Tag Archives: Business Award

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?

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

FOXY wins Online Business Award

Much to my surprise and pride I picked up the Online Business Woman of the Year Award last Friday in Arundel on behalf of FOXY Lady Drivers Club.

steph_capgemini

Being an online business I’ve been more used to online Award competitions nominating occasional accolades by email.

On this occasion it felt so much more special and rewarding as it involved talking to local hero and Awards compere Sally Gunnell whilst giving me the opportunity to explain FOXY’s philosophy, on behalf of women drivers, on the night.

I remember being asked at a Mumpreneurs Networking meeting in Lewes earlier that day if I had a speech ready, should FOXY win. ‘Not a chance’ was my honest verdict and fairly obviously, to all there on the night, I didn’t have a speech rehearsed!

As it happened, the Online Business Award category was sponsored by CapGemini, a huge company that specialises in business consultancy, technology and outsourcing services and their Senior Manager, Kevin Reed, handed over the impressive certificate on the night.

I have since read up about Capgemini’s ambitions to recruit more women into IT, echoing FOXY’s efforts to do the same to attract women into the motor industry. With young women outperforming young men at GCSE level in STEM subjects the potential for female talent is obvious but clearly few STEM-related industries are managing to get a female friendly career message across to young women.

As I see it, the message that careers in IT and the motor industry are equally challenging and rewarding for either gender is one that needs making early on in education. Both sexes need to understand the benefits of working together – a business partnership as in marriage, each have complementary strengths and talents to bring to the table. And this message must include students’ parents who are key influencers but often seem to hold old-fashioned and stereotypical views about masculine industries being forbidden zones for females to enter. Far from the truth!

Let’s hope there is something that FOXY and Capgemini might do together to challenge this gender thinking in future…

FOXY