Marketing vehicles is her passion
DRIVEN TO SUCCEED: Promotes three major luxury marques
Jill Grant loves her job. The dynamic 33-year old is the group marketing manager for the Richmond-based Auto West Group, one of the top luxury automotive groups in Canada.
“I oversee the marketing for all three of our brand stores — BMW, MINI and Infiniti — as well as Alloy Gator, a new brand that we have just launched across Canada,” Grant says of her wideranging job responsibilities.
Alloy Gator is a clever rim protection system that prevents curb damage to your vehicle’s wheels.
Always looking for a challenge, Grant recently established her own marketing agency, Refuel Marketing, which is almost solely dedicated to marketing premium automotive products.
“I am contracted here to Auto West, but decided to start up Refuel Marketing so that I could expand my horizons and work for some other clients using my expertise in other ways.”
Grant has been in the automotive business for almost eight years now, after spending some time in the luxury real estate sector.
“It was always my passion to get into automotive marketing,” offered the always smiling woman. “Apparently it is quite rare for a woman to pursue that as her first choice in the field, but from the age of five years old, I have always had an interest in cars.”
Originally from Kamloops, Grant moved to Vancouver 12 years ago to pursue a career in marketing. She enrolled in the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) specifically with her mind set to end up in the premium automotive sector.
“I remember when everyone was introducing themselves on the first day of the program,” she recalled. “All of the other students were looking towards eventually working at big agencies.
“When it was my turn I threw up my hand and stated that I was looking towards a career in automotive and everybody looked at me with disbelief and wonderment.”
At that time she said she was thinking that would mean working for a major automaker, perhaps in some place like Germany, as she was focused on working in the premium sector.
However, “it became apparent that the challenge before me was that all of the local head offices are located in Toronto, so if I wanted to stay in Canada I would have to make some choices.”
After completing her schooling Grant tried her hand in the world of resort real estate in an effort to gain marketing experience with a leading global resort developer.
“I got an internship with Intrawest working for their Playground division,” she said of the division dedicated to marketing luxury resort properties. “I eventually worked my way up as project manager and ran some projects for them including their newest beachfront resort in Maui.”
After working for Playground for three years, Grant was looking to broaden her horizons when she heard that there was a job posting at Mercedes-Benz Canada.
“A little research revealed that Mercedes-Benz Canada is unique in that they are the only manufacturer in Canada that maintains corporate ownership of most of their stores so they have an office in the Vancouver area to service the Western Region,” she explained with enthusiasm. This meant she could work for a premium brand at the manufacturer level rather than at the retail level in Vancouver.
Grant became the marketing manager for Mercedes-Benz Canada’s Western Region, a position she held for three years.
“My time at Mercedes-Benz represented an amazing opportunity for me as it gave me the chance to gain experience at both the corporate and retail levels at the same time,” she says. “However, I knew that I really wanted to have my own agency one day and that in order to accomplish this I would need to expand my experience and have more brands available in my portfolio.”
This led the budding entrepreneur to consider her options, and she soon decided that working for one of the emerging auto groups would give her the extra experience she would need to help her get one step closer to her goals.
“I had heard nothing but great things about The Auto West Group and the position of marketing manager for the growing company suddenly became available.”
Although she has set out on her own with Refuel, Grant is still responsible for marketing at Auto West, where she has worked for four years now and admits that it has been great for her career.
“What makes working in this business so interesting from a marketing perspective is that there are four departments within each store — new cars, used cars, service, and parts — so you have four campaigns to run, all with separate budgets and business objectives.” That means never a dull moment. “The pace of the work is very fast as the products and programs in the auto industry change at an incredible rate,” she admits. “Every 30 days you need a brand new marketing plan. How many other industries face that kind of turnover?”
The automotive industry is still very much a man’s world, she observes, so for a woman to make her mark she has to be very confident in her skill set and has to be able to deliver the results.
“Auto West owner Joachim Neumann is very progressive when it comes to business,” Grant says. “I am fortunate to work for his company as he recognized that I have the drive and work ethic to pursue other opportunities while still fulfilling my role here with the Auto West Group. And it is such a great team of people to work with!
“At the end of the day, if you enjoy what you do you will find success.”