MIRTAS Apprenticeship Tommy Benn at Yamaha Music formerly Chappell of Bond Street – London

Tell us a little about yourself.

My name is Tommy. I have been working at Chappell’s for six months during the apprenticeship. I play bass guitar and I’ve been involved with sales of lots of other instruments and got to know them a bit more.

How did you come to be working at Chappell on the MIRTAS apprenticeship?

When leaving college, I was deciding whether to go into university or to go straight into the workplace, so I looked up on the internet and found a web site called Not Going to Uni and found this apprenticeship.

What do you most enjoy about your apprenticeship placement?

I enjoy working as a team and working with nice people as well as working with anything to do with music and musical instruments.

What do you hope to gain from the apprenticeship?

I hope to gain a lot of working experience, as obviously this is very important now such as a good working knowledge of the instruments. May be I can build this up for going into another avenue retail.

What have been some of your challenges along the way?

We get a lot of professional people who come into Chappell’s and they want to know a lot of in depth specifications. So, it can be quite a challenge trying to teach myself all the different specs of the different instruments.

How has the apprenticeship aided you in your personal development?

It has definitely helped me with my confidence. That was one of the main reasons that I wanted to go into the workplace to gain experience and become more confident.

What have been your greatest achievements while on the MIRTAS Apprenticeship programme? I understand you’ve conducted some large sales?

Again, for me it has been growing my confidence because it is so important in being able to speak to people fluently and confidently. Yes, over the Christmas period I had been selling a lot. We were very busy.*

How has the apprenticeship helped you with your career path?

It opens up a pathway into retail. Obviously working in an instrument shop you need to develop knowledge of loads of different things.

Would you recommend this apprenticeship to others, and if so why?

Yes, I definitely would because the experience is so important. You need as much experience as you can get - the more, the better. It will help you get the job you like.

*Tommy has personally conducted many individual sales, one of which was £10,000 in supplying a local school but was too humble to mention this during the interview.