Her Story
About Jessica
I've been in automotive marketing for about 15 years. I started in my early 20s at a small firm called Team Velocity, where I knew someone who worked there and got a leg in. I learned everything on the job, even though I had a college degree, just not in marketing specifically. I spent almost 7 years at Team Velocity, moving up from internal support to field trainer and then to regional director. After that, I transitioned from the agency side to the internal side, joining Holman Automotive as their regional marketing manager. Now I manage marketing for everything from a Honda to a Bugatti - I have stores that sell Honda, Audi, BMW, and then our ultra-luxury Holman Motor Car stores. My typical day looks like checking in on campaigns in the morning, checking in with my team, strategy planning for a few hours, working on budgets depending on what time of the month or year it is, and a lot of reporting upward on success, strategy, and pitching. One of my most notable achievements is that we're launching Porsche North Miami this month. It's one of our first dealerships from scratch, not a building takeover but literally a new building. Our team was part of it from the RFP process with the brand - I pulled data to help Holman pitch Porsche to win the point, and after we won it, I've been a big part of developing the entire marketing and getting our launch ready. It's going to be one of the largest Porsche dealerships in the United States.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Jessica
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to failure and to having really great mentors. On the positive side, I've had some wonderful mentors throughout my career. Both of the men who started Team Velocity Marketing, Bud Blackburn and David Boyce, worked closely with me in my 20s. Then a female outside salesperson with a ton of experience took me under her wing at Team Velocity and really helped shape me. At Holman, we have a really strong mentorship program, so I have a mentor that I meet with on a regular basis, a woman who's a couple levels above me, and she helps me every day. There are a lot of resources available for that. Last year, I did our Advancing Leader program, where they pull leaders from various departments across Holman and we go through a year-long leadership training. We're given a project that's a real thing our business is facing, and then we present it to C-level people, including Mindy Holman, at the end. I've been very lucky to have resources and people to help guide me through my career. But on the failure side, every time I hit a setback, I try to turn it into something positive. When I got divorced, I really pushed to get promoted at Team Velocity and do more there. After my divorce, I decided to go get my MBA. I try to take a possible negative impact on my life and do something positive with it, and that's been a big motto of mine. I hope to teach my daughter how to do that.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say, and I've actually said this to a few of the women that work within Holman, that imposter syndrome is made up. We don't have to experience it. If you have questions, they are valid. Choose how you communicate very wisely. Words like 'I'm sorry to bother you' or 'hey, this might be a stupid question' - just take those out of your vocabulary, because you need to be able to do your job or complete a project. Just know that you're valid, and the things you have to say and questions you have to ask are valid. Try to enter rooms and meetings with that mentality, versus 'I'm not sure if I should be here.' Someone kept coming to me and she kept saying 'this might be a silly question, might be a stupid question,' and I was like, you are asking me very good questions. You have to take that first line just out of your vocabulary.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
With the development of digital advertising, there are so many different ways to target a customer, and so many different people claiming that they have special data sources. It's funny because there's really one big pool of owner registration data, and then people kind of put their own little extra sauce on it. So it's trying to - I hate this because it's such a buzzword - but cut through the clutter of what people are selling you to help market your store or your inventory and your message. It's really about trying to hone down and really be strategic with the immense amount of options that are on the market now to market your dealership.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Integrity is a really big one for me. With marketing, it's very easy for people to toe the line on integrity and say something that could lead someone to believe something else. Part of why I love working at Holman is we've got some pretty rigid thoughts on our pricing structure and the way we present our pricing. We don't bury a fee to make it look like the car is less expensive. We have a lot of integrity, and we carry that over into the marketing. I've been very lucky to work with a lot of people that have a lot of integrity at Holman. We always joke that it is like interviewing for the CIA to work for Holman - you take a series of testing and you actually have to meet with the company psychologist to become a manager, so they really make sure nobody's not qualified or not of the right temperament to be a manager. In my professional life, integrity is key, and also having the drive to wear a lot of hats. You'll be given a scenario or a situation, and just knowing, okay, I don't know if I really know how to do that, and I don't know if it's my job to do that, but I'm gonna go ahead and do it because it should be done. Having that drive to do it is important.
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