NEW LIFE:After a career in hotel management, Brian Coogan has found his abiding passion in publishing magazines, write BRIAN O'CONNELL>
“My philosophy in life is that when difficulties arise, like the current economic climate, you can choose to sit down or you can look for a different way to do things. You’re not going to make progress by simply doing nothing
BRIAN COOGAN admits he was totally unprepared for the culture shock of London life, having emigrated from Navan in the early 1980s, aged just 17. Jobs were scarce on the ground in Ireland, and some of his family and a significant number of his classmates were already working in Britain. He says he was left with little choice but to follow their lead.
“I was coming from a small town, and small-minded thinking in a way, and was suddenly thrust into this fast-paced way of life. I found it really hard and I suppose the thing that drove me home was the fact I couldn’t get to grips with the lifestyle. I worked in a bar, in an environment with Irish people who drank all the time. There was very little quality of life outside the pub really.”
So Coogan returned home after a year and found work in a local electrical company where he stayed for two years, employed as a production line worker. Various jobs followed, before, at the age of 28, he embarked on his first tangible career in hotel management.
“I would have spent a lot of my 20s not too sure what I was going to do. Like most people, I knew I was going to do something but I didn’t know what. I was offered a job as night porter in a hotel in Dublin and I took it.
“After a while the management said they’d send me to Cathal Brugha Street to do a diploma in hotel management, so I did it. It took place three nights a week and was tough going. I was after working a full day – or about to do a night shift – and I’d have four hours of classes to get through. I did it from 5-9pm three nights a week for a year and a half and got my diploma. I take my hat off to anybody who studies by night and gets a degree. It’s not easy.”
The area of the course that appealed most to Coogan was sales and marketing and he looked to apply what he learned in his work at the Pembroke Town House Hotel in Dublin.
“With hotel management you have to work very long hours and in my experience the reward wouldn’t match the effort you put in. It was very hard to get staff at the time and often you’d end up doing two shifts back to back if someone didn’t turn up.
“There were often incidents where I’d be called because the night porter didn’t come in and I’d have to cook the breakfast. There were 48 rooms in the hotel, and you could have a maximum capacity of 115 staying in the hotel. Having to make breakfast for that many is no easy task.” A few years in and Coogan began to get second thoughts.
“I think I went through a period where there didn’t seem to be any change in the working conditions. It wipes out your social life. If you’re working in the hotel trade as a duty manager it’s very rare you’ll get a weekend off. I was living in Dublin, on not great money and having to pay high rent.”
A friend of Coogan's who owned a recruitment agency suggested he try his hand at media and sales. "An opening came up at Car Buyer's Guide. At the time there was a huge need for sales people and they just took a chance on me."
Coogan quickly learned he had a natural ability for the role and got on well with clients. This was the height of the boom times in Ireland and the magazine was selling well.
He started on €25,000 per annum but quickly added to his salary through bonuses.
Five years in, and Coogan says he saw a gap in the market and decided to try publishing for himself. "The construction industry was booming at the time and there was no publication for plant machinery. I put the idea to my boss for a new publication, but he rejected it. So I decided to launch it myself and Machinery Moverwas born in 2006.
“We moved into the UK as well although, more recently, we have decided to merge both the Irish and UK title. I did have 15 staff at one point, but most of the work is outsourced now. I was still able to get a good wage out of it last year.”
Coogan's latest project is a magazine called Green? Ireland, which is launched this spring. He has an editor and several sales staff hired as well as a PR company working to promote the title.
“In terms of generating income we’re talking to companies like Kingspan, Bord Gáis, Airtricity, ESB and anyone else who makes products for a sustainable type of living.
“There’s no doubt it’s a difficult time to be launching a title. I think too that the first issue is always the hardest. If you deliver a good product, then you’ll get people to take notice. I’m hoping to start with sales of about 5,000, and within a year for the magazine to be self-financing. It has to be. There’s no spare money around, and the banks are not lending to people like me. We need to pull off in the region of €50,000 sales for us to cover costs and for people to be paid.”
Ironically, Coogan is probably working as hard now as he did when he worked in the catering industry. “I have a real passion for this and don’t mind the hours. My philosophy in life is that when difficulties arise, like the current economic climate, you can choose to sit down or you can look for a different way to do things. You’re not going to make progress by simply doing nothing.”