Lisa Copeland, The DealershipNews Woman of the Year is the founder and CEO of Cars Her Way, a Texas-based public relations and digital marketing agency specializing in automotive brands with well-honed expertise in marketing to women. She is amazing at a podium, on a stage, or in a panel discussion. If you don’t know her…you should.
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Kelly Kleinman:
Hello from Southern California. This is the DealershipNews.com podcast where we bring you the new and old school insight into the business of selling cars and service. So you have the foresight to grow your dealership and stay ahead of the competition. I'm Kelly. Kleinman. Here is our show.
Kelly Kleinman:
Hello, Kelly here DealershipNews.com. And today we have with us Lisa Copeland. So if you don't know her, I'll just give you a quick background. She's the founder and CEO of Cars Her Way, a Texas based public relations and digital marketing agency specializing in automotive brands with well honed expertise in marketing to women. Her team has won just a bevy of awards. Lisa, you also serve on the board of Women in Automotive, which I would love to get a little bit more interested, a little more involved, and we'll get into that in a minute. But you've executed, what, 100? I would say probably about 170 or so speaking engagements with an audience of well over 40,000 people. You've done the keynote from everything from women in automotive to the Texas Women's Conference Automotive Leadership Roundtable, Digital Dealer, which I've been to the last several, NADA Which we're all going to go to soon, Subaru and the Driving Sales Conference. We met at the Automotive Rock Star Conference last summer and talking about winning some awards. You just won another one. You are the DealershipNews Woman of the Year 2019.
Lisa Copeland:
Thank you. Wow. Just like. Wow. Thank you.
Kelly Kleinman:
Well, you know, when I heard a lot about your skills at the podium specifically and finally got to see an action of Matt Koenig's Automotive Rock Star Conference, it was a small little gathering, but it all confirmed what I had been hearing. You were you just really know how to hold the floor. And I just got to ask you, you've got so much energy here, so confident. Do you ever get nervous before you speak?
Lisa Copeland:
Oh, my gosh. Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. So what I think I've mastered is how to master the nervousness. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, I don't think you ever master like your knees knocking your throat getting dry, thinking whether it's an audience of 100 or, you know.
Lisa Copeland:
I had one of close to 10,000 recently and it's the fear is still the same because, you know, your job is to go outside is to connect with that one person in the audience, whether it's ten thousand one people or it's just 300 people or ten people. And so, yeah, it's scary for sure. I mean, you I mean, fundamentally as people, we want people to like us. We want people to see value in our content. So absolutely.
Kelly Kleinman:
By the way, you being from Texas played no part in this choice, although I spent four years in Texas, so it probably played a little bit. But you did Texas best.
Lisa Copeland:
I've always thought taking any way I can get it. So that's OK.
Kelly Kleinman:
Let me ask you a question. Where are the dealerships dropping the ball when it comes to engaging women either in the marketplace or selling face to face?
Lisa Copeland:
I think several ways, number one, I think that they're not being conscientious. Now some of them are. So I'm always going to speak to an 80/20 rule.
Lisa Copeland:
But, you know, a lot of them are not being intentional about hiring more women. And when women walk into a dealership, you know, they don't know. They don't necessarily have to buy a car from a woman. I'm not here to say that. But they want to look around and say, you know what, this is probably a decent place to buy a car because, you know, there's four or five women that work on the showroom floor. I mean, women purchase fifty two to fifty four percent of all new cars. And we influence. Eighty five percent. But when you walk into a car dealership, maybe 10 percent of the sales team, 20 percent is females. Like, where is the disconnect? And as female consumers, we are on high alert to look for all of that. I mean you read about it work. We're conditioned to hear those people like me who stand in front of audiences and on podiums and scream it from the mountaintops. So women women are looking. Women are paying attention.
Kelly Kleinman:
Are there any training programs in place that you're aware of and how best to serve women as customers?
Lisa Copeland:
Yes, there's a lot of them. Yeah, my, my, my my dear friend, Jodie Deveare. Ask Patty Cars Her Way. My company has not so much a training company, but we have we have a whole platform for training for a.
Kelly Kleinman:
Loaded, loaded, quest loaded question.
Lisa Copeland:
I know, but I don't want it to be self-promoting.
Lisa Copeland:
So, yes, there are a few of us out there that have that have that have stayed in the game for many, many years. And there's not enough of us out there because there's, you know, 30,000 dealers in the country. New and used. So, you know, ten ten more people. Mike. Mike, my good friend, Katie Mares. You know, 10, 10 more people could jump in the game and there still would not be enough.
Kelly Kleinman:
Yeah, I agree. What's next for you? 2020.
Lisa Copeland:
Oh, good question. So 2020 for me is really about taking it to the next level and and building out my team so that I can if I can do more to be more customer facing meaning I don't want to do a lot more media. I've been doing some stuff with Fox and I'm hoping to continue to do that as an automotive correspondent and I'm going out and speaking to audiences in the next 60 days. I've been hired by Bloomberg, by Citrix and by Miracle Ear. Believe it or not, all of them have the same question. It isn't just about women in automotive, but it's more about how do we hire and retain more women candidates? How are we more effective as an organization to be able to serve women consumers? So at least I feel like if I died tomorrow, I've at least gotten the conversation started.
Kelly Kleinman:
Sure, sure. Well, I've always suggested that people hire highly effective women. There are many reasons for it. We won't get into it. But I look at I just wanted to get in touch with you and give you this award and I'm sure I'll probably see at NADA Oh, yeah. And again, Lisa Copeland, congratulations. DealershipNews.com. Woman of the Year for 2019.
Lisa Copeland:
Thank you. I'm so. I can't. I'm so shocked. I had no idea. So thank you and I'm honored and I will gratefully accept it.
See ya next in the next month in February at NADA. Thank you.
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