Category Archives: FOXY

A new home for FOXY Lady blog

Here’s where to find our new FOXY Lady Blog with effect from 1 January 2018.

FOXY Lady Blog has been hosted in WordPress since its inception. As tempting as it is to carry on this way, we now have a new Blog area within the Club website.

So we’re closing this WordPress blog from 1 January 2018 – with new posts appearing in the New FOXY Lady blog section instead.

Look out for a new section there called FOXY Lady Opinion where I’ll publish my thoughts about motoring services and women drivers in future.

You’ll also find Sections covering
+ Everyday ‘How To’ and ‘Tips’ motoring content, with women in mind
+ Commissioned Product Reviews
+ Car Reviews, by and for females
+ ‘Women In the Motor Industry’ career profiles

Thank you for your support.

FOXY

We Love Our Business Partners

We have a new homepage for the Club’s website making it easier for visitors to see what we do.

Until now we’ve focused our sales efforts on individual female motorists but we also have new membership packages for employers, groups and associations so we need to get this message across as well.

This has required us to look for, identify and advantage new business partners where there is a genuine and reciprocal business case.

And we’re working with some great partners I’m delighted to say.

Three Different Types of Business Partnership

Just to explain where we’re starting from here. FOXY Lady Drivers Club is run on a not for profit basis. This means no salaries for the individuals that work here. Profits are called surpluses and they get re-invested in the business.

Clearly we do need to earn some money, so the Club is funded by key business partners including the FOXY Lady Approved garages, car dealers and tyre centres our sister website FOXY Choice manages, identifying, promoting and monitoring as female friendly, ahead of others.

These businesses support us through an annual subscription to one of our approved networks in exchange for female friendly marketing services which include gift memberships of The Club for their female customers. In this way we can help these business partners grow their female fan club by keeping in touch with them in-between motoring-related purchases.

We also work with remarkable business groups and associations that are largely run by and for women – this means we understand each other’s perspective. Businesses like Mumpreneurs Networking Club, named groups within The Athena Network and certain WI Federations can give their female customers/members free gift membership of FOXY Lady Drivers Club within this partnership.

We also recognise and reward our business partners that supply Club members with specialist benefits such as VIP car checks, airport parking, legal, motor claims and anxiety support services. So they can benefit from this relationship as well, we allow their female customers to claim free gift memberships of the Club as a gesture of our goodwill here.
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Do have a look at our new partners’ scheme page to see what we’re offering. And if you would like to enquire about a new business partnership, in line with others on offer, please introduce yourself and your business to me via info@foxyladydrivers.com.

Or by all means sign up for our monthly e-newsletter and keep in touch that way.

Steph Savill

FOXY

Steph Savill wins #QueenOf Motoring For Women Award

I am delighted to have won The Royal Connection’s SME #QueenOf Motoring For Women Award in June 2017.

Within 12 hours of this announcement my shiny choice of Award badge had been created, polished and delivered online.

Thank you Andy Quinn of The Royal Connection and Dylan Moore of Aqua Design Group for this special accolade.

The thinking behind this Award is clever and strategic.

Who wouldn’t want to stand out at the top of their respective industry tree? The acknowledged Twitter royalty in their business class?

From my point of view, this badge says what I represent – Motoring (services) For Women and I’m proud to have this accolade and be acknowledged as such.

#QueenOf Winners get huge online reach because everyone likes to read and retweet good business stories to help spread the word.

My personal Twitter fanclub has shot up over the weekend (@FOXYSteph) and that’s good for my business profile (@FOXYTweets) too.

Keep your eyes open for #QueenOf and #KingOf hashtags on business profiles in future – this is a means for like-minded small business winners to find and support you through this fast growing network, during RoyalConnection hours and at their busy Facebook Page.

If you’ve applied and failed to get noticed, put some images into your application to show what you do. It’s fun to enter, you need to be professional, it’s excellent business PR and you’ll be welcomed into a new and very friendly business support network that’s there for you.

Now, where can I buy my new #QueenOf crown from?

Our ‘Woman Of The Year’ is Jane Bailey of Westgate Tyres

FOXY Lady Drivers Club’s ‘Woman of the Year’ Award Winner is Jane Bailey of Westgate Tyres in Morecambe.

We first met Jane when she joined the new FOXY Lady Approved Tyre Register and then organised two popular Ladies evenings locally with the proceeds going to the CancerCare charity.

We soon realised that when we didn’t speak to Jane, we spoke to two friendly, knowledgeable and enthusiastic females in her absence. So many females in any tyre business is very rare indeed.

