Thriving As A Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry: Nadia Bical Of Bical Auto Mall On The Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male Dominated Industry

An Interview With Ming Zhao

Confidence is key. People feed off the energy given to them. In any position, it is important to set the tone for yourself, because the people around you will thrive off the positivity you exude. No matter how nervous you may be, try to set that aside and instead focus on your KNOWLEDGE. Have enough confidence in your knowledge of your career field, as well as the confidence in yourself that you rock it, and do not allow time for anything less.

In the United States in 2022, fields such as Aircraft piloting, Agriculture, Architecture, Construction, Finance, and Information technology, are still male-dominated industries. For a woman who is working in a male-dominated environment, what exactly does it take to thrive and succeed? In this interview series, we are talking to successful women who work in a Male-Dominated Industry who can share their stories and experiences about navigating work and life as strong women in a male-dominated industry. As a part of this series, we had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Nadia Bical.

With over 20 years of experience in the automotive industry, Nadia Bical is the Vice President of Bical Auto Mall, the largest car dealership in the metropolitan area with 220,000 square-feet and three floors located in Brooklyn, New York. In her current role as Vice President, Nadia leads the day-to-day operations of Bical Auto Mall and is dedicated to strengthening the dealership’s relationship between its employees and the overall community. With a passion for giving back and social responsibility, Nadia has donated to several charities and volunteered for local Brooklyn events on behalf of Bical Auto Mall, and also oversees all dealership aspects and works with departments across the dealership including payroll, parts inventory, service, and the overall customer experience.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

Ever since I was a young girl, I grew up with the memory of the car dealership being my second home. As a first-generation American in my family, I remember watching my parents work and learning the importance of hard work and dedication. My father, Sammy, started in the automotive industry as a mechanic before moving into the dealership side of the business with Kristal Auto Mall, however it was always his dream to have a dealership with his own last name. In 2008, he accomplished this dream with Bical Chevy, but it wasn’t enough. I watched him work at the dealership every day and night until finally in 2018, we finished building the current Bical Auto Mall — our own family dealership that was more than my father could have ever imagined. At the age of eight, my brother and I would help at the dealership cleaning cars, and quickly learned the ins and outs of the various industry sectors, from parts inventory and car detailing to customer service and selling. Cars have always been a bonding topic for my father and I, and his love for cars made me want to learn more about what brought him such joy every day.

Can you tell us the story about what led you to this particular career path?

With the influence of my father, my knowledge of cars feels as though it has always been in my blood. As a family-owned business, our dealership was the place that I knew better than anywhere else. Having grown up in the industry and working there as a child, I had a strong foundation of comfortability, confidence and experience around cars that made me love the family business and eager to continue furthering my career in the auto industry.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Throughout my time at Bical Auto Mall over the years, the hit of the coronavirus pandemic has been the most interesting experience and challenge I’ve faced thus far. As a company leader, I realized that the virus was not only a crisis impacting our community, but something that was going to reshape the way we do business — and I had to act fast. Handling a public health issue of this capacity was a completely new playing field for me.

Watching the laws and protocols change from day to day regarding the restrictions of our dealership and new health policies was the ultimate test of adaptability. As most car dealerships were closed throughout the onset of the pandemic, it was still vital for me to find a way to help our local community. Bical Auto Mall continued to stay open every day throughout the pandemic to offer service, parts and body shop services to help our customers and first responder vehicles that needed maintenance in a time of emergency.

As a community, we had no idea what would happen next in such a time of uncertainty, but one thing I knew was that Bical Auto Mall was going to be there to help because being there for others has always been a character trait instilled in me my entire life. I am humbled to see how our entire staff came together to help those around us in such an unpredictable time of need.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

