Car dealers recruit saleswomen at the mall

A rule of thumb at car dealerships has been that for every four salesmen hired, one will stick. One of the nation's biggest dealership companies is trying to improve the odds -- by hiring more women.

Starting this summer, recruiters for Florida and Texas dealerships owned by Asbury Automotive Group, Inc. plan to spend afternoons at the local mall, looking for outgoing, helpful women selling clothes at the Gap or appliances at Sears. The recruiters plan to make a discreet approach, pass along a business card and ask the saleswomen if they would consider selling cars.

The hours at car dealerships are just as long as at retail stores, but the pay can be double or more, with sales-floor compensation, including wages, commissions and bonuses, running as high as $80,000 a year.

If the mall recruiting program works, Asbury plans to roll it out at about 70 of its 94 dealerships in the South, parts of California and elsewhere.

Some evidence suggests women may even be better at selling cars than men. Saleswomen are less likely than their male counterparts to ignore female customers or to ask them if their boyfriend or husband is helping finance the purchase, according to a 2005 market study conducted by CNW using "mystery shoppers."

And CNW has found 9.5% of men actually preferred to buy a car from a woman, compared with 8.9% who preferred a man (81.6% had no preference). Both men and women, however, prefer a man working behind the parts counter and servicing their vehicles.

Recruiting for sales at the mall fits into the industry's broader effort to find more attractive sales and management candidates, and reduce turnover. Sales-employee turnover at the typical new-car franchise dealer reached 51% in 2004, up from 44% in 2003, according to the National Automobile Dealers Association. That's a problem in an era of thinning profit margins, when retaining customers for service and repeat sales matters more than it used to. Asbury also has established a career path into management for sales employees.

Kaylene Cohen, 48 years old and manager for preowned Lexuses at Asbury's Plaza Motors near St. Louis, says her co-workers thought she was a blond bimbo when she started in car sales eight years ago, because she had previously managed a Gap and lacked auto-sales experience. But she liked cars. She says the dealership paid for her to attend a training program where she learned about engines and manufacturing. Now, she says, she believes her co-workers respect her. "They know I'm a hard worker and a good salesperson, so I've kind of earned my way."

Actively recruiting women is acceptable under U.S. employment law if the businesses aren't getting adequate numbers of female applicants, says Neil Bernstein, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. The practice would become questionable, however, if a dealership also was refusing to hire qualified men or putting a quota on the number of men hired. "The mere fact dealerships are trying to expand their horizon and attract women...is OK," he says.

Liza Borches, the owner of a Virginia car dealership, Volvo of Charlottesville, says she has made recruiting women for sales a priority. Women tend to be more organized than men and do a better job of building their own client base, she says. "The biggest key is simply finding nontraditional ways of recruiting [them]," she says.

•	Car dealers recruit saleswomen at the mall Wall Street Journal, Wednesday, April 12, 2006 Byline: Jennifer Saranow

	Story also ran in 2 others:  Associated Press and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette