Car ‘sistas’ all revved up
TANIA Meli is now a big cheese at car dealership giant Frizelle Sunshine Automotive Group, but still recalls the days when a male colleague referred to her as the “pretty little fat girl”.
That was 20 years ago when she ditched a career in hairdressing and make-up for a car sales role for Volkswagen.
“The sales manager back then called me the pretty little fat girl – ‘Here she comes, the pretty little fat girl’. I would ring my mother crying, saying I don’t know what to do because old mate has just called me a pretty little fat girl and p ... off basically.
“Mum would say ‘Toughen up, he’s not going to break you’. It was an interesting apprenticeship.”
It was 1999 and even getting her start selling cars wasn’t easy. Her scheduled job interview was cancelled twice and when it happened a third time she just turned up anyway.
She was made to wait an hour and her interviewer told her two young men he’d interviewed would be more suited.
What she did next is now legendary within Frizelle Sunshine Automotive Group.
“I just don’t think he wanted a chick. This is a bit of a joke now in this company but I said to him ‘You need to close your eyes for a minute ... Imagine I’m articulating my answers to you the way I have been but I’m a bloke. Am I the man for the job?’
“I said ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going all women’s lib on you but why can’t I do it’?”
She didn’t get the used car sale apprenticeship – instead her bold move had impressed enough that she was sent to the Frizelle group’s then-Southport base for a two-week trial.
The rest is trailblazing history – now she’s risen to be among one of the company’s top executives as Alfa Romeo dealer principal and AUDI Gold Coast general manager.
Along with Frizelle group chief operating officer Rebecca Frizelle, they are leading the way for women in an industry that’s been a man’s domain.
Mrs Frizelle, who started out in 1990 as a casual receptionist, credits her father-inlaw and group founder James Frizelle for championing females in the business.
“I often say about James, I don’t think he noticed I was a girl when it came to working here – he was gender blind in that respect, it was just the best person for the job,” she said.
But still entrenched attitudes meant it was always a battle attracting females to the industry because they felt it was male-dominated, she said.
Bruce Lynton Automotive Group principal Beric Lynton said the industry may have had a perception of being a male field, but that had disappeared.
Mr Lynton, whose family has been in the game 40 years, said: “We’ve had female salespeople as long as I can remember.’’
Mr Lynton said at its new Jaguar Land Rover showroom and service depot in Southport it has a mix of female sales and service staff: “We just take the best applicant for the job, regardless of sex, religion.”
In a radical move three years ago, the Frizelle group successfully applied to be exempted from the Anti-Discrimination Act so it could limit vacancy ads to women for certain jobs.
At that stage its staffing was 97 per cent men and just 3 per cent women.
Mrs Frizelle said she “was no bra burner”.
“We just wanted more women because it’s good for business,’’ she said.
“We were missing out on really good talent. And recent stats showed 85 per cent of the decision-making around purchasing a vehicle was made by women, yet we didn’t really have women involved in the sales process.”
In the three years since, the Frizelle Sunshine Automotive Group has gone from a workforce of 3 per cent female to 25 per cent.
So much has changed – and in some ways so much hasn’t.
The group’s Volkswagen Robina sales manager, Renae Rice, said recently a buyer came to the dealership and refused to be served by her.
“He was an older guy from the generation when women didn’t really work. He said he wanted to get technical.
“I said I could help with that but he was adamant he wanted a guy. I went and got a male for him because I didn’t want it to get awkward. I thought I could either get offended or just find it funny.”
DON’T GET ME WRONG, I’M NOT GOING ALL WOMEN’S LIB ON YOU BUT WHY CAN’T I DO IT? TANIA MELI