• Patience. As a business owner, we have an idea of how things are going to go, or how we’d like to see things succeed. However, I’ve learned that it’s important to be patient with yourself, as well as with others. When entering a job, we must remember that it’s new a field for us and for our co-workers. We may not excel at all responsibilities right away and there are new ideas and concepts we will have to learn. My advice is to not be so hard on yourself and instead, be patient with yourself. Patience is also imperative with a work challenge. For example, the auto industry has been facing a chip issue that resulted in a car shortage that no one could plan for. While this challenge still remains, I learned that patience and adaption is key, especially with an ever-changing market like the automotive industry where obstacles may arise at any moment.
• Ambition. Ambition is an essential part of being a female business owner. When I first started to take over the dealership from my father and stepped into my new role as Vice President, I could feel the hesitation coming from our employees as I transitioned in their eyes from the young girl they grew up watching to their new boss. However, the external hesitation I felt did not deter me from wanting to learn more about my new position and all aspects of our dealership. I had a thirst for knowledge and was excited to be in a position of leadership, regardless of if others thought I was inexperienced. As a family-owned business, I felt proud to continue leading our legacy with the ambition to not just succeed, but extend my family’s success as a top-performing car dealership in Brooklyn and bring our business to a new level.
• Resilience. Resilience is an important character trait for difficult times in both business and your personal life — you have to learn to adapt, overcome and survive. Navigating how to run the dealership during the coronavirus pandemic taught me how important resilience is in business. Although Bical Auto Mall’s service, parts and body shop was open during the pandemic, it was difficult to get parts to repair cars, as the entire country experienced shipping delays across all industries. We had to learn a new way to conduct business and learn to work with the supplies and inventory we had in stock at the dealership. No matter how much knowledge or experience you may have, you must learn to adapt and move forward through any unexpected challenges that come your way.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Can you help articulate a few of the biggest obstacles or challenges you’ve had to overcome while working in a male-dominated industry?

Fortunately, having grown up in the dealership for most of my life, feeling authoritative in this field became second nature to me after being exposed to the industry for many years. Having my father as my role model as a business owner, he always instilled the confidence in me that I needed to persevere, and he continues to do so today. He never told me that I could not do something, and I believe that his influence has allowed me to gain the knowledge and mindset needed to succeed in a field traditionally run by men.

As I worked my way up to Vice President, I wanted to break the traditional marketing tactics Bical Auto Mall had in place. Being younger and more tech savvy, I knew it would be beneficial for us to move into digital advertising rather than print or newspaper. At first, this was a challenge because the older male executives at the dealership were not aligned with this way of thinking. However, I felt it was necessary to establish a new business model as we were experiencing a new wave of consumers with different purchasing habits. In the end, I prevailed, as Bical Auto Mall has a fully digital marketing strategy which has in turn, brought in new clientele across all audiences.

It is important that regardless of who your colleagues may be, both male or female, to trust yourself and always persist when you believe that something will make great change.

Can you share a few of the things you have done to gain acceptance among your male peers and the general work community? What did your female co-workers do? Can you share some stories or examples?

For me personally, I am a firm believer that knowledge is power. My knowledge of every aspect of the dealership has allowed me to become a successful female dealer, and by immersing myself fully into the world of cars and learning the difference between building cars versus selling cars, I have shaped myself into a well-rounded leader and been able to prove myself as a leader to my male coworkers.

Tying my history at the dealership from an early age back to my current position, I feel as though my experience in a typical “male” job has forced me to focus on how to be an inclusive and effective leader. Setting standards and expectations for my employees from the get-go has shown I am a serious business woman. I believe that setting boundaries and letting your staff know your expectations of them as an employee ensures that you’re working together as a team to provide the best possible route to success.

What do you think male-oriented organizations can do to enhance their recruiting efforts to attract more women?

Overall, I believe that male-oriented organizations can attract more women workers and make the workplace more equitable by keeping an open mind about who is able to get the job done efficiently and successfully, regardless of gender.

For example, at a car dealership which is often considered a male-dominated workplace, the staff is not composed of solely male car enthusiasts, but rather both men AND women who are productive salespeople and continue to sell our vehicles because they have the skill to do so. There are many women who are just as good if not better at selling cars as their male counterparts, and if male-oriented organizations were to focus on the skillset needed for the job at hand and not the gender behind who is completing the work, businesses would thrive a lot more.

