People in Insurance: Changing the Conversation

027: Nimbility and the Insurance Industry - with Ian Lloyd

On today's episode, we’re chatting to Ian Lloyd, Managing Director of iprism Underwriting. Ian has held this position since 2018 and has been in the insurance industry for over 15 years. He is currently responsible for the management and operation of iprism and is involved in business and product development as well as technology development.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• The ability to adjust and adapt quickly in business is what sets you apart from others in your industry.
• It’s a hardening market. Lots of small businesses, particularly retailers will struggle now and should move to online operations.
• Business continuity planning and risk management will help support the next few years in businesses ability to continue.
• Businesses that focus on a multi touchpoint and technology driven approach will be the businesses that excel during trying times.

 

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…it's almost ‘how can we support the broker to do that role if that's their role?’. Sometimes it is not, but risk management comes into the remit of the local insurance broker because it’s not just placing insurance, it’s also advising on what the pitfalls of running the business is and what their risks are…’’

 

‘’I think it's quite key that we trade with brokers that we know and that know us so that we can serve a community or they can serve a niche or they've got expertise so we have a real variety as no one broker is the same.’’

 

‘’…marketing depends on what marketing means to you. It means a lot of different things for different people but for me, marketing is all about communication and branding.’’

 

RESOURCES:

iprism Website: https://www.iprism.co.uk/

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Ian joined iprism in March 2012 as a commercial underwriter and was promoted to Operations Manager in January 2016. Ian is now iprism’s Managing Director, responsible for the management and effective operation of the business. Ian is involved in business and product development, insurer relations and technology development. In addition, Ian is also an active member of the Board.

 

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-lloyd-17023128/

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

026: Insurance Broker's Step by Step Guide to Effective Sales and Marketing - with Sales Myerscough

On today's episode, we’re talking to… me! Sarah Myerscough. This weeks’ episode is a slightly different approach to the norm. A number of my clients have asked me to put together a step-by-step guide to formulating an effective marketing strategy so, here it is! Marketing is understood in different ways by different people and people use the word marketing without really knowing what their objective is. This step by step guide should help you to identify key areas in which some thought is needed in order to put together an effective strategy to start growing your business.

 

INTERACTIVE STEPS

• What does marketing mean to you and what do you want from your marketing strategy?

• Who do you want to target your marketing material at?

• How can I incorporate content development into my marketing?

 

BEST SNIPPETS:

‘’…whilst consistency and visibility is key, understanding what it is you are trying to achieve will focus that process significantly.’’

 

‘’…the processes that we work through when we're working through this with our clients are, first of all, who is your ideal client? I would always suggest looking at your current client base for that. Who do you like, who do you not? And why? What clients do you really get a kick out of working with and why?’’

 

‘’Once you've put this work in your marketing and sales strategy becomes almost seamless, which is why it's worth taking the time to put this in place.’’

 

‘’Let's find how to do marketing in a way that you're comfortable with, that fits within your processes and fits within your comfort levels, and is easy to generate…’’

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

025: Marketing Strategy for Insurance brokers - with Fay Reinhold-Shor

On today's episode, we’re chatting to Fay Reinhold-Shor, the UK Manager of Zywave. Fay has an extensive background in sales and marketing and is a name the insurance industry as a whole will recognise. Fay joins us today to discuss all things marketing and strategy so if you’re looking to find out how you, as an insurance industry professional, can better your marketing strategy – listen in!

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Building a bank of satisfied customers through continual touch points over the course of the year will aid in bettering your chances of renewals.

• Training and encouragement of staff has to be continuous in order to be successful.

• The market is hardening and insurance industry professionals should focus their attention on content marketing strategies.

• Technology is at the forefront of everyone’s business now so being digitally present will ensure your business moves with the times.

• The insurance industry will expect to see plenty of growth stories coming out of the global pandemic.

 

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’It's the visionary, the individual that understands the importance of, continually putting credit in the bank with clients and prospects throughout the year so that when they go and ask for renewal, the client isn't going to turn around and say, ‘well, you only speak to me, you know when you want money out of me’.’’

