Pleasure to meet you all virtually. I hope you've been having a great conference so far. It's been an incredible day and we have so much more great content over the next couple of days.Um So really looking forward to that, I am humbled and grateful to be surrounded by such a phenomenal group of talented intelligent women from all around the world. We are here today because of the contributions and foundations laid by incredible leaders and trailblazers like Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Indre Nil Meg Whitman Saffer Katz, uh Sheryl Sandberg and several others. It's really important for me having gone through my journey and being inspired by those women to do what I can to help support and hopefully inspire those that come after us the next generation, particularly women and people of color to get into tech today. I'm going to be speaking about a topic that is very near and dear to my heart, which is tech sales and why tech sales is an amazing opportunity and fulfilling career that most people have not even considered and selfishly, we need more women in tech and more women in tech sales.

So quick introductions, my name is Toni Ma Khan. I am a very area native and grew up in and with the Silicon Valley, which really shaped my perspective of the world. I love technology and I love connecting with people. So it was natural that I end up in Texas. I've spent the last 12 or so years uh selling enterprise software from database to SASS uh to the Fortune 100 companies in the Silicon Valley like HP oracle, ebay, Facebook. Um From my time at companies like Oracle and Slack right now. Uh Currently, I'm privileged to lead the enterprise sales team at productive, which is a start up in Palo Alto whose customers include Workday, Uber and Meta. So when I think of a salesperson, when I was younger, the stereotype I had is probably in line with what I um dare say that most of you also have white male, extremely outgoing, most likely an athlete or a sports enthusiast, someone who's hyper competitive, loud, aggressive, even a smooth Tucker.

Definitely not someone who looks like me coming from a South Asian immigrant family with an engineer and technologists. Father. I thought that my only opportunities for getting into tech were to follow in those similar footsteps, becoming an engineer or a computer scientist, the lack of diversity in sales roles or any non technical roles and what was portrayed in the media back then um in the US in the nineties and two thousands didn't help break those stereotypes.

Um that in my and a lot of your minds either. Um I'm sure you all have, but despite all that, um I did end up in tech sales alongside other formidable, talented, incredible women and men who support, encourage and embrace diversity. We've made a lot of progress which is great, but there's still so much more room to grow despite the positive changes for me. Um And many other women in tech, it's a constant daily struggle to continuously have to prove ourselves even when we're outperforming to battle our own imposter syndrome to fight for things that should be table stakes, like equal pay, parental leave, flexible work schedules and to support, encourage and promote qualified diverse talent.

It's exhausting. I've had to and unfortunately, I still have to navigate through those challenges and I've often been the first and the only on teams and sadly, it's still not unusual. The one number of women in tech sales is sadly in line with the overall low numbers of women in tech in general. Um That's why conferences like these are so important um to highlight these issues and talk about these topics and encourage more women to get into tech. And despite research from firms like uh Zs and Harvard Business School that show women outperform men in B to B sales roles, we're faced with challenges and adversity throughout our careers. As a woman in tech sales and as a leader, I wanna do what I can to build awareness around why we need more women in tech. What it takes to be a successful sales rep, how we can drive towards more positive change and hopefully encourage more women. And maybe some of you to explore a highly rewarding career in sales. So being a successful sales rep or um successful in tech sales doesn't mean that you have to be or look like the typical sales rep and fit into those stereotypes. I certainly don't and didn't, I couldn't be any of those things. Um I'm not male, I'm not white. I like bright colors clearly.

Um They're the opposite of my personality but really leaning into and embracing my strengths as a female and as an individual have helped me pave my own path in tech sales. So you don't need to sell like a man owning who you are is a strength itself, everyone's unique, but there's a couple of key factors or attributes. Um that research has proven give females a competitive edge in question quotas, outperforming their peers and being extremely successful in sales.

I've seen most of these at attributes if not all of them in almost all of my female sales colleagues being natural communicators, being natural problem solvers, curious empathy, having that attention to detail, the impact that women bring in being better listeners, having more empathy and being able to connect meaningfully with customers and drive collaboration both with their clients and internally with their companies.

