2024: The Year of WOCAN with Ashley Cavazos | 2024 NADA Show

Paul J Daly: 0:06

All right, we're here with our good friend Ashley composites. Thank you so much for joining us.

‍Ashley Cavazos: 0:10

Hi, you guys. It's so good to see y'all in person and like text message. Yes.

Paul J Daly: 0:17

We have some fun stuff to talk about. We're gonna see more of our each other in person. Yeah, just a few months at a sober kind of really, you're talking about we're doing

Ashley Cavazos: 0:25

so. I mean, thank you all for the support, right? Like from the beginning, y'all have been supporters of WOCAN women of color automotive network and we just announced this morning, that we're gonna be at ASOTU CON for a WOCAN breakfast mix. I'm so pumped up, it's a great way to just kick off the event with our WOCAN members. We have a ton of people on the East Coast. I'm so excited for you who we bring in. So you've been asking for it. They want more of us in person. They love the virtual experience. They love the annual luncheon. But they're like, hey, like, what more can we do on being in Baltimore is a perfect location. So I'm so excited Kerri s excited Erikka, the whole team are so pumped up. So just thank you guys for giving us a space and this voice to just share it with the community.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:11

I think more people are becoming aware of what WOCAN is in the industry. And there's still awareness to be done. Because there are so many people that should know and should be a part of that. And I think when you become a member of something right, you, you definitely have a community to call home. And those are my people. But you also have cadences that those members can interact with each other and talk about some of the cadences through the year that you just said, be a little bit more detail about how the community actually engages. Yeah,

Ashley Cavazos: 1:39

so we have a Facebook group for members only. And not everybody is on Facebook. But there are a lot of our members on Facebook and not all they can always get to these events, right? We have technicians and sales associates and people who are on the accounting team. They don't get to go to these kinds of places. So how do you connect with them? And you do it through your social media channels? I honestly cannot. We cannot do any of this without our we have different just and then blanking on the word committees. Sorry, yeah, groups of people talking about things. But we have committees that we introduced last year, which is really great. Because as a team, the leadership can't do it all as y'all know, right? You can't do it alone. And so we built some committees. So we have like our events committee or member engagement committee, and we cannot do it with them. They're helping us stay engaged with them. They're bringing the one on one conversations that people need as well. There's some tough conversations that have had to happen, because people don't know a lot of women don't know who to go to. And we're there for them. So we have the Facebook group, we have virtual speaker events, we actually just announced our leadership program with Solera. Wow, this is going to be huge. They are going to be supporting 100 WOCAN members into leadership academy if you don't know Solera has an amazing leadership program for the women. And they're gonna get six months of leadership training from the Solera team.

Paul J Daly: 3:04

Cool, like high level leadership level

Ashley Cavazos: 3:06

leadership training, Jean Lau, who's like the chief administration officer for Solera is like putting this together with her team. They've been amazing, like all of them. So we're so pumped that was just announced as well about a week ago. And so we're accepting applications for that so we can connect and grow more women of color and the industry and help them see like, hey, maybe you don't have a place at your dealership that can help you do this. Let us help you get there.

Paul J Daly: 3:33

So a soda con is going to be May 14 through 17 the 15th and 16th the main days the breakfast is going to be on the 15th Yes. Do you know what you're going to do with your time there?

Ashley Cavazos: 3:44

I do I'm so I'm really excited. I have talked with Carrie as soon as we talked right, we were like, Okay, I have some my wheels start turning, turning unfortunate for me. Like I was also at my time at Walser, the Vice President of women a Walser and one thing I put together was a leadership breakfast and that really helped inspire what we're going to do with well, Ken, but just help bring everybody together to network. So we're gonna have some little networking activities. We're working to get all the founders together. Yes, like a fireside chat our goal is to get as much it's really hard because everybody's busy. Thankfully, we put this together early we have some time so I've got some commitments I'm not gonna say who get the confirmations. But that's that's our goal. We want to make sure that we have just a fireside chat, get to know them and get to know each other so that way when you're walking around ASOTU CON Hey, I know you know we're just

Paul J Daly: 4:41

right and it kicks out it basically kicks off welcome reception the night before, but this is like the first programming the whole event. So if you come you can find your friends right early on and

Kyle Mountsier: 4:51

then going to the movement, go to the main stage, go into the

Ashley Cavazos: 4:55

seat and come alone because we're going to find somebody for you to get to know After breakfast because it's intimidating, like,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:02

I don't care what event you go to, if you're not with someone or have someone to be with Yes, intimidate, intimidate.

Ashley Cavazos: 5:08

Yeah. And especially as women because they're like, I'm like, Well, these guys know each other, right? Yeah. A lot of women. You know, there's not a lot of us floating around. Yeah, we're getting you know, we're building our community, but it's ASOTU

Paul J Daly: 5:21

CON is probably the the most balanced event in automotive. Yeah, I'll go that

Ashley Cavazos: 5:26

far and say that I would agree. I love I mean, my first ASOTU CON was this past year and I loved it. Like that's gonna be any event that is on my like, annual like, hey, where am I? Where am I budgeting to go to? I gotta be honest joda time, like the workshops are great. The communities and there's gonna be a welcome breakfast every now we've got well, Ken

Kyle Mountsier: 5:46

was perfect, because your primary luncheon every year is at the main man conference. On offense. Yeah. But it kind of splits the other side of the year. So it's a good, like, break point for the other side of the year at this point, because typically late fall is great. Yeah. So

Ashley Cavazos: 6:00

it's Yeah, I mean, that's when this came together. Right? When we, we were at NAMAD, and y'all were like, Okay,

Unknown: 6:07

this brings energy to the other side.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:10

What I love about that is like NAMAD is obviously a broader community of minority dealers. And so there's, there's definitely like a critical mass there. But I think the real heart behind, like making sure that women and women specifically of color and minorities are integrated into the entire ecosystem, that it's not just like, pull us out and have us over here. It's like, actually, no, this is a broader community that needs the voices of every single aspect of our community. And when that comes together, it's I mean, we say, industry partners, OEMs, and dealers, right? When people come together, collaborate, understand that there are other people in the industry that need to hear those voices, and that every voice is valued. That is the best way to Yeah, so that's what I'm really asking.

Ashley Cavazos: 6:55

Yes. And the great thing about doing it and saticon. Like, what I feel with this community, what y'all have created in what we've created together, is when you find like somebody who's new, or somebody who's trying to get to know the industry a little bit, like we just like wrap our arms around each other

Paul J Daly: 7:14

Valley so quickly at a soda. I just

Ashley Cavazos: 7:17

had somebody reached out to me, General Manager in South Texas that I from my hometown, and he just hired a marketing manager and he was like, hey, like, I want to find some places to like, send her to because she's new, like, what do you recommend? And I'm like, gosh, spot. I think I know

Kyle Mountsier: 7:33

why, like Ashley, thanks so much for spending some time with us. We're so excited about that. We're excited about what will Canada's doing in our industry having you at ASOTU CON and always your enemies.

Ashley Cavazos: 7:44

You guys, thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

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