• by Tanya Gazdik , February 9, 2017

CHICAGO -- Women are considered to be one of the world’s largest emerging markets -- larger than China and India combined, said Bridget Brennan, author of Why She Buys and CEO of Female Factor, a Chicago-based consulting and training firm.

Yet the automotive industry is still largely dominated by men who really don’t have a firm handle on what influences this huge consumer group, she says. 

Women are becoming more educated and earning more money than ever before, she says. Even if they aren’t making the actual purchase, they are frequently influencers or the veto vote behind someone else’s purchase.

The Chicago Auto Show teamed with Female Factor, Women in Automotive Conference and She Buys Cars to host a luncheon and panel discussion focusing on women in the automotive industry and marketing vehicles to women. 

Brennan moderated the event, titled “What Drives Her.” The panel featured Kathy Gilbert, director of sales and business development at CDK Global, a dealer support company; Candice Crane, vice president of dealer solutions at Hireology, a data-driven hiring software and talent acquisition technology for retail auto dealerships and franchise systems; and Jody Hall, vice president of automotive marketing at Steel Market Development Institute, who previously worked for General Motors for 30 years. 

The Chicago Auto Show broadcast the event on Facebook Live, where it is still available for viewing.

Brennan wrote Why She Buys after having a bad experience at a car dealership. 

“I was not only treated rudely, I was mocked,” she recalls. “That salesperson had never been taught how to create a customer experience for a woman. I ended up buying the car at a different dealership.”

All other things being equal, women want to feel like the person they are purchasing from deserves their business -- that they earned it, she says. 

Currently, only one-quarter of positions in the auto industry are held by women, Brennan says. Increasing that number would help the automakers be in a better position to know their female customers. Hall says things had improved since the 1980s, when she was at GM and the men in Detroit thought they knew best what everyone else wanted to drive. 

Gilbert says getting more women into high positions at dealerships would be helpful because women understand women. 

“Women dealers know women customers and they want the story, ‘why do you want this vehicle,’ ‘what do you hope it will provide for you?’” Gilbert says. Women want to build a relationship with their salesperson and they want to be able to recommend them and return for future purchases, she adds.