Really gives women the edge in tech sales in today's tech forward, digitally savvy world. Um companies expect expect more value from their sales people if they're looking for information buyers can and usually do go out, I'm sure you all do, go do your research and you can find plenty of information online what they're really looking for. Um in their sales rep is a partnership, someone who listens, so someone who has a pulse on the industry, someone who can share how other customers and peers are solving similar problems. How can that person give them things to consider? How can they help, help shape a solution to support their needs and really act as a consultant who's invested in and can partner to drive their business strategy and goals and growth forward, really understanding customer needs, shaping solutions and collaborating. All become inherently important in this new way of selling and these attributes all play to a woman's natural strengths, listening to understand, not just listening to respond, taking time to pause, taking in what the customer is saying, empathizing, being able to ascertain what they're not saying, being curious to ask thoughtful questions and then be able to piece all of that together.

Um Based on what you've heard to help drive a solution to help shape something together is incredibly important. And with the pandemic and this shift to remote and now hybrid work where we all need to be able to quickly adapt to digital and video to sell remotely also plays to a woman's strength, meeting customers at their office, golf for lunch, sporting events. These things are happening less and less. So being able to read people's facial cues on video or listen deeply to their tone, the pitch of their voice, which you really have to hone in on without the usual cues that salespeople could use before from in person interactions have become all the more important by listening to truly understand, leads to being naturally being customer focused.

There's an increasing shift particularly in high tech to a subscription software or SAS model. And in that model, you can't just sell and disappear the stereotype of being a fast talker, talking out your customer and focusing only on the features and benefits of your solution and how awesome it is doesn't serve today's intelligent customer well anymore. You have to earn the customer's trust. You need to gain their loyalty, you need to understand their pains and continually prove out value over the contract term so that they continue to renew and invest in your solution. And you can't earn that customer trust and gain their loyalty without having an understanding of their business, a genuine commitment to a lasting partnership. And that only happens by building a meaningful connection. People buy from people that they trust. So taking the time to not only understand the customer's business but the person, not just as a customer, but getting to know them as a person beyond their role and title, making those deeper connections that helps build trust. How do you do that be yourself? Only you who you are and really lean into your strengths, your passion and the impact that you bring. So for a lot of folks that's sports or beer, but that's not me totally fine.

Um Does that mean anyone who doesn't like sports or golf or beer or football can't sell? No talking about travel, kids, books, foods, yoga, food, um yoga, photography, um whatever you're into. But connecting at a human level to build meaningful connections and establish trust is something that anyone can do. And women again have an inherent strength in funny story. From my time at oracle that I'd like to share is um where my manager had joined me in one of my sales meetings and the customer started the meeting by giving me a big bear hug and ended the meeting with a hug. And my manager was really confused and surprised and said, I've never seen a customer hug a vendor before. When you feel a meaningful connection or you trust someone, it's natural to hug them. I don't know that many of my male colleagues hug their customers. But I do know several of my female sales colleagues do listening to the customer understanding their business, understanding their challenges, learning about them as people to help build trust and lasting relationships to really connect, help you become that trusted advisor and having that customer focus both at the customer level, as well as the individual level and being able to build those meaningful connections is another area that women are natural at and then being able to collaborate both with customers, but also internally within your company to advocate for your customers.

Um as well as advocating for yourself. Also comes naturally to many women. As more women also take on decision making and influential buying roles at companies. We've seen that today in the incredible lineup of speakers, we've had already sales, women can build stronger relationships and collaborate with the changing customer base. The other popular stereotype is that successful salespeople are loud and commanding and that if you're loud and commanding, you have something called executive presence, what does executive presence even mean that you look a certain way and that you speak a certain way. How's that not favoring a very specific group of people who are loud and native English speakers. The perception that only the person who speaks the most or the loudest in the room is the natural leader or the smartest one is ridiculous and it's completely not true and that perception is changing. Thankfully, you don't need to be the loudest in the room, but make sure your voice, your perspective is strong and that you're ready and more than well equipped to communicate effectively and collaborate as a team. One of my favorite Ted talks of all time.

Highly recommend you all to see if you haven't already is from Amy Cuddy. Um She's the author of the Power of the Introvert and she talks about in this TED talk, um the importance of first impressions she talks about, she goes into research about how women tend to make ourselves small. Um And we take up less space than men. So usually at meetings or in areas we'll like, you know, cross our legs or our arms and we try try to take up less space where men sprawl out on their legs, their arms and they take up more space. Um These are small or there are small meaningful tweaks that you can make posture, projecting, slowing down to show up, confident, strong with executive presence. Even if you don't have a booming voice, aren't a 6 ft tall man or a native English speaker. You don't need to be the loudest or the tallest person in the room. You don't need to be a super extrovert and English doesn't need to be your first language. As long as you're one with a strong, consistent and supportive voice focused on the customer and collaboration, you can certainly have a confident presence, influence and successfully. So, so with the current bear market and looming recession, companies everywhere are hunkering down.

