No sport please, we’re trying to network

When it comes to learning about how to run a business, it seems that men and women really are from different planets.

Kim Payne, managing director of the Melbourne-based Experience Wealth Consulting, says there’s a growing realisation that while a business is a business, regardless of who runs it, there is a big difference in how men and women learn, and the environments in which both feel comfortable.

“Probably in the last five years more so than ever, there’s been huge, overwhelming feedback coming from women that we need to do more so we can learn in an environment that’s different, given that we’re in such a male-dominated industry,” Payne says.

“Some women get quite intimidated and they do not speak up, because men can be quite overpowering.”

The demand from female advisers was strong enough to prompt her to stage a series of women-only workshops, starting in Melbourne on July 26.

The workshops have been structured in response to a simple question: “If you were to do something that made you comfortable, less intimidated and encouraged you to speak up, what would it look like?”

“They said they wanted more intimate, women-only… events that allowed them to share and learn from other women,” Payne says.

And when Payne asked women what it was they did not like about networking in “a male-dominated environment” the response was – surprising only if you’re a male, probably – that they hated having to be familiar with sport.

Payne says a typical response was: “I hate having to learn about sport and really understand it before I can even have a conversation.”

Payne says the workshops will be open only to women and will feature only female presenters. She says while the structure and the environment are quite different, “the learnings would be very similar if we were running this in a gender-neutral environment”.

“It’s not everyone’s cup of tea. That’s fine,” Payne says.

“It’s been based on a lot of feedback that there’s this gap about how women in the advice industry can build their businesses.”

Correction: This article has been corrected to say that the first workshop takes place in Melbourne on July 26, not in Sydney as originally stated.