciously used my feminine wiles for evil--only good.
I will say the nicest compliment I've ever received was from a couple of young professional women on our staff. They considered me a role model. And when you have drop-dead gorgeous young women 10-15 years your junior calling you smart, sexy and powerful who cares what the men think!
Did you know that some studies I have read show that females make better INVESTORS than men? All that testosterone is not so good for the investment account it seems. Maybe chasing the newest hottest "babe" isn't the right way to go? Better maybe to stay with the model you have even if she is "10-15 years older" than that slinky "skirt" you've just oogled, eh?
Oh I don't think it is evil Leisa, just smart. Patience (to take one character trait as an example) is very valuable. Of all the men you know, how many possess PATIENCE in spades? In my experience I have found that trait more often in women than men. (Others can disagree.) How many times has Bill said "Let the price come to you" or some variant? Anyway, what I am trying to say is that men and women (WHILE CREATED EQUAL OF COURSE! ;) ) are not the same. Use what you have to your advantage. If that is patience, more power to you. (It's NOT one of my strong suits and I have to fight it all the time.) I'll have to think about how you use that "powerful and sexy" angle in trading the markets though. :)
I'm a big believer in leveraging the gifts of the group. We did lots of team selling in my last job--multi-discipline approach on both the customer side and our side. The negotiation and contract process took months. We had a terrific mix of disciplines and personalities. We also carefully carved out our roles and determined who had better camaraderie with our client team.
After working for months on a contract (I worked with their counsel over xmas holiday and New Years because "time was of the essence") by April (yeah, 4 months later) they gave us a final draft that I had to review over a weekend for a Monday meeting. That f'in contract was unregognizable!
There were three deal breakers. We spent some time over the weekend strategizing how to handle our next client meeting. We agreed that I would be the heavy (that happened alot) to give our sales team a back door.
I walked in (we had to fly to see the client and we had the balance of the team on the conference call) with my contract tagged with those flags. I had yellow ones and 3 pink (fuscia to be precise)ones. So I said in my quiet voice (and interestingly not one of the client's team members would meet my gaze) "Thank you for sending us this contract. I have to admit that I was very surprised. It reflects a number of things that have never been discussed though we have been working on the contract for months. I've tagged by comments in yellow and pink. We'll go over the three clauses marked by the pink flags. If we cannot agree on those items we will have a very short meeting." And then I just shut up and watched them fidget, for they knew they had pulled three fast ones. My VP of Sales immediately took over and all was right with the world! We had a terrific meeting, successfully negotiated each issue.
It was hard work, but we worked together really well as a team--lots of respect and support to get the job done.
So, that same skill you just described was just on display this morning. You anticipated what reactions were going to be then forced a favorable outcome. Yesterday on Bill's blog I said I would not close out my short until Japan and Europe had its crack at all the bad data from yesterday. Viola, early sell-off caused by traders being forced to re-balance due to JPN and EUR weakness, then and only then did I cover. The tricky part was how did I know Wednesday was going to be Red Letter Day? Oh, that's right, no one can call these things! (What is that, eight in a row? (Insert picture of male display of feathers here.) ;)
MarkM
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