No Experience Necessary w/ith Phil Reid

For many people beginning the search for a job, there is a conundrum that comes up again and again. How do you get experience when no-one will take you on, unless you have experience already?

Whether you just finished university, you’re returning from travelling or you’re changing career entirely, this can be a difficult and daunting challenge to overcome. And it can sometimes keep extremely capable people out of the workforce for a long time.

“I went to Manchester University having travelled for a year in Australia,” explains Phil. "I came out of university not having a clue what I wanted to do. I didn’t know what industry I wanted to go into and I think a lot of people are like that.”

Phil is now an established force in directsales, with a huge amount of experience and expertise to his name. He is the owner of The Promotions Company which, by the end of next Quarter, will have expanded into five locations in just 24 months. As he tells it, though, it wasn’t always like that.

“I did some bar work for a couple of years, because that was all I could find. I didn’t have any experience in anything else and no companies would take me on because I didn’t have anything on my CV outside of hospitality. Then I got to the position where I wanted to grow and progress in that industry. When the manager of the bar left, I applied for his position but they turned round and said “you can’t do the job because you don’t have managerial experience.” I was like, well, how do I get experience then, if I haven’t got any?”

This lack of progression led Phil to search out a new career path but he consistently came up against the same problem - experience: “In the end, I sort of got disillusioned with my opportunities to progress in life. So I started in direct sales because I finally found a job that said 'no experience necessary’.” Not only had he found an outlet for his ambition, but the organisation was also going to provide him with free coaching and training as well. Something that noone else would. This meant that he didn’t need to decide on a long-term future or a particular career path, because after joining the organisation, he would have up-skilled himself to the point where other jobs would then become attainable.

"One of the great things about our industry is that everyone starts in the same place and therefore anyone that is in a “higher position” or “doing better” than you has come through the exact challenges that you’re facing. So rather than learning through trial and error, I was able to learn through other people’s experiences. You can use the business a bit like a library at university. You just need to pick up the right books and talk to the right people and you will have all the knowledge that you need. Maybe I didn’t do that enough when I first started, I tried to do too much on my own.”

After a couple of months of being in the company, Phil began to train and coach people himself. He started off training one person. As his confidence and skills grew, so did the number of people in his team. After 18 months he had 25 people that he was responsible for training and managing.

“I’m quite an enthusiastic, positive person, and I found out quite quickly that a lot of this job was about your enthusiasm and your energy . So I did quite well to start with. I was excited by the atmosphere, and the coaching was pushing me to learn new things about myself. It was giving me experience that other companies just weren’t prepared to give me.”