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Director of the Women's Retail Initiative, General Motors

As Jocelyn Waters articulated eloquently, women are changing the face of car dealerships. Literally. A female dealership owner in Denver has a state-of-the-art McDonald's play gym on the grounds for when families come to get their car serviced or are purchasing a new one. Another female dealership owner in Atlanta has spa reps come in on the busiest days to give women hand creams and spa treatments. "GM realized the purchasing power of women and did a study just to take a look at what they [could] do to change the direction of the market share for women," says Waters, the director of the women's retail initiative at General Motors. "Women are such a vital force in the market. They make 80-85 percent of the purchasing decisions." On the workforce front, Waters alluded, women in general bring intangibles to the car sales game that elevate their performances above the general sales team "Women get to know that customer. They interact with that customer. They remember things about that customer. So they build relationships," Waters adds. "One of the things that I've experienced being on the ground and working with dealers is that, 9 times out of 10, if you have a female working in that dealership, she's the top sales person, because she listens to her customers. She listens to what that person is looking for." - terry shropshire

Log onto GM's Web site at www.gm.com.



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