 

‘’The way we are going, technology is absolutely critical to the to the dissemination of information to the efficiency of process. Therefore, to bottom line is profits. The insurance sector, along with financial services in a wider perspective, have really moved forward leaps and bounds just through COVID.’’

 

‘’…it's so much more difficult to see our customers in person, you've got to make sure that the content that you're putting out there, digitally or whatever means that you're using is the best that it can be because personal relationships are more challenging to foster right now and may continue to do so in the future.’’

 

RESOURCES:

Zywave website: www.zywave.co.uk

Fay’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fayreinholdshor/

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

024:The Cii and the EATT - with Melissa Collett and Stephen Ross

On today's episode, we’re talking about EATT – the Education and Training Trust that Chartered Insurance Institute have recently launched alongside The Insurance Charities. We’re chatting to previous podcast guest, Melissa Collett and Independent Trustee, Stephen Ross about how the new program can benefit insurance industry professionals.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• EATT has been set up to assist in advancing education and training of people have who work within the sector of insurance and allied occupations such as financial planning.

• Teaming up with The Insurance Charities means that CII can help those that are struggling with financial hardship due to the impact of the pandemic within the industry.

• The need for training and development has never been greater than this current time.

• The importance of a grant making charity is to look after the assets and use them to benefit society and the beneficiaries.

 

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…In response to COVID, the charity [EATT] decided they wanted to help those people within the profession who's suffering from financial hardship, in order for them to be able to pursue their studies, training and gain qualifications during this time. Particularly, we wanted to help those who may be redundant or on furlough and those who may be suffering business collapse, or who have a particular concern about their finances at this time due to the circumstances surrounding the pandemic.’’

‘’We thought they would be the ideal partners for this project [The Insurance Charities] because not only would they be able to administer the grant that's been made for professionals suffering hardship because of COVID, but those people who need further assistance beyond the need for professional development and training, perhaps they have, you know, specific needs.

‘’…this kind of break that some of us have experienced is the perfect opportunity to re-skill and why is it important for the profession to do that? The ultimate aim is to improve outcomes for customers. That's the whole purpose of CII.’’

‘’…the COVID-19 situation presented an opportunity to cut through all the formalities and processes that were embarked on now, to operationalise the charity and start making grants because, the problem came up, we have to find a solution quickly, we were able to do that, and we're able to make grants which was fantastic.’’

 

RESOURCES:

The Insurance Charities Website: https://www.theinsurancecharities.org.uk/

CII Website: https://www.cii.co.uk/

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Melissa Collett

Melissa Collett is the Professional Standards Director at Chartered Insurance Institute (Cii) and comes from an extensive background in consumer insurance and legal issues. She spent over a decade of her career at the Financial Ombudsman service, held directorship at Fairer Finance and also sits as a tribunal judge. Melissa is also a qualified solicitor, having specialised in insurance law.

Melissa’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissacollett/

 

Stephen Ross

Stephen Ross is an experienced qualified governance practitioner and independent board member. As a qualified charity accountant and Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute, wider recognition in the charity and financial sectors for practical and academic expertise have drawn invitations for Stephen to speak at conferences. He wrote a book, 'The Professional Lay Member; An exploration of the role and practical guidance' for lay and independent board members and the organisations that use them as part of their governance.

Stephen’s Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenaross/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

023: Equality, the Cii and Modern Approach - with Sian Fisher

On today's episode, we’re chatting to Sian Fisher, CEO of Chartered Institute of Insurance. Sian has held senior roles in Lloyds syndicates, a UK and European insurance company, a market leading MGA and a major international broker US corporation. Sian is passionate about equality and is a founding member of the Insuring Women’s Future Initiative as well as holding several board directorships, businesses and associations across the industry.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• How the Cii’s work impacts society as a whole, not just the membership.

• What strategic plans the Cii have in place to move their overall impact forward and embrace modern approaches.

• How you can get involved in de-risking the life journey for yourself and your clients.

• The importance of academic learning as a framework for making practical decisions.

