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LinkedIn is the channel that you'll find me on. Just search for Lori Highby. You can simply click the follow button as I post daily information about marketing strategy, tips, all podcast episodes and any upcoming events you might see me at. If you'd like to connect, make sure to send a note with your connection requests that references Social Capital. I can't wait to hear from you.

Social Capital Podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you first need to understand your customer. Learn more at KeystoneClick. com.

y Keller Williams. Founded in: 2020

Heidi is a three time Stevie Award Winner for Women of the Year in Sales, Worldwide Sales Executive of the Year and Women Helping Women. She has was listed in the Top 100 Women Magazine, was featured in Top Sales Magazine, were listed in the Top 100 Women in sales published by Demandbase in both 2022 and 2023 and The Sales Collectives List of Women in Sales to follow in 2024.

tly nominated to the She Rise: 2024

[00:02:44] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Oh my goodness. Thank you. Who is that person you're talking about?

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[00:03:00] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: I think it has to start with my dad who was a, an entrepreneur and definitely one of the best salespeople I know. He influenced me in a way it was really interesting because when I was young, he used to tell me these really awesome stories when he would tuck me in at night, and they were called Mumbo, Jumbo and Dumbo, and it was about three elephants that would go on these adventures together. And Dumbo who was a very precocious young elephant used to go and get into all of these troublesome situations that she needed to pull herself out, out of.

And fundamentally, you know, when he was telling these stories, he was teaching me some basic sales skills, right? Like, oh my gosh. you know, she's in this situation. How do we solve for this problem? How does she get herself out of it? This is her big challenge and all of that.

So I never thought of it then, and I really enjoyed the stories, but I do think that those did have a big impact on me very early on in my life. But to be honest, my dad discouraged me from going into sales. He said that it was, you know, kind of a, a, a man's sport. He owned a, a textured coating company, which is a very male dominated industry.

You know, I wanted to run his company and run sales for his company, and he was not going to have it. So being the person I am, of course, I had to prove them wrong and you know, got into sales. But like so many women, I ended up falling into sales actually later in my career after 10 years in the advertising agency and marketing world. So it wasn't an intentional career choice for sure.

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[00:05:12] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Yeah. I mean, that's a real, real interesting point because I work with a lot of young entrepreneurs, so Girlz Who Sell is focused on working with high school and college age women positioning sales as a viable career alternative for them to consider to, to achieve economic and financial independence.

And a lot of these women are also entrepreneurs. And so we do spend a lot of time talking about sales as a life skill. And, you know, you may have a really good idea or product or service that you want to launch as an entrepreneur, but unless you know how to sell it, you're not going to be in business for long.

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[00:06:13] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Yeah, I was a, I started riding horses when I was young. When I was around 11 years old, I started competing. And by the time I was 18 and just about to graduate from high school, I was selected as an alternate on the U. S. equestrian team for eventing. And I learned a lot of, I think that there is a direct correlation and actually, the data proves this out between, not just women, but women and men who are focused on competitive sports in high school and college.

One, of course, you have a naturally competitive inclination, and that is clearly an advantage for somebody in sales to be naturally competitive and, want to succeed and, and achieve. It's also highly goal oriented. You know, you're, there's milestones and things that you're trying to do and progress that you're trying to make on a day to day basis.

So a lot of the things that I learned just being a competitive athlete, I think are skills that I use every day in selling.

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There's an end game that you're shooting towards and it takes time, it takes practice, you know, and you have to go in with the right mindset. You know, there's a lot of little things, but at the end of the day, there's a primary goal that's being targeted. And yeah, I love that. That's great.

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So, that was a big learning for me to not define yourself by the way other people see you, but by the way that you define success yourself.

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[00:09:36] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Yeah, yeah. And you can't give up. You know, you're gonna have bad days. And some days you're just gonna suck, right?

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[00:09:45] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: And some days you're gonna be great. But you need to persevere and, move through it. Some days it's really scary. And so you learn that, you know, you have to push through that fear and overcome some of the things that might be holding you back from succeeding. So, I don't know. I think there's a lot of foundational skills that athletes learn that are transferable.

And, you know, I don't think just athletes, right? I think, you know, if you look at veterans that have a very similar, you know, mentality. You know, I think they have transferable skills and are incredibly successful in sales and in business. Educators, right? So there's a lot of industry sectors that are not necessarily sales specific that have transferable skills.

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[00:10:40] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Oh, wow. I think a lot needs to happen in order to do that. You know, I mean, I started Girlz Who Sell, you know, I'm sort of a, a small player making a small difference to solve for a very big problem, and definitely a mission driven organization. As you mentioned, you know, our, our goal is to close the gender gap in professional sales and build the largest pipeline of diverse, early stage female sales talent. So, one of the things that I think is really important, and one of our missions as an organization, is to begin positioning sales as a viable career choice earlier on.

So, similar to what's been happening in the STEM and STEAM fields for the last, you know, 10, 12 years with companies like Girls Who Code and, and a lot of other organizations that are focused on teaching girls STEM and STEAM skills, I believe that we need to do that for young women at an earlier age.

And so, while Girlz Who Sell, when we launched, and we're still focused on working with college aged women, early college graduates, and now we're moving into high schools and bringing our Explore Sales Program into high schools, my inclination is to actually get younger, Lori. So we're going to be launching a an after school sales club for middle school students, as well as summer school program.