Fast forward a year and when I was at the Tyresafe Awards last summer my table companion, Alan Baldwin from Micheldever Tyres, told me about Jane and what a remarkable business lady he knew her to be.

A little later on, and in contact with Ashleigh Warren of GiTi Tire UK, Jane was mentioned again…

This time I could not ignore these coincidences any longer.

So I decided to find out Jane’s business story for myself and on the strength of this was delighted to present her with our inaugural Valentine’s Day ‘Woman Of The Year’ Award in Morecambe in front of her husband Graham.

Left to right, the photo is of GiTi Tire UK’s Marketing Manager Ashleigh Warren, Jane’s daughter Emma with grand-daughter Felicity, Steph Savill (FOXY), Jane Bailey, daughter Sophie and Micheldever Tyres’ Area Sales Manager Keith O’Brien.

This is Jane Bailey’s Story (in her own words)

In the 1970’s women were even less likely to be mechanics or tyre fitters than they are today. There was little or no training available for us. So when I left school at 16 I went to work for British Gas for 11 years but my love of cars remained.

In the meantime I had met my future husband Graham who was a fitter with a national tyre company and we got married when I was just 18.

Our first daughter Emma was followed by three miscarriages so we were thrilled when our second daughter Sophie was born eight years later.

How did Westgate Tyres come about?

When the right premises came up for us in 1997 Graham and I (in the photo) jumped at the chance to open our own tyre business which we called Westgate Tyres. This was a scary thing to do because Emma was 10 years old and Sophie just 20 months.

We risked everything to set up the garage but neither of us wanted to look back in later life and regret not having been brave enough to give it a go.

At the beginning I did the book-keeping, planned the tyre promotions and ran the reception area. Sophie spent her early days in a playpen in the waiting room – it was a case of pulling together to keep a roof over our heads.

After working all day at the garage, Graham would look after the girls at night whilst I’d do a stint at the local Asda on the tills until midnight. These were long, hard and tiring days for us both with little outside support but we always knew our hard work would pay off in the end.

As the business grew, so did the administration and promotions so I took the brave step of leaving Asda when Westgate Tyres became our only source of income.

These were precarious financial times when holidays went on hold and we worked 363 days a year bar Christmas and New Year Days. My role as wife, mother and business partner became harder and harder but our efforts were at last starting to pay off, allowing us to employ staff and add new customer services.

When did the rest of the family get involved?

Our daughter Emma (now 29) had started working for us as a Saturday receptionist at the age of 14. She shares our love of cars, of course, owning a Barbie Pink Puma at the age of 17! She now works full time in the business and has two daughters herself, aged 5 years and 6 months.

Unsurprisingly our eldest grand-daughter also loves cars, is often seen in overalls and the pair of them starred in our award-winning Tyre Safety advertising campaign.

Emma’s husband has his own accident repair centre so it’s cars, cars, cars for the whole family.

Our younger daughter, Sophie, is 20, equally as car mad and runs a pimped up Suzuki Swift Sport. She is helping us take the business forward with a fresh eye.

The business is now a GT Radial Performance Centre and we feel we’re fitting trust with every tyre alongside such a fantastic guarantee. Sophie visited the Ascari race track in Spain last year and test drove a selection of vehicles fitted with GT Radial Tyres – they all performed really impressively in both wet and dry conditions.

Sophie’s partner has his own car detailing company so our family businesses all complement each other.

How did you promote your business as different from others?

I’m a strong believer in targeted advertising and have spent years working hard to build awareness of our business.

The tyre industry is very male dominated and doesn’t always have the best of images so my daughters and I work tirelessly to make our business as genuinely female friendly as possible.

So much so that we decided to join the FOXY Lady Approved Tyre Register and work with their motoring club for women to promote our regular Ladies Nights. Our aim is to empower local women with the knowledge and confidence to do their own car maintenance and tyre safety checks.

As a result, Westgate Tyres sees a high percentage of female customers and I honestly believe they visit us because they know women work here. They tell us they’re reassured that they’re understood and always treated with the utmost respect and honesty.

When did your personal health become an issue?

After a couple of years of feeling so ill and so tired that I could put my head on my desk and instantly fall asleep, I was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2013.

This is when my world fell apart – I was critically ill and admitted to hospital a week later for major surgery.

My family now had the business to run by themselves whilst worrying about a seriously ill mum and wife. I don’t know how they all held it together but they did – putting on their brave faces, shedding tears in private and going through the motions of keeping the business running as normally as possible in the circumstances.

The Cancercare charity has been a true lifeline for me. It has provided emotional support which you need, especially when you’re self employed. When you’re recovering from major surgery of any kind you need rest, an absence of stress and time for your body to heal. Colon cancer adds additional challenges – you need to get used to a completely new diet and just getting through every day has been a real battle for me.