 

BEST MOMENTS:

“…the life journey; there's one thing all of us as human beings share until we die and that is that we're all on this life journey. And, you know, life is a risky business. Human beings are not actually that good left to their own devices, and not actually very good at thinking what's going to happen along the way. That's what our sector is all about. We do know these things; we do know what's likely to happen to people in their 20s and 30s, and 40s. And we do know what's likely to happen if they get married, or if they have children, or if they contract a disease or if they get dementia, we do know what that looks like. But we probably don't do enough to take that theoretical knowledge that we've got, and actually really turn that into products and services.”

‘’…if you're going to be the professional body for a sector and for society, you've obviously got to reflect that sector in society…, probably more importantly, what are we actually going to do for the profession? Again, we said three things: relevant learning, engage the membership, so not just growing our membership numbers, but more importantly the level of engagement we have with our membership throughout their career. We want to offer insightful leadership…”

“…What we did was planned to look at the differences between men and women. It's not about judgment, it's just a comparative. We plotted the life journey and said ‘what are the differences between a woman's life and a man's life?’ And then what are the risks that a woman would face in her life? And what are the differences between those risks between men and women? And then what's the financial impact of that? So, in a funny way we applied what you might call a risk assessment to people's lives. And Jane came up with a framework, a risk assessment framework, that identifies 12 perils and pitfalls. And they, you know, they plot along a woman's life, and but they compare the data for men and women.”

 

RESOURCES:

CII website: https://www.cii.co.uk/

Insuring Women’s Futures Website: https://www.insuringwomensfutures.co.uk/

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Leading the professional body for insurance and financial planning since February 2016, Sian follows a distinguished career in the insurance sector. Sian has also run her own start-up intermediary and was part of the creation of the Managing General Agents’ Association.

A graduate of the University of Oxford with an Executive MBA from Harvard Business School, Sian is a strong advocate for equality. She is a founding member and Executive Chair of the Insuring Women’s Futures initiative and a Committee Member of the Insurance Supper Club.

Sian is also a Non-Executive Director at Asta Underwriting Management, a Vice President of the Insurance Institute of London and board member of Insurance United Against Dementia (IUAD).

Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sian-fisher-420839b1

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

022: Renewals, Client Centricity and New Business- with Martyn Grime

On today's episode, we’re chatting to Martyn Grime of Park Lodge Business Consultancy. Martyn has over 40 year’s experience in the insurance industry and we’re extremely lucky to have him as part of the Boston Tullis network. Martyn specialises in renewal processes and new business strategies, planning and forecasting to increase income.

 

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• Renewal processes should be viewed as a great opportunity for a broker to renew on the best terms with their client but also to achieve the best result for the client.
• Taking the time to reassess a client’s position at renewal is key to identifying vulnerabilities.
• A client centric approach should be taken and is important in times like these.
• Now is the time to be focusing on your existing client base rather than chasing new business when the economy isn’t in a great place.
• The RAG renewal process represents a red, amber and green approach to handling client renewals and pipeline.
• By engaging more with your clients, it enhances the knowledge of the broker and promotes a better understanding of the clients’ needs.
• The focus should be good financial performance but also providing the best advice and service.

 

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’I also think from the outset, it gives you an opportunity to explore upsells and cross sells. With so many examples of brokers achieving their targets and with very little new business, just by actually effectively increasing the renewal retention rate and the premium of new business and giving the most appropriate advice to the client, it's helping the brokers own numbers.’’

‘’…it's naive to expect new business to be plentiful. While there are opportunities inevitably, the economy's not in a great place. There is a lot of nervousness, a lot of businesses are actually retrenching rather than moving forward, so it makes sense to me to focus on your existing client base.’’

‘’Every broker has got their own DNA, and they’re taught the language of certain trades and sectors and they’re good at it. I've always believed you should focus on that and work within those sectors where you've obviously got the ability to engage and you talk their language, rather than going into something thats completely left field and that is unknown to you.’’

‘’All brokers are individual and bespoke but the process we've developed is capable of being adapted and adopted in any broking environment.’’