We're launching a Kid's Club that will teach sales and entrepreneurship skills to young women ages five to nine, five to 10. And so I believe that in order to solve for the pipeline gap and to increase diversity in sales long term, we need to start earlier. So, that's one big thing, I guess. And then we need to companies to really not just talk about diversity, equity, and inclusion, but actually talk the talk and walk the walk. So I, you know, speak with a lot of leaders who are like, yeah, we wanna increase diversity in sales and bring more women, but women don't apply or we don't know where to find them.

And so those are two big issues that I think that we need to address. One is we need to look at non-traditional avenues to identify prospective women to be in sales. And I think companies need to get more creative. What think they need to look at their advertising and marketing.

This will resonate with you, Lori, in terms of their job ads. And are the qualifications that they're asking for? Are they realistic? Is the language that they're using going to resonate and attract female candidates. So I think there's a lot of work that needs to be done around that.

And then just overall, I think we need to work with with young women. And again, it, you know, ,starting to have these conversations younger on building competence and giving them confidence to apply for some of these positions, even if they don't meet 100 percent of the qualifications.

And then once we get them into the job, we've got to give them the right training. We've got to create a culture that is going to be supportive of women in the workplace. We need to have benefits that are going to be able to help organizations attract and retain female employees. And then we've got to, you know, career path and through the organization into mid level manager and senior level position.

So anyway, a lot of work to be done. I think we've made some progress and, you know, there's so many organizations out there now that are supporting women in sales. And I think it's, I think it's really fantastic. And we're making some slow progress, but we still have a long way to go.

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And I think it's because our mindset is that it's a bad thing or it's a man's job, right? So it's changing that mentality. And I like that you're going in and doing it kind of at the earlier stages. I think it's awesome.

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You know, because the reality is that sales is not used car sales, but I mean, I guess. There's out, it's out there right or Wall Street, but it's really about serving. And a lot of the keynotes that I do and a lot of the workshops that I do are around exactly that, it's more around servant selling similar to a, you know, servant leadership type of, of mentality, but it's really about how you serve your customers and make them the center of your, of your story, and how you're, you know, solving problems and creating solutions to business challenges and building relationships and, and all things that in general are innate skillsets that women possess.

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[00:16:46] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Hmm. That's such a good question. , I, I, I tend to be a bit risk averse. And I need to have, you know, I'm someone that wants all the I's dotted and T's crossed before I maybe take a jump. And, you know, a leap of faith is not necessarily in my, my strong suit or in my vocabulary. So perhaps taking a few more risks earlier on is something that I wish I had done more of.

So that's one thing. Although you'd probably look at the risks that I took jumping horses and think I was completely crazy. I was like, wait, you want to take more risks? Have you lost your mind? Look what you were doing, right? But, but no, but I, I'm talking more around business and relationships and those kinds of things.

You know, to maybe take more risks there, start investing earlier, right? In maybe more risk, a little more riskier investments. I tend to be very conservative from that perspective. My husband's the complete opposite. So he, he kind of brings, breaks me out of my shell. But that's one thing.

I think the big thing for me in terms of wanting to do less of is beating myself up for not being perfect. You know, for me, I was very incented as a young woman. I grew up in a not so healthy environment from an emotional perspective, even though I had a lot of opportunity. And, and I, you know, for, for someone looking the outside in, it seems like it was, you know, I had an awesome childhood, but you never know what's going on behind closed doors. And you know, my mother in particular was definitely emotionally abusive and she, you know, I was always incented. I was perfect Heidi, right? Like, I had to get. I was highly competitive, achieved very high level in, in riding.

I was on the tennis team in college. I would, I I was a skier. I was got, you know, straight A students. I went, you know, so it was this whole thing about perfectionism that I've had to work really hard to overcome and to realize that being perfect is an unachievable goal.

And so I need to stop beating myself up for not reaching it. I actually went and wrote a goodbye letter to Perfect Heidi. So that was very good part of it.

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[00:19:26] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Yeah, it was. It was like, and so just kind of accepting myself for my imperfections, which is what makes me human. So that's it.

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[00:19:43] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Oh, wow. I guess just generally what's your why? Like, what gets you up in the morning?

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[00:20:35] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I love that.

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[00:20:44] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Just that you know, as someone who just recently transitioned into full time entrepreneurship, you know, from a corporate job, I guess my big words of wisdom is don't wait to follow your passion and, do something that you love.

Not that I've spent 40 years hating my job because I didn't, I was incredibly successful and blessed to work all over the world and with amazing people and amazing customers, but definitely be true to yourself, and do what makes you happy. So that's my, that's my words of wisdom for today.

You know, I, I think having a foundation of where you're doing business by doing good is and building your legacy is really important.

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[00:21:45] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Oh, LinkedIn is, is the best way to reach me. I'm very accessible on LinkedIn. You can just look at Heidi Solomon Orlick and reach out and let me know that you heard this podcast and that would be great.

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[00:22:08] Heidi Solomon-Orlick: Thank you, Lori. I appreciate it.

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Can't wait to hear from you, and I hope you've enjoyed today's show. And I want you to go out there and get noticed.

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