Please see our latest interview with FOXY Choice’s Female Business Ambassador, Eileen Jack, who runs female friendly Lambert Street Garage in Halifax.

Eileen has been a supporter of the FOXY Choice approved garage scheme since its very early days.

Unlike some opportunistic garage owners who want to see if what we do means foxy ladies queuing at their door without any effort on their part, Eileen takes the female friendly business agenda very seriously.

She understands the female dynamics of course and that it’s often the very sight of a female in the business that reassures wary females; convincing them to visit Lambert Street Garage rather than another local garage. Right or wrong, many women are distrustful of males in the motor industry either based on their past experiences or the stories they have heard from others.

But it’s only when you interview someone that you start to get a feel for the person, their business principles and the other loves in their lives.

It is clear that Eileen loves horses as well as engines and we now know Lambert Street Garage is a female friendly family business which she runs with her son. Her husband brought her into the business and it’s equally evident that she does her job well and it’s sorting out her customers’ motoring problems that really turns her on.

And that is what makes a successful business of course. We’re not just here to make money on one-off sales, we’re here to make a difference through customer relationships. Get things right for the customer – exceed her expectations wherever you can, and she’ll pay back in spades through loyalty, referrals and by acting as your brand ambassador whenever she can.

Which is why having a Female Brand Ambassador in any business (but particularly in one with such a male dominated image) makes such good sense. And why, if you are female, it makes good sense to promote your existence and the fact that any wary customer (male or female alike) can speak to you about their car if they’d prefer.

And if the Female Business Ambassador isn’t the business owner, who is likely to do all this sort of thing instinctively, it surely makes business sense to appoint the right female to represent women’s best interests in this business. And to back her judgement and ideas to bring you more female business in future.

FOXY Steph

“I don’t mind living in a man’s world if I can be a woman in it.” Marilyn Monroe

Given a choice of addresses, if I wanted one to sound friendly and different I’d probably pick Greetland as a great indicator of a warm and female friendly business.

Last week I spoke to Eileen Jack at Lambert Street garage in Halifax and there it was, a female friendly garage in Greetland which is a district of Halifax.

And whilst carrying out her marketing review with FOXY Choice  I learned that Eileen has been dealing with a business that had bought a domain name for her so she would then pay them to advertise her business with them. They then used her domain name to promote their business not hers and where there was a listing of garages hers appeared in sixth place not first. Remember she had paid for this ‘marketing service’.

How stupid do these people think female business owners are, simply because they are too busy running a successful business to know all there is about internet matters?

Increasingly we find a lot of these advertising sharks around giving the likes of FOXY Choice a bad name even though we are selling a female friendly marketing service, not just advertising.

And really awful to take advantage of a female friendly garage like Lambert Street Garage in Halifax Greetland, run by a foxy lady herself who is busy looking after local women drivers and doing a great job at MOT, car servicing and repair times.

When will the motor industry get its female friendly marketing act together and realise that women are the future entrepreneurs representing the lionshare of female influencers of cars and garage services. We know what we want and I am sure that Eileen will have made that point very clear…

FOXY Steph