 

RESOURCES:

Martyn Grime’s Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/martyn-grime-fcii-61a6ab8

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

022: HR & Compliance - with Roland Romata and Sarah McKee-Harris

On today's episode, and as part 2 of our mini-series, we’re chatting with two previous podcast guests – Roland Romata of RR Compliance and Associates and Sarah McKee-Harris of Kingswood Group. Talking about all thing’s mental health in the current climate and returning to work, we look at this from a HR and compliance perspective and what we can expect over the upcoming weeks and months.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• The pandemic has highlighted what the lack of support within firms can cause in terms of compliance and operational efficiency.
• The FCA should encourage regulatory expectations with regards to mental health in the workplace and the mental health status of employees from a compliance angle.
• ‘Mental Health First Aid’ should be more than a lip service and having an ‘on-site’ Mental Health First Aider is something that firms should look to incorporate over the upcoming years.
• Senior members of staff should embrace an emotive and empathetic viewpoint on mental health rather than a standard tick box exercise/approach.
• Returning to work and considering mental health is a major risk assessment to be considered by firms.
• Documentation is important not only from a regulatory perspective, but it allows a business to measure its success.
• Firms should incorporate mental health policies that encourages senior managers to get to know their terms.

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…when one would look at the general overarching regulatory framework, and most notably the FCA principles of business, the 11 principles of business, it's quite evident that the FCA would expect firms to have the appropriate controls in place to handle mental health concerns, in particular where those issues would have an indirect or direct impact on how the firm would end up treating customers.’’

‘’The FCA it expects firms to recognize all the key risks that is present within the business and in and manage those risks so they can deliver the value and treat customers fairly at the very end. Mental health is not that prominent and obvious as a regulatory expectation, but it’s not within the rules of the FCA and it needs to be incorporated…’’

‘’…he was saying it really brought home this term mental health and there is no divide, there's no private and personal vs work life. You're one person, you live one life and you can't just, or the majority of people, can't just box up their problems and put them in a place and the people that do often find that spills out at a later date.’’

‘’It's just about getting people to recognise that you can expand that very same client centric focus to your employees, employers and colleagues.’’

 

RESOURCES

RR Compliance Associates Website: https://www.rrcompliance.com/

Kingswood Group website: https://kingswoodgroup.org/about-us/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

ABOUT THE GUESTS

Roland’s experience includes directorship of independent brokers, working for the financial ombudsman service and in the last few years, providing compliance consultancy to the insurance and financial services sector. RR Compliance Associates was funded to bring a dynamic and collaborative approach to compliance consultancy and the team represents over 30 years’ experience in an FCA regulated environment. Roland’s mission is to provide both the solutions and the know-how to compliance procedures using automated technology and IT solutions within the insurance and financial services industry.

Sarah McKee-Harris has been specialising in working with organisations since 2005 to understand their HR needs. Her early career was in HR recruitment where she sourced and hired HR professionals largely across London and Essex. Sarah is passionate in spreading the word at the power of having great people management skills in businesses - especially on how to get the best out of employees and being an ethical employer can have a positive impact on the bottom line for business.

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

021: HR and return to work - with Sarah McKee-Harris

On today's episode, we’re chatting to HR and recruitment specialist Sarah McKee-Harris of Kingswood Group. Sarah specialises in the financial services and insurance industry in and outside of London. Sharing her insight into returning to work after the pandemic and the HR requirements that most businesses are facing today – we chat about what we can expect from HR professionals and how this might change the way in which HR functions operate within insurance based businesses.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• We can expect that ‘people issues’ will arise from employees returning to work from both a physicality and mental health perspective and employers should be conscious on both aspects.
• As the government reassesses the furlough scheme and what that looks like in upcoming months, many businesses will need to reassess their workforce plan to support both the business and potential demand as businesses start to come back.
• It’s important for employers to operate a transparent and fair approach when communicating with employees about returning to work.
• Discrimination rules still apply.
• Employers should be considering the information and guidelines issued around health and safety and if they’re unsure on how to implement them – they should be seeking professional advice from a qualified health and safety consultant.
• Virtual meetings are popular amongst businesses now and can be a practical way forward to ‘ease in’ face to face meetings.
• If you’re not communicating effectively with your employees on the changes which are happening, changes won’t happen.
• Whenever you’re making decisions and changes, make sure you document and evidence where you got the guidance to make that change or decision.

