Chapter 1

Recognize How Women Differ from Men

Consumer trend expert, Faith Popcorn, says, “Companies think they’re marketing to women, but they’re not. They’re not talking to women. They don’t know how to talk to women. They really don’t realize that women have a separate language and a separate way of being.”4

This is a departure from the recent tendency to try and gender-neutralize everything. So, to be clear, my goal here is to recognize gender-specific tendencies, not stereotypes.

ATIME Magazine cover article from January of 1992 said, “It has been proven scientifically that men and women are different.”5 If you grew up before 1992, you already knew this, but now it is official.

I discovered those sales differences on a beautiful Pacific Northwest day one summer when my husband and I decided to make a major purchase. A boat. Not just a little boat, but one big enough for us to live aboard. While many people dream of buying their first home, my lifelong dream had been to buy and live on a boat. For me, it was an adventure to have a season in my life that romantic songs are written about and wanderlust artists put to canvas. Whether walking through a marina at sunrise and watching the boats make ready to embark on their journeys or winding down in the cool of the evening after a day at sea, with the gentle lapping of water alongside a resting boat; life on the water called to me.

Though I dreamed about this for years, it wasn’t until I had written it down as one of my goals in my success journal, and then shared that dream with my husband, that this goal turned into a reality. Based on the direction we were going in our lives at that time, this was a practical decision as well as an adventure.

There was one