Female forecourts: a modern sales experience
London, 12th June, London: Episode 14 of the Auto Trader podcast Women in the driving seat, hosted by Editorial Director, award-winning motoring journalist Erin Baker is released today. The series aims to rip up the rule book on the female-empowerment narrative by sharing personal as well as professional experiences, examining the space where both collide, and the challenges, fears and successes happen.
In this episode we dive into the world of automotive retail, “It’s time to step into the 21st century!” Challenging dusty industry norms, we uncover the exciting opportunities that are possible in the car industry and even reveal the origins of Wink cars, from beauty to bumpers.
All episodes in the series feature a Podcast Pit Stop – a quick fire round covering the professional and personal including; Lark or owl? Circuit or circuits? Phone by the bed or phone downstairs?
Join Erin as she puts two showroom shakers in the driving seat.
Podcast preview
Rebecca Adamson:
“I think it’s fair to say as an industry we’ve probably sold cars pretty much the same way for the last 100 years, and its time, a quarter of the century in, to step into the 21st century”
“There’s always a danger sometimes if you brand things ‘women’ … people aren’t going to listen because they’ve seen that and they’re going to think ‘not for me’ so you’ve automatically switched off a lot of people that you want to talk to.”
“I think most importantly for me personally had I gotten any of my roles for anything other than I was the right person for the job… I would have found that quite demoralising”
“The amount of conference or events I walk into, and it is very starkly - we are absolutely in the very small minority in the room.”
“But I think there is a much bigger challenge around attracting diverse talent into the industry full stop.”
“Have a look at what good looks like and do your best to mirror it.”
“I’ve been asked, having daughters if I would recommend the automotive industry to them and I don’t think I would recommend it to them anymore or any less than our son… the one thing I would say… expectations are usually quite low so exceeding them is usually quite easy.”
Jodie Barber:
“Once you’re in the motor trade you never really get out”
“We have men that come to us, and they say, ‘it’s so refreshing to see women selling cars’”
“Well, they come in and say, ‘can I speak to the manager, please’ to start off with and I’m like ‘you’re speaking to her’. But we get feedback from it and they say, ‘Can’t believe I had two girls coming to the door – it’s great to see!’”
“Yeah, I’m mad! to think that, well, three years ago I went from doing beauty to this, it was really… I put myself in the deep end… I don’t think I could go back now”
[On the Wink Cars brand] “Originally it was from Wink Beauty from when I was doing my beauty… but we wanted something totally different… as independent dealers they’re all similar across the board… people remember because they call us the Wink girls now.”
“I was surprised coming in actually, we went to our first set of awards… and we were like in the 5% in the room of females and I was so shocked because the beauty awards was on the same night and it was like 50-50”
“If you went into a school and asked the girls, what do you want to be? … I’m pretty sure the girls wouldn’t be thinking ‘Oh yeah I’d love to work in the motor trade!’ but there’s so many opportunities… Girls do so well in this trade.”
“I’ve learnt a lot of lessons along the way… to think what I’m doing now compared to what knowledge I had before… no regrets.”
Auto Trader’s new podcast Women in the driving seat releases new episodes every Thursday.
Notes to editors
ABOUT ERIN BAKER
Erin Baker is an award-winning motoring journalist and Editorial Director of Auto Trader. She writes a monthly driving column for Vogue, is a World Car of the Year judge, consults for Goodwood and hosts She's Electric, a national roadshow bringing women and electric cars together. Erin is passionate about narrowing the gender gap, both in the automotive industry itself and between car brands and female consumers, through more targeted language, marketing and experiences. She is a single mother of two boys.
ABOUT JODIE BARBER
Jodie is the co-owner of Wink Cars, which was founded in 2021. Before that, she spent nine years as a self-employed beautician. AGED 27, she lives in Aldridge with her fiancé, who proposed at Glastonbury, and they’re set to tie the knot this summer. She’s a music lover, crossfitter and loves a challenge.
ABOUT REBECCA ADAMSON
Rebecca has been in the industry for nearly 30 years with the majority of that time in Honda. She is currently responsible for the UK auto business as well as Customer Engagement for Europe across all products. She lives in Berkshire with her partner and their blended family with three children (all at university.. Ouch..) and a slightly neurotic dog..
ABOUT AUTO TRADER
Auto Trader Group plc is the UK’s largest automotive platform. It listed on the London Stock Exchange in March 2015 and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index.
Auto Trader’s purpose is Driving Change Together. Responsibly. Auto Trader is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive culture, it aims to build stronger partnerships with its customers and use its voice and influence to drive more environmentally friendly vehicle choices.
With the largest number of car buyers and the largest choice of trusted stock, Auto Trader’s marketplace sits at the heart of the UK car buying process. That marketplace is built on an industry-leading technology and data platform, which is increasingly used across the automotive industry. Auto Trader is continuing to bring more of the car buying journey online, creating an improved buying experience, whilst enabling all its retailer partners to sell vehicles online.
Auto Trader publishes a monthly used car Retail Price Index which is based on pricing analysis of circa 800,000 unique vehicles. The same data that powers the Index is used by the Office for National Statistics to make the UK’s official measures of inflation more robust, as well as the Bank of England to feed the broader UK economic indicators.
For more information, please visit: plc.autotrader.co.uk
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