Ok thank you for all of that. Here is the main question of our interview. Based on your opinion and experience, what are the “Five Things You Need To Thrive and Succeed as a Woman In a Male-Dominated Industry?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Confidence is key. People feed off the energy given to them. In any position, it is important to set the tone for yourself, because the people around you will thrive off the positivity you exude. No matter how nervous you may be, try to set that aside and instead focus on your KNOWLEDGE. Have enough confidence in your knowledge of your career field, as well as the confidence in yourself that you rock it, and do not allow time for anything less.
2. Be a risk taker. There’s a difference between learning about a particular career in school and applying those skills to real life work. It’s okay to combine the academics and the hands-on experience to see where it takes you. For example, a customer may have a car that is extremely old, and you see it’s in service. Take a chance and ask the customer if they would like to upgrade to a new vehicle and give yourself the opportunity to showcase your selling skills. Take the risk, the worst thing you can hear is “no”, and “no” is just the starting point to “yes”.
3. Always have patience. People are not always going to know who you are, or what knowledge you hold. While it may take time to get through to your co-workers, continue to have patience and show who you are through your work.
4. Show your tenacity. You cannot be scared to work and put in those extra hours. Even with all of my knowledge and 20 years of experience in the auto industry, I stayed late at the office to learn my father’s habits and routines before stepping into the role of Vice President. While doing this, I learned about the tasks he does that for him are on autopilot, such as how to properly close the dealership and specific items to cross-check before shutting down for the evening. Instead of asking how to do it, I decided to stay and observe, and put in the effort to mirror my dad’s routine until that information became an automatic routine for myself.
5. Knowledge is power. Say yes to learning more, no matter what the topic may be. When it came to the construction side of the dealership, I was nervous to lead projects pertaining to any kind of renovations or updates, because I never went to school for that. However, I knew that construction was a major part of growing the dealership, and so I had no choice but to learn. Instead of being fearful and backing away from the responsibility, I decided to run towards it and LEARN. A few years back, Bical Auto Mall needed a licensed FDNY member to be on-site for impairment. I took it upon myself to obtain my FDNY Citywide Fireguard license so that I could supervise all our on-site construction, completely immersing myself into what was a foreign side of the business and is now second nature.

If you had a close woman friend who came to you with a choice of entering a field that is male-dominated or female-dominated, what would you advise her? Would you advise a woman friend to start a career in a field or industry that’s traditionally been mostly men? Can you explain what you mean?

I would tell her to enter the field she feels passionate about, regardless of what gender may dominate. As mentioned earlier, entering a male-dominated field was a different experience for me, since I was exposed to the industry at a young age. When I started working at the dealership at just eight years old, I was blind to the concept of what a male-dominated industry was, versus what was typically categorized as a “female job”, so I just went for it. After I obtained my law degree from Touro University, I wanted to come back and help my family run Bical Auto Mall — they saw my potential and I believed in myself, and never thought about the fact that I was a woman in the car business.

I would also tell my friend to never let anyone stop you from following your dreams. Have confidence in yourself to know you can do it because if not you, who else?

Have you seen things change for women working in male-dominated industries, over the past ten years? How do you anticipate that it might improve in the future? Can you please explain what you mean?

Over the years, it is exciting to see how women have become successful business leaders, as many more women have become CEOs and Presidents all over the world. Currently, the CEO of General Motors is Mary Barra, who has been an inspiration to me in so many ways as a fellow female leader in the auto industry.

The women who have had the courage to enter male-dominated fields are legends and trail blazers for the rest of us. Whenever I read an article about a woman dominating any field, I have a sense of pride and sisterhood overcome me. I anticipate that women will become more prevalent in male-dominated fields because we are motivated to do our best.

Women have the innate ability to adapt and overcome because we have been doing so our entire lives. We have had to learn to navigate the world differently than men, while still living in a “man’s world”. Due to our unique skill to adapt well to any type of environment, I feel that women can dominate any field we put our minds to.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, also known as Rihanna, because her inclusive marketing model is a strategy that has resonated with me, and which I have implemented into my own business concept. Being of Caribbean descent like myself, Rihanna chose to make sure that inclusion was the main priority when launching her beauty line, Fenty Beauty, to ensure that EVERYONE felt seen and heard throughout her products. She chose to take a simple act of humanity that revolutionized the beauty scene, and I feel as though I run Bical Auto Mall similarly.

Each day, it is my main priority is to make sure that both the employees and customers feel seen and heard. At Bical Auto Mall, we pride ourselves in our customer service, and never discriminate against anyone regardless of gender, race, or financial situation. We strive to make every customer that walks through the door feel respected and well taken care of, ensuring that humanity comes first before the purchase of a vehicle.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.