1668 – Who Buys Cars with Katie Mares

0:28Hey there, thoughtful listener. million dollars in revenue. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you.

0:58with us right now it's katie mares katie you are found on the web at katie mares.com you're the author of the number one bestseller custom her experience uh and again well you're the you got you got some things going on here co-owner perma shield uh chief inspiration officer you you're doing quite a lot of good things in the world but katie let me let you describe your impact that you have today and what you do? Oh my gosh. I would say that my overall impact if I were to, cause I'm a melting pot of everything that I do. Um, so if I were to, if I were to distill it all down is I focus on creating moments for whether it's my customers or employees that stand out above the rest so that we can create an impact in their lives today and in the future.

1:47Um, and through that, I mean, I own a dealership, so I do it through, uh, my team at the dealership. I do it through my team and then to the customers at the dealership. I'm a co-owner of Permashield USA, which is an incredible product. It's a tire sealant. So you can, once it's in your tires, you can run over a hundred nails and screws and never go flat, which is fantastic for the life of the tire. And I bring awareness and help male dominated spaces cast their experience net wide enough to capture the world's most influential consumer, the woman. Hmm. Yeah. What are the statistics? Let's talk about, because I know you've done a lot of work in the automotive industry.

2:30Let's talk about who buys vehicles. and how this is such a, it's just such a screwed up historically buying experience. I know this from my years of kind of, I've had to do a lot of education with consumers on how to play this game with automotive retailers. Can you kind of paint a picture for us? Yeah, for sure. Well, let's talk about who's buying the vehicles, actually women out buy men and in the automotive space. So 65 % of new car owners or new car purchasers are women. So 65%. When in a coupled relationship, 85 % of the decision is made by a woman. So if you really want to break it down and say, who is creating all the revenue in that automotive space?

3:22It is hands down the female consumer. Unfortunately, it's an experience that's designed by men, for men, and it's delivered by men. So there's a huge disconnect because in the upper quartile of the C-suite in the automotive space, it's still 90 % men. So when you look at an experience being designed and being received by a female, if you go all the way down the line, even in a dealership, it's more like 87 % are in the upper management and sales folks are men, when women are the one purchasing and making the final decision. So there's like a Grand Canyon sized gap between who's designing the experience and delivering the experience and who's actually making the decision to purchase.

4:11How would you respond to someone who goes, well, I don't get it. I don't understand what the difference is. Buying a car is buying a car. Why do we break this down into gender behavior? Yeah. So how I would describe it and break it down for everyone to hear, it's as simple as this. When a man and a woman walks into a dealership, the man is greeted, the woman isn't. So the reason I break it down into, and I've done my own customer survey, like 87 % of consumers, so I surveyed 3 ,000 women, 87 % of those women would not go into a dealership without their husband because of the way they were treated.

4:47And of that 87 % that went in with their husband, 98 % of them, the man got greeted first. So the problem is, is that the industry is a bit archaic in how they create or should say they're not really creating an equal atmosphere. And so the reason I break it into gender and the reason it's so important is because the men of the industry are not even recognizing the female when coming in with a man. So like right off the bat, we have a gender equality issue when it comes to the female consumer. Hmm. And I wonder just culturally, you know, if there's just, you know, and I'm thinking, trying to put my, you know, trying to wear the shoes of a sales professional, maybe they're used to kind of the man taking the lead if they're coming in as a couple.

5:40And so automatically assuming that, which does, it's not helpful because again, for a lot of reasons, you know, this is a lot of this, you know, just kind of strikes me as, you know, kind of like why we have DEI work that's being done in our workplaces and in our workplace cultures so that we can at least be aware of our own biases. But the reality is there's an economic impact to - Oh, huge. Yeah. Do you want to talk maybe about that? Why is this a big deal for the industry? Well, it's a big deal for the industry because, well, as I just stated, that women are making the purchasing decision, but women control$43 trillion of worldwide spending annually.

6:22And so they are the chief purchasing officer of their homes. So, I mean, it goes far beyond just the automotive space. Automotive is very male dominated and there's a huge Canyon sized gap between who, who just delivers the experience and who receives the experience. But when it comes to like pharmaceuticals, um, doctor's visits, when it comes to the food that's in the fridge or the meals prepped. Women are the ones making those decisions. They make over 80 % of all travel decisions for the family. So if you really want to get into the pocketbook of the family, you have to understand her. She is the one, whether she's handing over the credit card or not, is the one making the decisions.

7:05Yeah. So share with us, Katie, your book, custom her experience. Who is this book for? Honestly, this book is for everybody, man or woman, because a lot of the times, and I just did an opening keynote at the Women in Automotive Conference. And in Dallas, it was incredible. And I had a room full of women. And so sometimes the Mean Girls Club exists. And sometimes in male-dominated spaces, women have had to claw their way to the top. And once they get there, they're not really open to having an equal atmosphere because they've had to work so hard. So it's for men and women. It's for decision makers, as well as managerial and frontline staff and team members to be able to just understand who their customers are and who's actually making the decisions.

7:59And when you understand their psyche, and my in custom her experience is it's very scientific based I did a lot of research I was very careful on not being on just another woman I am woman hear me roar we are amazing and so you should pay attention to us it's I break it down to a scientific and physiological level where I talk about the brain and what makes us different so it's not just oh women rock it is oh hey we are different. And we both come, men and women, with incredible attributes. And we should be working together rather than ignoring one half of society. Yeah. For those, let's say that there's someone that's listening and maybe they do account-based kind of B2B sales, for example, or it could be an agency or it could be consultant, coach or something like that.

