How Are Women Changing Car Dealers? We Asked Three Women Who Are Winning the Car Biz

It might not be the job you’d expect a girl to dream of, but really, she should; there is more opportunity at car dealers and for women than ever. And it’s quite a change. 

Today, women hold about 30% of the jobs in automotive; that’s up from 24% just a few years ago, but that number still sits around 20% for automotive retail. In leadership and ownership the numbers are even smaller, though there is certainly room to grow. There are a lot of reasons women don’t pursue those jobs, or take a job but don’t stay very long. 

Those reasons are also the challenges that Suzanne Cochrane of Helms Bros. Inc, Marina Letsios of Kia of Huntington and Sandra Gabrielli of Gabrielli Trucks had to overcome, or change, to build their careers all while being an innovator, a leader and a mom. 

Here’s how these women, who are also board members of the Greater New York Auto Dealer’s Association, turned the odds to their favor, how they built successful businesses, became leaders and crafted a satisfying career.

Read: What Drives Her… to Buy a Car. Or To Walk Away?

It’s something we’ve heard for years: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast,” but how does that translate to working in a business, or leading one? It starts with the message from the top, and follows through with the resources and trust leaders put into their business. “Invest in your team and you can’t go wrong,” Suzanne said. “The message to everyone is ‘if I want to achieve more, I can do that here.’”

But what does that look like? One of the major commonalities that Suzanne, Marina and Sandra share is that they’ve done almost every job in the business, from billing and contracts to finance, service and sales; this helps leaders understand people and their challenges, and to earn their respect. “No matter where I am in my company, the person next to me is just as important,” Sandra said. “I’ve sat in everyone’s chair.” 

Read: What Drives Her: Kathy Gilbert’s Success in a Male-Dominated Industry

When she started out working in the office at Luby’s Chevrolet as a teenager, Suzanne was handed one job after another until she’d built a valuable skillset. The dealership went out of business, but she was in demand. She landed at Helms Bros. where she put in extra hours to help the owner close out each day and soon, he was mentoring her. 

Through this, they developed trust and strong communication, she said. “If I make a decision, it’s like he’s making the decision,” and that’s how she approaches her team. “Podium style selling,” a tightly structured, scripted way of selling, “is not what we do,” Suzanne said. Half the people in “my store never have to talk to the manager to sell a car.”

Read: What Drives Her: The Unlikely Automotive Careers of Sara Morgan and Melanie Hellwig

“That whole ‘man’s world’ thing, that’s changing,” Suzanne said. Still, automotive retail “has a rougher image; we see all these movies and shows, used car lots, the men are obnoxious,” Marina said. “But it’s a much more professional environment than that.” And one that is well suited to women, especially those who believe in themselves. 

And that is what they look for when hiring: Attitude, curiosity, the ability to multitask and the desire to learn and grow. 

Why else are women good at this job? “We’re not so ego-focused, we want results,”Suzanne said.  “They are sincere and genuine—but they have to be competent,” she said, and that leads to the real goal: giving the customer what they want.

One thing that all successful people will tell you, with pride and emotion, are the stories about the people who helped them get there: The teachers, the bosses, the nurturers, the mentors. “I had a lot of mentors who helped me understand this business, male and female,” said Sandra. For Sandra, as well as Marina and Suzanne, they looked to the experts every step of the way to learn and grow. 

“Growing up, my parents were immigrants; they had just moved from Italy when they started the business. My father aways said ‘get an education and find a career you love’” Sandra said. So when she started working for the family business she found it was something she loved; it was second nature. “I learned and I grew,” she said, helping the business to expand from one dealership to 28. Her father was smart about her growth: “he built on my strengths.”

For Marina, “it was my dream to own a car dealership. It’s unusual but, we’re seeing more opportunities for women in the auto industry.” After working in real estate and construction — both male dominated businesses— she decided to follow her dream and make the switch to automotive. She worked her way up from service and parts to become the assistant general manager of Kia of Huntington. She eventually became a minority partner and then was able to buy the dealership. She is now the sole owner and dealer principal of the business. 

Another common theme the women shared was the importance of learning, from mentors and bosses as well as from from outside sources. 

Suzanne puts that idea to work for her team, investing in cross-training for her team to learn all the areas of the business. 

For Sandra, it’s been about finding mentors outside the company to learn how other companies and their leaders address issues and implement strategies. 

Marina has put a lot of effort into learning what the auto industry has to teach her, from attending NADA Academy, and putting her team through NADA training, to other learning initiatives that allow them to grow. And all this learning has a purpose: Marina has plans to grow her business and having a team that’s ready to move is key to that. Look for news from her in this space soon. 

If you can see her you can be her, as the saying goes, and for women in the automotive world, that’s especially important now but, to these women, an idea they had to nurture as often the first or only woman in their business. To bring more women on, they had to think about things differently. 

“When I wanted to have children, the only way to do that,” was to be home on the weekend, Suzanne said, so she focused on making the scheduling work. Even with a demanding schedule, “I never missed anything important at school,” she said proudly. 

And that’s something that she has been able to do for others, accommodating schedules for school drop-offs, moms who needed to work from home when their kids were little. The result? Employees who stay, who grow, who stay with the business 10, 20 years or more. 

Presenting your organization in the way a customer or potential employee want to be part of is important, too. “Present yourself in a professional manner and you lay the path to how people will treat you,” Marina said. 

For all three, laying the groundwork for their kids, inside the business or not, is important. All have had (or will have) their children work in their dealerships. For Marina, putting her kids to “work” at the dealership was as much about keeping them busy after school as it was about developing a solid work ethic. Now in 20’s, they may have “hated it at the time, but it made the transition into work easier because they had knowledge” from their time working at the dealership.

Sandra is just starting that journey: her kids, now 14 and 13, know the Gabrielli Truck world well and will take a role in it soon.

“It doesn’t matter where you start; learn as much as you can, absorb as much info as you can,” Sandra said. “And don’t be frightened. There’s not a job you can’t handle.”

Find the right culture; not all cultures are the same. Suzanne noted that the culture on some of her teams is muted and business-focused; “someone who is too gregarious it may not work,” in that setting she said. She also noted that women should not be afraid of working at a car dealer; if it’s something they want to do, they should do it.

And there will be more opportunities for women as well s everyone, in the future, Sandra believes. “There are lots of changes coming; there will be less and less “dirty hands” jobs in the future. With electrification most of the tech work will be done off a laptop. It creates an entire realm of possibilities for anyone,” she said. “There will be jobs that don’t exist today.”

The most important advice from all three? Stick it out. Don’t quit. Find your path. The opportunities are there, the earning potential is strong and, I have learned, the people are great. As the song says, “It’s up to you.”