Chitra Singh is a pioneering figure in the world of sales, renowned for her unwavering commitment to empowering women in the field. With an impressive three-decade career in banking and sales, Chitra recognized the glaring absence of women in leadership roles during her corporate journey. Fuelled by a desire to effect meaningful change, she founded Sales Womentoring, a thriving community dedicated to financially empowering women in sales. Through various mentoring sessions, Chitra and her team provide invaluable support to women, helping them overcome personal challenges, dissolve limiting beliefs, and develop the confidence needed to excel in sales. Chitra’s primary goal is to inspire women to sell with confidence, challenging societal norms and encouraging them to prioritize their careers. Her own journey of resilience and determination serves as a beacon of hope for women aspiring to succeed in traditionally male-dominated industries.

It was an absolute honor to be talking to her while I was inspired throughout to value my voice.

Let us read about her convictions and her journey

1. Sales Womentoring is growing as a strong thriving community. What is the story behind your mission of financially empowering women as the founder of Sales Womentoring

 I’ve spent three decades in banking, in sales, and every meeting I attended, I saw that there were no women in the room. 

At leadership positions, I was the only one. 

In one of the banks,  I was the only woman in sales out of 26 regional heads. Having seen this problem repeated in corporates, I decided that it was high time, somebody should do something about it, and that somebody should be me. 

Because while I was in corporate life, I could probably recruit more women in my own sales team, and I could impact 5, 10, maybe 50, 100 people. But my impact was limited to that particular organization, and I wanted to multiply that impact. I also wanted to encourage women to combat the gender biases that exist in the workplace and which prevent them from moving forward. 

I wanted to create and multiply this voice while combating gender biases that traditionally dominate the world women live in.

The way to that was through a community that offers a supportive ecosystem for women to progress and achieve leadership positions in their professional roles.

2. Women, when they come into sales, there are a lot of challenges, especially with traveling with family. How do you help them balance both work and life and also traveling and also the challenges that come along with the sales?

The main objective of building this community Sales Womentoring is to enable women to sell with confidence and negotiate for the value they deserve, both at work and in life. 

For this very reason, we have 4 different sessions for women

1. Speed Mentoring
2. Power Mentoring
3. Business Mentoring
4. 1–1 mentoring

The reason is that professional progress is often impeded because of personal challenges. They come in as obstacles or they come in as challenges that do not help in one’s progress. That is why we have coaches and mentors in the community to help women with dissolving limiting beliefs.

Sales is 80% mindset and 20% skillset.

Hence when we assign mentors and coaches who have already been through this journey and have faced and mounted these challenges, the young sales women are inspired and we help build the right mindset for the job.

We also help them to develop the connections and network which is required to progress in their professional life. Through the community, they get access to sales leaders, mentors, and coaches, including coaches in other areas like relationship coaches and life coaches, which can help them to be more effective personally and professionally through the different mentoring sessions.

3.Why is learning sales important to women from different corporate experiences?

It is a myth that sales is required only by sellers. Ultimately, all of us are selling in our professions, in our businesses, as founders of companies, as business owners, and even as coaches or consultants, All of us are selling our brands, all of us are selling ourselves.

But at the same time, because we’ve never sold before or we’ve not had those designations and titles, we fear selling, we fear the reaction of the customer, and we wonder whether we will be good at it. That is why there is this entire community that tells you that, yes, we’ve been there, we’ve done that. 

The combined experience of all the mentors would be more than, say, 200 years because of the fact that each of us has put in at least 15, 20 years. This experience is then distilled into one hour of intense coaching or mentoring and then transferred to the mentee.

4. You are building a very strong personal brand online. What is the primary goal of Chitra Singh?

My primary goal is to be known as an inspired seller. If you see the tagline of the community, it says inspired selling. My primary goal is to be known as an inspired seller who can inspire others to sell better, to sell more, and to sell with confidence to enable them to understand that challenges and setbacks need not be the end of their careers, they need not quit. 

