Women in Retail: Michelle Petrenko of Penske Automotive Group/Mercedes-Benz of North Scottsdale

Auto Remarketing is recognizing the 2022 Girls in Retail honorees in the current problem of the magazine and at Utilised Car 7 days this tumble in San Diego. 

With these awards, we specifically acknowledge leading leaders on the retail side of the auto sector, which include honorees from dealerships, dealer teams and third-get together providers/distributors

Around the subsequent couple of weeks, AR will be publishing Q&As with just about every of the honorees on this website.

Following up is Michelle Petrenko, typical manager, Penske Automotive Group/Mercedes-Benz of North Scottsdale.

Auto Remarketing: What do you love most about doing the job in retail automotive, and what would you modify?

Michelle Petrenko: Functioning in retail automotive allows to me to join and create interactions with so many wonderful men and women. I have been blessed to have so numerous good group members, peers, customers, and mentors in my lifetime. Retail automotive encompasses all people — not just a select team — and I study every working day from all the fantastic connections I make.

I actually enjoy impacting my staff associates life by supporting them achieve their profession desires in a dealership I regulate, and it is extremely fulfilling when they take pleasure in attaining their personal aims even though reaching the financial metrics of the store as effectively. In today’s earth I assume it is definitely crucial to supply a enjoyable, higher-power and optimistic atmosphere for the two the crew and the customer.

Existence is tricky adequate for all people without earning purchasing and servicing a car nerve-racking. One particular of the things that I would change is the impression that some women of all ages have that they continue to require to bring a person into a dealership to get help in income or company. I nonetheless listen to it all the time and I assume it’s actually critical that girls feel empowered to arrive in and buy, offer or services their car without having any hesitation on their element. It is a own mission of mine that ALL individuals who stroll into any dealership I handle feel like they are welcomed, respected and appreciated.

AR: What is the major pattern you’re looking at in retail automotive this 12 months?

Petrenko: Utilised-car acquisition! With the risky inventory levels we are all experiencing, I expend several hours weekly searching at auction tendencies, market trends, lending traits and car sourcing. I am constantly looking at content, listening to podcasts, and finding out to make confident that I am totally aware of everything that may impact my dealership, my group and my customer. I am constantly making an attempt the greatest supply to obtain a great pre-owned automobile for the correct price so that I may give my prospects with the finest pre-owned stock in the market.

I have also used a great deal of time discovering about the most present-day tendencies for on-line advertising to grow my client foundation and to assure their ease of currently being in a position to order without getting to shell out hrs in the dealership.

AR: What piece of job information would you give your young self?

Petrenko: The career advice I would give my more youthful self is the very same I would give any individual in any vocation route: and that is to be susceptible and be your legitimate self. By remaining vulnerable, I imply becoming open up to admitting the matters you don’t know or you could possibly be weak in alternatively of constantly seeking to prove on your own and your well worth. When I initial got out of college or university, there weren’t a good deal of females in the car company. I normally felt like I experienced to do the job so tough and make guaranteed I didn’t acknowledge to any weaknesses or every person would consider I was not deserving of that subsequent advertising and I normally adapted my character to fit what I believed the expectation was of how I must behave, gown, and handle people today. It was not what individuals have been executing to me that brought on this it was my individual insecurities.

When I acquired that the complete very best way to navigate my profession was to be my goofy, satisfied genuine self and just perform tremendous difficult and check with a whole lot of questions about nearly anything and anything that I didn’t know, all the things became so a great deal simpler and my profession definitely benefited. I have been a typical supervisor for 10 a long time and to this day, I am regularly asking my profits and assistance teams, my techs, and my elements teams queries all the time and understanding from them.

AR: What has been the best key to your success in retail automotive?

Petrenko: The leading vital to my accomplishment in retail automotive has been the means to construct terrific teams. As I mentioned earlier, currently being vulnerable and becoming real has been a particular crucial I have acquired but the skill to establish these highly effective teams by acquiring workforce users from assorted backgrounds who deliver their possess skill sets and mindsets with them has been massive for my good results.

When you create a workforce and you occur alongside one another for the goal of building every folks daily life superior by creating the entire group far better, by furnishing a globe class working experience for your purchasers and by reaching the economical metrics that the keep demands which is powerful. It is all about utilizing your power and your intention for excellent it’s totally the fact and it is effective. It is a highly effective, unstoppable pressure when you get a diverse workforce jointly with 1 widespread target and with that fantastic intention and vitality. I have been incredibly blessed in my everyday living to be the “head coach” of some of these incredible varieties of teams and THAT has been the critical to my accomplishment in this sector.