Just Ask a Woman: Cracking the Code of What Women Want and How They Buy

Mary Lou Quinlan interviewed 3,000 women consumers about their desires and buying habits. When you finish her book, you will actually be able to answer the question, "What do women want?" Quinlan's style is direct and personable. She backs up her arguments with quotes from successful CEOs and marketers and with a smattering of do's and don'ts from the world of advertising. The book has heart - after all, Quinlan maintains that for women, business is personal - as well as practical advice, although you may have to dig for it. She provides a lot of information on broad thematic lines, sometimes making it tricky to sort out strategies from stories. This is less of a textbook than Marketing to Women (by Martha Barletta from Dearborn Trade Publishing); it is more research-based and extends beyond communications into comparable hands-on, practical counsel. We suggest this wakeup call about the buying power of women to professionals in marketing, advertising, sales and customer service. Use this primer to decode those mixed signals you've been getting from women in your marketplace - and in your life.

As a brand manager for a consumer products company and as a man, I recommend this book for marketers who want to succeed with their most important customers - women. The tone of the book doesn't have any layer of man bashing instead the author really just tells the truth about women today. The excerpts from her research with women were so revealing and honest and I could hear the women in my own life saying the same things. Now I understand how to translate that to strategy for growing my business. A must buy for marketers.

This is an essential book for anyone involved with marketing products to women. It gets to the heart of how to increase relevancy with the valuable female target market - what's important to them, how to speak to them, what they really want & need in their lives. This book is well written and packed with insights on every page. Well worth the read!

It's amazing how Mary Lou opens our eyes once again and reminds us of good marketing fundamentals. I found the book to be full of valuable insight as well as good anecdotal facts. Definitely worth the read for any marketing and sales executive looking to target the country's most important consumer: WOMEN!

"Just Ask a Woman" is a great book that very accurately describes the way women think and feel about buying, but, more broadly, life in general. Ms. Quinlan genuinely captures what makes women of all ages tick and all men, company execs or not, should take note.