But the need for talent, especially in tech, as I'm sure many of you know, is not going to slow down anytime soon. There's tons of studies out there now from Deloitte PWC, the future Forum, Adam Grant that indicate that hybrid work is here to stay. And that offering flexible work options is neces, it's a necessity to build out a diverse workforce and the future sales success for many companies in this rebounding economy after this recession is dependent on attracting and retaining more women for sales positions. I'm grateful that we live in a world now where I don't have to hide the fact that I'm a working mom. And after this crazy pandemic that we've all survived through, it's acceptable and ok for me to set boundaries, signing off, really signing off at 6 p.m. blocking my calendar for school pick up and drop off, not feeling guilty and not being penalized for being a working parent, seeing Jacinda Ardern um the Prime Minister of New Zealand uh at the height of the pandemic, um breastfeeding her newborn during a press conference was really emotional for me when I went back to work after my daughter was born.

Um I was pumping in a storage utility closet and I was questioned about my performance even though I was the number one performer on the team despite taking maternity leave. Is that really the state we want to leave the world in? That's definitely not the state I want to leave the world for, for my kids. So it's so important now, more than ever to have leaders who lead with compassion, empathy and embrace and understand the necessity of a diverse workforce. I was at slack during the 2020 lockdown and I'll never forget our then CMO showing up in a zoom meeting during our company all hands, called globally with her adorable daughters climbing on her lap and climbing on her head and it, it was, uh, she absolutely crushed the delivery of our go to market plan as a mother.

It was so validating to see that it's ok. We can't do it all and we can't do it all well. But if we have systems and teams in place that support the needs of all employees, it not only helps improve engagement but dramatically impacts the bottom line too. Diversity is important for business. It's the right thing to do. So what can we do to pay it forward and encourage more women to join tech sales? So it's important. I talked, I just talked about this. It's really important to advocate for yourself. You want to communicate your work, you wanna share your successes, your learnings to your immediate manager and team, but also cross functionally, don't expect people to just see and recognize what you're doing. You have to share it and advocate for yourself and it's ok to ask.

And if you don't ask only you're the one that's losing. You wanna seek out mentors who will help guide and coach you on improving your craft, whether that's learning a new skill or navigating to your next role, as well as sponsors who will advocate for your growth and success. When you're not in the room, it's so important. One of my wise mentors gave me the push that I really needed at the time by telling me that if I'm not uncomfortable, I'm not learning and that it's ok to sit with that discomfort. That really moved me to challenge myself to go to that next level, not giving into or shying away from the stereotypes, but really leaning into your strengths. So leveraging the skills of listening, building meaningful connections, collaborating, it leads not to only doing what's right for the customer and for the company, but for yourself. And it leads to a really fulfilling, rewarding career breaking and challenging those stereotypes creates a more inclusive workplace and includes, encourages women, people of color to explore a rewarding career in textiles, for companies and leaders, hiring managers, recruiters, they also need to lean into diversity focused recruiting.

How can we attract diverse talent? We need to really evaluate job descriptions and make them more general, neutral and less focused on uh stereotypes. So instead of saying aggressive and competitive, we can use words instead like customer focus and successful or succeed. We need to include more women leaders during the interview process for candidates. So employers can get a diverse perspective and create a more welcoming, friendly and inclusive culture. We need to build mentorship and coaching platforms targeted at connecting women with other leaders, giving them the access and exposure at all levels within a company so that they can learn about the full business as well as contribute their perspective, offer stretch assignments to develop and hone leadership skills and provide them access to clear career paths and planning.

And finally, let's be proactive, working on our own unconscious bias and throwing these stereotypes for success out the window. It's 2022 we need to promote more women to sales management and leadership roles. There's a clear path and evidence to show that that helps encourage attract and engage more female sales people and creates not only a diverse culture but an inclusive company, which is not just the right thing to do, but it's good for business itself. I'm confident that with all these changes, we can create a more fair equitable and inclusive future for the next generation. Thank you all so much for taking the time to join. It's like I said, so important to share these stories and have these conversations. So I want to give a huge thank you to women tech for giving me this opportunity and to bring us all together. I shared with you all that. One of the key reasons I do sales is because I love connecting with people. So I'd love to connect with you all on linkedin. Please don't be shy, reach out to me, send me an invite and I'd love to speak with you. All right. Thanks so much. Everyone. Have a great rest of the conference and I will see you in some of these other sessions. Bye.