Sales Executive
Baxter Storey

Amanda B

00:02 My name’s Amanda B. I work for Baxter Storey as a Sales Executive.

00:07 The company provides catering services to corporate head offices and part of my role is to meet clients initially, talk to them about what they need, go back with a proposal, take them out to show them our business and then the final negotiations to get the business in and at which point we then hand it over to the operations team who open it and mobilise it.

00:28 I love it. It’s very rewarding and what’s great actually is the catering industry is quite exciting, it’s got a bit of a buzz about it.

00:39 My father was in the army, so we travelled around a lot when I was a child. I was born in Berlin and then we settled when I was about eight, I think. My father was then an ambulance driver and my mother’s a nurse. So there’s absolutely no influence there whatsoever. They’re not ambitious career-wise at all. Never have been, they live hand to mouth really and they’re quite content with that and I wasn’t. I have a fantastic relationship with all my family but I’m so totally different from them.

01:13 I left school not having a clue what I wanted to do. I then did a business course, like an NVQ at a local college for six weeks and joined a company doing reception and administration, sending faxes, it was wholly dull and then I joined a company called Baxter and Platts cos I was made redundant and they were caterers and I started at the bottom doing sales administration and then gradually I started to like the role and I moved in the role to do a bit more writing for tenders, getting a bit more involved in the sales process and subsequently did that for about six years before I then moved to Baxter Storey to have a client facing role.

01:53 It’s just a great job, it’s a great company, great people, no complaints at all.

01:58 The financial reward is very good.

02:02 I’m happy now and actually when I see friends who have all been to university, done the whole process, A levels, university, they earn sixteen thousand pound a year in Tesco and I think, well actually, I don’t regret what I’ve done at all.

02:18 I was very good at school, I was very good at school. I don’t miss it. I don’t understand why people say it’s the best, school was the best years of their life. I think they’re crazy. It was a daunting prospect leaving school. I knew I didn’t want to do college and university because I didn’t want to get into debt and my parents could afford, couldn’t afford it.

02:36 I don’t think you need qualifications to do my job. I think you need to be quite articulate, I think you need to be a good people person, quite confident but actually qualifications on a piece of paper, I don’t think it’s necessary at all.

02:52 When I left HoweHolroyd which was a small independent, I left them cos I wanted to leave the catering industry cos I thought I was bored and I left them for six months to join a trade association and on my first day at the trade association I hated every single second of it and I remember crying. I remember being in the toilets crying and I thought, no I have to get back into catering and I need to then do that sales manager position and I did and within three months I met my now boss and we went through the process of me joining the company.

03:24 The first year was so difficult. I won two jobs, it was so hard. But I wasn’t expected to win anything, which was fine. So that was very tough. And then last year, much better, more confident, knew what I was doing, bit more experience client facing, you know, it just, it all kind of fitted into place after the first year.

03:47 Maybe five, eight, ten years behind me and then I will start my own catering company. I will find a good operator and probably set up my own little independent. That’s what I want to do.

03:58 END