Trying to recover and keep the business running was extremely difficult but cancer hadn’t beaten me. Within a couple of weeks, I was doing the book-keeping from my bed and visiting the business in a wheelchair. After three years, I’m delighted to report that Mrs B (as the staff all call me) is fighting strong.

During all this I’ve been amazed by how many friends and customers came to talk to me about health concerns before being diagnosed with this cancer themselves. So I now try to raise early awareness of colon cancer whenever I can, including organising a fund-raising event every year.

The fear of having to give up everything we had worked so hard for has certainly pushed me on and, had I worked for someone else, I might have lost my job or not had the unshakeable resolve to keep going, regardless.

What does the future look like today?

After all this, my love of cars is stronger than ever. I particularly love classic cars because they are so stylish, they look very different and they are often a driving challenge. I try to visit as many classic car rallies as I can with either a Morris 1000 or Sunbeam Alpine.

My everyday car is a sporty open-top 150 Mini whilst Graham enjoys his Subaru, Porsche and Nissan Navara!

I’m also very proud of our daughters as ambassadors of our business and now it’s their turn to take things forward and allow me time to focus on myself, for a change.

I am delighted to see such a bright future ahead of them as they start to make their female mark on today’s tyre industry.

I often wonder if my Dad could see how those early days spent encouraging me to help him under a car bonnet would shape the rest of my life! And then that of my daughters and grandchildren, given time!

Jane Bailey, Westgate Tyres
FOXY Lady Drivers Club’s first ‘Woman Of The Year’
Award Winner
Valentine’s Day, 2017

Then along come three buses…

three-london-busesYou know the transport analogy about famine and feast in that you can wait for ages for a bus then three trundle into eyesight together…

Such seems to be the case for FOXY this month. After months of typically spasmodic PR, March is to bring us three potentially big events (as in buses…) that all look likely to land at about the same time…

Here’s what I am talking about.

1 ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Motor Industry’ Award

The first of these was my receiving the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Motor Industry’ on 12 March which was presented at the IMI Annual Dinner in London.

This matters because it has been awarded by The (industry) Professionals – the body of individuals who support the case for licensing, invest in training and collect qualifications to demonstrate their commitment for ongoing improvement. Those industry luminaries that perhaps didn’t know of my work in the past are likely to want to know more about me and what I do.

This makes me feel very proud and of course it endorses my work and is likely to get me in through doors that might previously have been closed to me. Which will be good for the industry, says she!

I received this award on account of of my work to raise awareness of measurable quality standards to do with garages, repairers and car dealers among women drivers – this means they can enjoy better services than they might on their own. We do this from within the Club’s membership of 12,000+, by identifying and promoting genuinely female friendly businesses/services and ultimately by encouraging more women to consider a motoring career.

And after years of being a lone campaigning female voice in these areas I feel encouraged, supported and revitalised…

2 The Mary Portas Secret Shopper TV series

Back in October I was invited to appear on the Mary Portas Secret Shopper Channel 4 TV series which will air on 17 March at 8pm. This features a used car dealership in Aylesbury and whilst the episode has yet to appear I understand that this business was a long way short of being female friendly at the outset.

I was then involved in a wacky car park setting at Silverstone where, together with three equally foxy female driving instructors, we told the car dealer team what we all knew women wanted when they went new car shopping. But was the business getting service levels right for us? We weren’t convinced at this stage.

Forward three weeks and we then met at the used car dealer for the big female friendly reveal… Then time to forget all about this afterwards because it has taken nearly six months to reach our TV screens.

You’ll have to see what it looked like on the night and make your own mind up. Did the dealer do enough to get the FOXY Lady Approved female friendly sign of approval – and certificate on the wall? I can’t possibly say.

3 Come In Japan…

The third (bus) came out of the blue when I was invited for an interview by The Yomiuri Shimbun. No I didn’t know it was Japan’s largest and most influential daily broadsheet newspaper either. Or that it had a circulation of more than 10 million making it the biggest newspaper in the world!

Interview mission accomplished in the FOXY Lady Approved London Morgan car showroom in Kensington last month, we now await publication on 24 March of what was a very comprehensive review of the FOXY business, Club, garages and insurance, as well as our ethos and ambition.

Who knows what further opportunities this might bring other than a clear impression to anyone interested that what we are doing is something the paper thinks their female readers will be interested in and might want a similar model made available there perhaps?
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So that’s what’s happening behind the scenes for us this month. The opportunity to advance the FOXY cause in the UK for starters then who knows! Bring it on for summer I say…

FOXY