8:50Maybe they're selling in an enterprise, maybe they're selling to other business owners or leaders, what might be some best practices that we could all adapt to be a little bit more sensitive to all genders? Yeah, I think the key, and I get this all the time when I work with organizations, is, well, I don't have time, or, you know, I just, why should I care about the person in front of me? Why should I be genuine? Like, I don't know them from Adam, like they're just a customer. because one of my biggest pieces of counsel or advice is creating that relationship. We're in a very digital world right now where actually humans crave relationship and crave connection, especially women.

9:35So women's limbic brain is double the size of a man's and a limbic brain is our emotional and memory hub of our brain. And so if connecting genuinely is extremely important. And so for those organizations and those managers and owners that say, well, why, Why would I? Well, I mean, why wouldn't you? The reason you have a roof over your head and lights, you know, on in your home or you're able to provide the pay for an employee that has a roof over their head and food on the table is because of your customers. So if you can't see the value in creating that space and time to genuinely connect and create relationships with them, then, I mean, shame on you, really.

10:16And so it's, for me, the biggest piece of advice and counsel I can offer gender neutral, but will go a very long way with women is that relationship and taking the time to connect genuinely and evolving that relationship with your consumer, whether it's B2B or B2C. and um and and i'm sorry katie i just want to make sure so so the biggest thing um would be like if we were to stereotype like a very masculine male type of sales versus um you know one that might be a little bit more set now and again not just to gender but i would say personalities too. I don't like, I absolutely do not like being sold at or, you know, someone telling me, you know, or setting a strong frame in a sales conversation.

11:11Number one, I know what I'm doing on sales. So your Jedi mind tricks aren't going to work on me. But number two, not only that, but if I feel like it's all about you and you're trying to just push this along, I'm like, listen, we're going to buy on my time. And if you keep doing that, like I'm, I'm out, I'm out. And I have actually, I did this very politely, you know, got approached at a car dealership and the guy, it was like just total Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross kind of energy. And I'm like, Nope, I'm okay. I actually did need a sales professional. And then I walked around and I looked and I watched energy.

11:50And I found someone I, in my case, I found a woman because I knew that that I was stereotyping. And I thought I want, I guessing that that she might be a little bit more, you know, kind of work with me at my energy. And let's collaboratively, you know, create a great buying decision here. That's, that's what I really wanted. Yeah. And so that, and that's exactly what I'm talking about is finding a relationship that so that sales associate, that sales professional you're talking about should be able to tailor the experience to the person standing in front of them. With that, the only way you can do that, though, is through a relationship.

12:32So meaning it's not about sales professional, like you just said, it's about the customer. It's about understanding the customer, knowing their needs, their wants, what life stage they're in, and then being able to connect with them and be able to deliver on an experience that they want. Now, you, you're a professional and you know sales in and out. Like you said, you won't be able to pull their Jedi, they won't be able to pull their Jedi mind tricks on you, but you were able to read. And it's not funny or stereotypical that you went to a woman. Like, as I mentioned, our limbic brain is double the size of a man's, meaning we're more emotionally in tune.

13:07We remember details. But also from a communication standpoint, we communicate with our left side and right side of our brain. So we communicate with creativity and logic, which means we can listen to all the details. And we can also get through them logically, and then soften it up by creating that relationship and using that sort of creative language at the same time, whereas a man is very utilitarian, they communicate only with logic. They do not tap into their creative side when they're communicating. And so it's very black and white, which doesn't often help frame or start the framework for a relationship.

13:43And it usually is about the car, the details, what they're going to get out of it. It's not about creating that safe space where the customer feels heard. Yeah. And Katie, I suspect that there's good work that we can all do, not just our interpersonal or our conversational sales processes, but also like how we design our sales assets, our copy on our website. What might be some of those sensitivities that we may want to have on, let's say it's a website that has a bunch of sales copy on it. Yeah. So when it comes to websites or any marketing materials, I laugh when I say this, but pink isn't the answer when you're trying to connect with a female consumer.

14:36Making something more female-friendly is not the answer either. There's countless of organizations that have tried to do that and have failed miserably. Women don't want to be called out. We want to be treated as an equal. And in terms of copy on the website, we do care about the words you use. You know, when I work with organizations, when they're hiring, for example, they're trying to bring and attract on more women. And we're looking at their job ads. You know, women don't want to, you know, eat and kill their prey, their customers. They're not hungry. They're not forceful sales associates.

15:13They want to create relationships. And they want to engage with their customers and help them through a journey. And so the wording you use is extremely important in the copy on a website, in a job ad, because women will connect more with that softer, more relationship-focused verbiage than a man will. But a man, one way or the other, won't turn his nose up to that softer language. It won't detract him, but it will detract your females. Yeah. Let's share, again, Katie, I just want to make sure that folks know about your book. And again, who should be reading this? Who should we be buying a copy and sending it to?

16:00And then, of course, I just want to make sure that folks know your website, katymayers.com, and all the ways that you can engage. Because obviously, I appreciate you sharing great information here. You've got the book. But you do this work within organizations as well? Yeah, of course I do. I mean, I am very, I own a ton of businesses. So I put my own work into practice every single day. But yes, I work with organizations all over the world to customize these experiences for the female consumer. I do a lot of large audience keynote talks as well, to be able to get that out there, get that message out there in the masses.

16:39and of course, I put tidbits of information out on social media all the time and so you can find that information there as well. Awesome. Katie Mayers, your website, katiemayers.com and again, the book, which is on Amazon and everywhere else is Custom Her Experience and subtitled, The Importance of Tailoring Your Brand Experience to the Female Consumer. Katie Mayers, it's been a pleasure having you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.

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