I primarily serve women because I find that they struggle with being confident not only in sales but in all aspects of life. We have this huge imposter syndrome hanging on our heads. We have our personal challenges. We have this whole dilemma and choices we make between being a parent and a professional, between being a mother and a manager. Should I give time to X or Y?  I am solving this by taking these women on a journey with themselves, building confidence, banishing limiting beliefs and taking up career as their priority.

As long as we women continue to choose accommodation over ambition, sacrifice over success, and compromise over conviction, we cannot create a more equal world for our daughters. We have a choice and a voice, a choice not to compromise, a choice not to accept the status quo and a voice to ask for the value we deserve. We must use both of these wisely in order to leave the place a better place than we found it!

5. Your evolutionary thoughts could have come across as a highly opinionated and patriarchal society. How did you combat these challenges?

So when I was 22, I was married, and I married a person I met at 19. So it was a love marriage and it is a highly traditional family. And I’ve talked about it often on LinkedIn. Also, it highly traditional and patriarchal family.  At that moment, my mind was set, I was unwavering to my decision to build my career and never gave up.

I tell women, first, establish themselves in their careers, reach a place where they can financially afford the child, and afford reliable, domestic help and care for the child. And that’s when you can outsource childcare to someone else, You can’t ever outsource it completely, but you can still get the help. 

Then go after what is yours.

And so one message I want to send out to women is the situation will always not be in your favor. Again, you have to negotiate, you have to ask you have a voice, right? And you have a choice, a choice not to compromise, not to accept the status quo, and a voice to ask for what you deserve. Unfortunately, most women choose to compromise, choose to sacrifice, choose to accommodate. Right. And as long as we choose accommodation over ambition and sacrifice over success, we will continue to put ourselves second.

6. Share with us an incident from childhood that shaped your purpose in life.

From a very young age, I was very talkative, all my relatives complained about it. But there was always a support, my father. He always used to tell that I should always voice out my opinions irrespective of what everyone says. I often used to be known as the chatterbox and was always raising my voice to any injustice around me. I used to ask why a certain motorcycle skipped the red traffic light and many such things. While my mother hushed me down, My father was proud of me, supported me during every phase of my life, and often said I would become a lawyer or a policewoman because I had a voice that could stand for others.

I am using the same voice, to empower women.

7. How can any women interested in sales become a part of Sales Womentoring and How is it going to help them carve their career?

The community is based on three pillars. First is mentoring, the second is experiential learning, and the third is networking. Mentoring takes place in groups as well as one-on-one. Experiential learning is mainly through workshops and masterclasses, and the networking is both in-person and virtual. 

Ultimately, the objective of all this is to enable women to sell with confidence and negotiate for the value they deserve, both at work and in life. The reason is because like you rightly said, there are achievements. Your professional progress is often impeded because of your personal challenges. They come in as obstacles or they come in as challenges that do not help in your progress. They come in the way of your progress. That is why what we do is in terms of assigning the right mentor, in terms of the right coach. 

It comes with a subscription fee to access the community and its benefits. Check out the website

“You have a choice, a choice not to compromise, not to accept the status quo, and a voice to ask for what you deserve.”

7. How can the system change to accommodate more women in sales, especially after a sabbatical?

It’s not selfish to put yourself first. And it is not selfish to prioritize your career. And that doesn’t mean you’re a bad mother, no one tells a man that he’s a bad father, when he, when he continues with his career.

In countries like Sweden, etc. They have weeks of paid leave, and it can be taken by either parent.

That’s what a progressive society looks like. In India, we have six months for women and one week for the father in most companies. But there are companies like Amazon, etc, which which do have more liberal, progressive leave policies for men too. 

If the system changes to sharing responsibility, we can have more women succeed in any field, especially in sales.

“If I wanted to see the change, I should be the change”.

8. Where can we reach out to you?

Please reach out to me on social media channels and become a part of our sales womentoring community.

SalesWomentoring | Sales Community | Mentoring | Workshops | Networking Events

SalesWomentoring is India’s First & Only community Inspiring women to Succeed at Selling. We offer Sales Mentoring…www.saleswomentoring.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chitra-singh-sampathkumar-sales-mentor/