My working week – 18th November 2024

As one of my first Blog posts, I summarise the highlights of a working week. I have spared the fine detail, the role of an Insurance Broker involves plenty of time behind a keyboard, on the phone and general admin. I’m happy doing those but it wouldn’t make for an interesting read! So I’ve plucked out the more interesting bits 😉

Monday

This was a day behind the desk, never one of my favourites as I much prefer being in front of people. Needs must though, I spent the whole day and evening on Friday at the Scottish Care Care Home Conference & Awards. It was an excellent and productive event and a fun evening at the dinner, however lots to catch up on.

I spent much of my time recapping on discussions with many new and existing connections in the Care sector, numerous business development opportunities to progress. I managed to squeeze in a meeting on Microsoft Teams with a prospective client. A positive discussion and agreement with this Perthshire based Consultancy firm to fully review their insurance cover during a January meeting – and a proper one this time, F2F 😊 Teams has its place and is better than a phone call – however a F2F meeting will always get my vote!

Tuesday

A drive across the Forth to Edinburgh where I met one of our Directors for a meeting with two senior managers at a leading Bank. This bank provides a full suite of corporate banking and lending services to various niche client sectors…which dovetail with some of ours. Plenty of common ground, mutual contacts and several ideas on how we could help each other. A very positive 1.5 hour meeting and we will be meeting again very soon, they have kindly invited us to a festive networking event!

Wednesday

A visit to a prospective client in Dundee, an Engineering business. This new business opportunity was created by one of our Business Development team via initial telephone contact and my colleague joined me at the meeting. It was an interesting one with a number of points to consider before conducting a full review of their insurance programme. My colleague enjoyed her first prospect meeting, invaluable experience.

I then headed down to our Perth office and compiled the minutes of the meeting, they were quite extensive! Next was a Teams meeting with colleagues in one of our specialist Life Sciences teams in London. This was an introduction to their global expertise in this sector, they are keen for me to identify opportunities for their market leading products in Dundee and wider across Scotland. We agreed there is plenty of scope for collaboration over the coming months and beyond.

Thursday

Back across the Forth again, this time to Falkirk and the Forth Valley College. I attended an Energy themed event, hosted by an organisation providing networking and education support to business of all sizes across Scotland. It was the first time I had joined one of their events and I was very impressed. The organisers were hoping for around eighty delegates – and they comfortably achieved this. The presentations were all very interesting, however I gained most from the various networking sessions during this full day event. I spoke to numerous professionals, across a diverse range of Energy related businesses and agreed to follow up with several. No matter how good a discussion during an event, the 121 catch up afterwards is key so plenty of follow up activity on LinkedIn and email to put meetings in the diary.

Friday

This day is very quickly summarised from a work perspective – there wasn’t much done 😉 It was our Christmas Party for the Scotland business, a gathering of the teams from the various offices at a hired venue in Glasgow. A day of lovely food and drink from mid-day onwards and a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues I already knew and to meet many more of the wider team. I joined the business in March and whilst fortunate to spend time regularly in Perth, Edinburgh and Glasgow offices, it’s a big team! It was a really fun day with a great bunch of colleagues. Our business has “people first” ingrained within our culture and the team are as great to spent time with socially as they are professionally 😊 Great fun had, then back home to Fife to enjoy the rest of the weekend.