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…it's really about assessing who to bring back and how to bring them back if they are furloughed. Also, we'll see introducing at the end of this month, part time furlough so that just gives people a bit more flexibility. Really, the difficulty for businesses is assessing what they need and when they need it.‘’

‘’It is about doing the right thing in the right way. And I think the important thing is to be talking to an HR professional if you don't have one internally, you know, maybe seek external advice. I mean, there are obviously government guidelines online that you can go to, but they can be quite broad. And every business is different. Every business leader is different.’’

‘’Make sure you're working with health and safety and HR, so that the physical bits done and then make sure your contractual obligations are there as well - and that your employees understand the policy.’’

‘’It is a minefield, especially for business owners who want to do the right thing for their employees and also make sure that they're doing the right thing for themselves to protect their business. But with the amount of legislation and the number of new procedures and policies that’s being released regularly - it's impossible for somebody to keep on top of that.’’

‘’…where there has been a lot of change going on and a lot of different communication coming out from the government, using restrictions, tightening restriction here, changing it there, you're acting on goodwill, of the information you've been given at that time. So if anything does happen in the future, and something tries to come back and bite you on the backside, you've got proof of why you did it.’’

‘’…there already is a real shift from looking at people's outputs, rather than where they are, what they're doing - it's looking at what they're actually delivering. Not so much of when they're doing it, it's what's coming out at the end of it. There is going to be a shift around looking at the people's jobs, the content of those roles and the outputs.‘’

RESOURCES:

Kingswood Group website: https://kingswoodgroup.org/about-us/

Latest HR info and guides: www.cipd.co.uk
Govt health & safety guides: www.hse.gov.uk
Mental health app: https://app.tlero.com/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Sarah McKee-Harris has been specialising in working with organisations since 2005 to understand their HR needs. Her early career was in HR recruitment where she sourced and hired HR professionals largely across London and Essex. Sarah is passionate in spreading the word at the power of having great people management skills in businesses - especially on how to get the best out of employees and being an ethical employer can have a positive impact on the bottom line for business.

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

020: Building Pipelines, the Hard Market and Business Planning - Brendan McManus

On today's episode, we’re chatting to CEO of PIB Group, Brendan McManus. Brendan has over 42 year’s experience at senior level across both insurance and broking. Brendan shares with us his varied career history and talks to us about some of the challenges he’s faced. We also discuss why Brendan thinks it’s important to have both long term and short term planning in place and how he thinks the economy will recover from the pandemic.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

• The lockdown has made insurance industry businesses more efficient and better serviceable with technology and improved processes.
• Starting with the end in mind is how you write a convincible, achievable and compelling plan.
• Having a solid business based on culture allows entrepreneurial people to get back to what they’re good at which is focusing on clients.
• There’s a big difference between insurance and broking rather than just being one sector. One sells a product, the other sells a service.
• The great thing about the insurance broking sector is the immediacy. The sector can do something today that will improve results.
• A question we should continuously ask ourselves when planning is: ‘’what do I need to do today to achieve my long term goal?’’.
• Since the pandemic, our attitude both in work and personal life, to technology has changed dramatically and traditional working environments will be a thing of the past.

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…having a plan and sticking to it has always been a core part of how I've managed myself really, I think you have to be driven by something. My drive is always write a plan and stick to it. Could you say you're going to do something by the end of 2019? …You get up in the morning and you say, what am I going to do today that gets me to that plan in 2019? You don't wait till the end of 2019, the last quarter, and start acting on it, you do it every day.’’

‘’…our whole goal has been to take the administration and the management and the governance away from vendors and let them look after their clients and to do what they've always been really good at, which is grow their businesses entrepreneurially. What got in the way as they grew their businesses was administration, management, HR and regulation… and we take responsibility for that. They get back to their core, which is servicing clients and so the whole business has been based on freeing people up to go back to what they really good at which is focusing on the clients.’’

