WE CAUGHT UP WITH
SENIOR SALES MANAGER,
PHIL GARDNER…
With a sales career that started in finance and blossomed in business travel, Phil Gardener is an experienced industry veteran with plenty of stories to tell. Between trips around the country and face-to-face meetings with clients, Phil relishes meeting new people and expanding his knowledge about different companies, cultures, and the business travel world at large.
In this article, we chat with Phil about his day-to-day responsibilities as a Senior Sales Manager at Gray Dawes, his ultimate career highlights, and a random appearance on a British TV dating show…
Hi Phil. Tell us a bit about your career as a Senior Sales Manager
I’ve been with Gray Dawes for nearly 7 years, not counting a small sabbatical in the middle. Before that, I worked in the finance sector for a credit card company.
When I was about 25-year-old I decided I wanted a complete change of scenery. My friend went to work for a Travel Management Company (TMC) in the Midlands and I followed in his footsteps, joining their team as a Business Development Manager (BDM).
I did well there. It was an extremely competitive “dog eat dog” environment, but I managed to get promoted to Sales Team Leader. However, my role involved me dealing predominantly with SME businesses. I wanted to step up my career.
I already knew a couple of people working at Gray Dawes and the profile and history of the company really appealed to me. The Head of Sales at the time approached me with a job offer and I jumped at the opportunity. I came in at a time when the sales team was still growing – we didn’t have a slide deck and there wasn’t much of a marketing team, so we pretty much built everything from scratch.
Now I’m a Senior Sales Manager. The majority of my role involves meeting new prospects from companies who are looking for someone like Gray Dawes to partner up with and manage their travel.
I spend a lot of time learning all about different companies, finding out what is important to them, what they are doing in their industry space, and how Gray Dawes might be able to improve their experience – it’s normally a very long list of things!
I also manage the Inside Sales team whose job is to make initial contact with potential clients and book meetings for Sales Managers to pursue the deal.
Sales Manager Statistics
where the role of ‘Sales Manager’ is ranked in “best jobs” in the US, according to US News rankings
%
the estimated % increase of sales manager roles expected between 2021 and 2031
%
the % of salespeople who see building relationships as the most rewarding part of their job
Tell us about a typical day as Senior Sales Manager.
I was actually thinking about this earlier and my day-to-day is hard to describe!
One thing I do enjoy about my role is that no day is ever the same. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s true. For example, yesterday I left my house at 6:30 am to catch a train to London for a prospect meeting. While on the train I was putting some finishing touches on the presentation I was planning to deliver – a big part of my role is preparation – and I didn’t get home again until about 8:30 pm.
However, today I started at 8:30 am and have been working from home, catching up on admin, getting in touch with people, and meeting with the Inside Sales team to see what they’ve been up to.
So yeah, it’s a very varied role, a mixture of internal meetings and being proactive and going out to see companies.
As I mentioned, I do a lot of preparation. I’ll put together presentations for each client, using my knowledge to make sure that they reflect the values and objectives of whoever I’m delivering them to. After all, we don’t have an “off-the-shelf” offering at Gray Dawes – everything is bespoke and perfectly tailored to their needs.
Some weeks I’ll be here, there, and everywhere meeting clients. Then we have the Business Travel Show at London Excel every year which is a hectic – but productive – three days.
How has your workday changed since the beginning of your career?
The change has been huge to be honest, even if I only account for the journey of Gray Dawes.
Gray Dawes has gone through a massive period of growth over the last few years. The products have changed as well as the profile of the company. But COVID-19 also had a huge impact on the way I now work.
Before the pandemic, everything I did was in person. Back then, if I was making a call to a potential client and suggested arranging a Teams meeting, they would likely have had no clue what I was talking about. Meeting in person was just how things were done. Now, though, most of my meetings are over teams. Rather than holding one or two meetings a day, I can have four or five – that’s a meeting every hour or two!
Everything is also a lot more streamlined and new digital tools lead the way, At the same time I don’t think anything can replace meeting someone face-to-face.
But even though a lot has changed, fundamentally people still just want to know that their travel and travelers are being looked after, that the service is good, their travel technology is the best it can be, and everything else in between.
What is your favourite part about your role? Do you have any career highlights?
I love to meet with people, sit down with them, learn about who they are, and find out what’s important to them. That’s probably why I’ve been doing this job for so long.
The highlight of my career so far is probably attending a global awards ceremony in Hawaii, a culmination of the hard work of myself and my team at a previous company. Only the top nought point something of global companies managed to be nominated so I was honoured by that.
At Gray Dawes, I love the fact the company is moving upwards and I am enjoying all of the opportunities that has come from us going global. I also recently won the largest contract of my career. It was only afterwards that I found out it was the biggest opportunity/contract that Gray Dawes has ever won and implemented. I’m really, really proud of that too.
What advice would you give someone looking to break into the industry?
My first piece of advice is to research the business travel industry. There are a lot of websites, magazines, and other online resources that can tell you more about what we do on a day-to-day basis.
Unless you work in business travel, you can’t ever really understand just how large it is. If I tell people what I do for a living, I still get asked: “Could you book me a flight to Tenerife for a weekend?” They don’t realise that there’s a whole world behind the scenes which you can only ever see if you’re in corporate travel.
Not a lot of people join the business travel industry and leave. They might move roles or companies, but they rarely put business travel behind them. At Gray Dawes, we’ve got people who have been at the company for 30+ years – I’m still going and I’ve got no intention of leaving it at all.
Business travel is a world that succeeds because there are just so many varied roles. So yeah, my main advice to anyone looking to be a part of the industry is to research everything you can because you don’t realise the beast that you’re getting yourself involved in! You’ll enjoy it!
Finally, a few quickfire questions…
Favourite place you have visited?
Oooo that’s hard! It’s a toss-up between Manilla in the Philippines and Cuba… I’d have to say Cuba. I went a few years ago and we travelled around the island a lot. It was beautiful and the people were so welcoming. The food was spectacular too.
Any interesting hobbies or stories?
I play guitar. I grew up listening to Blink 182 which influenced my decision to become a singer in an emo-punk band. Then I realised I couldn’t sing!
I was also on a dating show called Streetmate in the late 1990s. It was hosted by Davina McCall and I was in an episode with Scarlet Moffat when she was younger. The premise involved them taking a single man or woman around a city and asking random people on the street whether they would go on a date with them.
I used to work in a flight centre shop in Birmingham when the producers of the show ducked in asking if we knew anyone who would fancy going on a date with the girl on the show. I said, “yeah, why not?”
It was so random. I watched the episode when it aired months later and the woman was saying, “I’m game with anything, so long as they have hair,” and then I came around the corner!
After the date, which was at a cocktail-making class, they asked us to exchange numbers and then put each of us in a separate taxi. The producers managed to mix up the taxis and I ended up at her flat and she ended up back at mine. yeah… that was interesting.
Favourite food and drink?
I don’t drink anymore, but my favourite ever drink is an Old Fashioned. In terms of food, it has to be a Spag Bol or a roast dinner.
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