A girl walks into a gas station (no, this isn’t the start of a bad joke). 

Let me start again ---

I walk into a gas station wearing my dealership's polo on my way to work. Girl working behind the counter asks, “Where is your dealership?” so I tell her. She then asks the dreaded question - “Are you the receptionist?”

::: Sigh ::: “No, no - I’m not. I’m the Marketing Director.” (Former Sales Professional, Former Internet Director)

How often have you heard/been a participant in this conversation? Why do people think the only thing us females can do at a car dealership is answer phones/pay bills? (No offense to Nancy Simmons, who ROCKS!)

We can do (& do so much more). We’re Sales Professionals, Desk Managers, General Managers, F & I Professionals, Technicians (yes, at my store, we have a female tech!), Dealer Principals and everything in between.

Sure - females have a few :::ahem::: ways to win the male population over. But why? Why not wow people with your knowledge. I remember when I was doing a walk-around on a Honda S2000 (puuurrrr) for a customer. He asked me all kinds of technical questions “What’s the compression ratio?” he asked - without skipping a beat, I answered “11.1:1” - he didn’t ask any more “Try-and-stump-the-female-Sales-Professional" questions after that.

You don’t need to play the part of “Just another cute blonde, or brunette, or red-head” - show them that you have personality, show them you have knowledge. They know you have god-given assets - but they don’t know all you have to offer up in your brain.

Learn your product, learn about people. Learn how to make people laugh. We’ve heard it time & time again - People Buy From People (Thanks, Grant Cardone!).

We’ve all tried so hard to change people’s minds about our industry. It’s an injustice to rely on anything but your brains and your personality.

Make a Vine, snap an Instagram, throw something on YouTube, but show your personality, let how hard you’ve worked to know what you know & be who you are in this industry shine through. Do that, and you won’t have any problem selling cars, or attracting customers for the right reasons.