‘’…a lot of people talk about the being an insurance sector. I don't think there is. I think there's the insurance companies that provide a product and they are balance sheet businesses. They get up in the morning worrying about protecting the balance sheet, whereas insurance broking distribution tends to be about people. It tends to be about hiring and retaining really good people who can sell and service their clients so it's not a uniform sector… they have very, very different goals.’’

‘’I think overall, people benefit not just from the formal training, but from the sponsorship and just the environment they work in.’’

RESOURCES:

PIB Group Website: https://www.pibgroup.co.uk/about-pib-group/

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Brendan McManus is CEO of PIB Group, having previously served as CEO of insurance brokers Willis UK, Giles Group and Gallagher UK. He began his insurance career with Sun Alliance Group, rising to become Managing Director of RSA UK Commercial Division from 2003 – 2007. He is Vice President of the Chartered Insurance Institute and past Deputy Chair of BIBA.

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

019: Video Marketing & Insurance - with Charles Alexander

On today's episode, we’re taking a slightly different approach! We’re talking to animated content creating mastermind, Charles Alexander. Charles’ mission in life is to help busy professionals, mainly insurance brokers, in the US to stand out in a crowded marketplace by creating story-based explainer videos.

• LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
  Animated explainer videos are of a hot topic amongst people, specifically in the insurance and financial industries, where it’s less likely you’ll see your competitors on camera.
• Videos are important because they grab the audiences’ attention quickly and helps to build a trust factor among your potential clients.
• A potential client will need to hear from you 7 to 12 times before wanting to engage with you or your product.
• There are two types of people we generally hang out with – people who we are similar to and people we want to be like and that’s who you’re going to attract.
• Creating a detailed and specific ideal avatar using the tools in this podcast will really help you to identify who you’re targeting and what they’d like to see in video marketing.
• Keep ‘recycling’ your video marketing – using it once makes no difference… using it continuously will get results.

BEST MOMENTS:

‘’…even if you do give great customer service, you don't have to tell them that. They kind of assume that they don't assume. If you don't say, I give great customer service, they'll say, well, Sarah must suck. She didn't say, I think about giving great customer service, so she must not be good at it. It doesn't cross their mind.’’

’’…identifying who, and not even your top producing clients, but your favourite clients are, that's going to make you more money in the long run because you'll be saying - find out who they are, why they're different and not just what their demographics are, but what's their psychographics? Why do they make the decisions they make? It's not about money, and it's not about price every time.’’

‘’90 seconds is our cut off point. Anything less than a minute makes it difficult to get your message across and anything longer than two/two and a half minutes better be Oscar nominated worthy to hold our attention because we are like toddlers - as soon as this shiny object crosses our path, we're going to the next thing.’’

‘’It’s like going and getting one of these fancy new Peloton bikes and buying it and riding at once and thinking you were supposed to lose 20 pounds. Well, it didn't work for me… Of course, it didn't work for you didn't use it - and your video is the same way.’’

RESOURCES:

Charles Alexander’s Website: http://www.yourcharlesalexander.com/

Insurance Animation Video Examples: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLaTa8cOjdC4fhvnRS60elGzUp-ENQIVMz

 

ABOUT THE HOST

Sarah Myerscough is the Sales and Marketing Director of Boston Tullis Group. The founder of The Insurance Brokers Podcast, she brings a wealth of marketing experience and a fresh perspective on marketing in the insurance sector. Boston Tullis works with insurance brokers to offer solutions to business development ceilings, particularly in the rapidly developing fields of video marketing and thought leadership.

If you would like Sarah to help you develop an integrated marketing strategy, using state of the art concepts, then please book a free 20 min call via Calendly 

 

Website: https://bostontullis.co.uk/

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation

 

ABOUT THE GUEST

Charles is an expert in creating explainer animated videos that let you stand out and close clients. Specifically working with financial advisors, insurance agents and busy professionals – Charles has a bank of happy clients! With this, Charles is also the director of Tennessee Small Business Development Center at Volunteer State Community College in Tennessee where he provides 1-2-1 consulting sessions and teach seminars to help entrepreneurs grow their businesses.

Evaluation Link: https://s.bostontullis.co.uk/s/podcastevaluation