BIBA 2023

BIBA 2023 Manchester Central

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As a proud member of The British Insurance Brokers Association for over 40 years, and now as a board member, I can say without any hesitation that the BIBA conference in May each year, bringing brokers and insurers together in one place for three days, is one of the best and most productive weeks of the year.

This year the theme is “Rising to the Challenge” The BIBA Conference 2023 | The British Insurance Brokers’ Association

If you have annual arrangements you wish to arrange or renew, doing it at the BIBA conference each year is probably the most effective way. The range of providers present and more importantly decision makers, all in one place make for an excellent conference.

Add to that the line up of keynote speakers and sessions each year, bring everyone up to date with what’s new and emerging as well as all the legal and regulatory matters that will affect our businesses going forward over the next 3 – 5 years. If you are an insurance professional #biba2023 is the place to be.

It’s also nice to be in the middle of something which has been in planning for the last 12 months, leading directly from the manifesto which is published in January each year. In 2023 we are #managingrisk & #deliveryingstability.

Looking forward to meeting friends old and new and securing services that will directly benefit our clients going forward.

Have a great week, I know I will.

 

 

 

Marketing Mix

The Marketing Mix

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I’m always looking for ways to get new customers.

I believe in the marketing mix, in essence you must have more than one activity ongoing, and at any given time one or more of them should produce results. Not all of them all the time and not the same ones at the same time.

If you find that a marketing activity is not producing results, you don’t necessarily stop doing it immediately, but you can decide to prioritise resources and time on the ones that are working best at the moment.

If it becomes clear that one activity no longer works, for very sound reasons, then you may well terminate it and only revisit it if circumstances become more favourable for its success.

Here are some of the ways in which we have gained customers over the last 10 years, it would be interesting to find out which ones you prefer and why?

  1. Referral Marketing
  2. Direct Mail or Email Campaigns
  3. Social Media
  4. Cold Calling – Phone or in Person

Today I’m putting to bed a renewal provision for a long-standing client and in the process, I will ask the client for a referral, but only once I believe they are happy with the result.

Clients can be some of the best champions for your business, after all if they are pleased with the results you have delivered, surely, they will be happy to refer you to their friends, colleagues or associates, comfortable that the referral will raise their standing at the same time.

To leave your happy customers out of the marketing mix, would seem to be an open goal you really can’t afford to miss.

Remember to be #openhonesttransparent because customers love it when they know you have their best interests at heart and that’s when they stay for the long terms.

Have a great day!

Chat=reted Insurance Institute

Looking for a salesman?

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Honestly it never feels like that to me.

In society we generally consider the professional classes to include the following trades:

  • Solicitors & Barristers
  • Accountants
  • Architects
  • Surveyors

For some reason, maybe it’s the commission element, professionals in financial services, that is General Insurance, IFA’s & Mortgage Brokers, are seen as salesmen, hell bent on making the most money by inflating prices.

In 99% of cases nothing could be further from the truth. If you want to GAIN or RETAIN a client, inflating prices doesn’t work. They will go elsewhere.

That is despite holding formal and very rigorous qualifications from one of the oldest Chartered Institutes in the country, which is recognised around the world as the gold standard. Starting in 1873, a formal royal charter was granted in 1912. https://www.cii.co.uk/

The CII’s purpose, as set out in its 1912 royal charter, is to ‘Secure and justify the confidence of the public’ in its members and the insurance sector as a whole. It aims to do this through setting standards of integrity, technical competence and business capability.

To make the distinction more obvious in our case, we work on fixed fees, not commission and they are disclosed up-front before our clients make a decision, so they can see they are reasonable in the context of the work completed.

I would rather walk away from paid work if I do not believe the client understands what I’m trying to achieve for them and just wants a cheap job, solely on their terms. I simply won’t do it.

We make professional recommendations and if customers don’t want to accept that professional advice, they are free to go elsewhere. To act in any other way would show a lack of integrity and could be considered professionally negligent. That is #openhonesttransparent

Looking for a salesman?

You won’t find any of them here, but you will find professional advice you can trust, that will protect you and your business and you will develop a relationship with named individuals who will deliver real value for you over many years.

Be awesome, have a great day

Severn Bay Logo

Business Insurance Specialists

 

Working From Home

Can I gain an advantage?

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Today and for the next few months, I’m going to be working from home on a Wednesday, mainly to concentrate on the sales and marketing plan, to ensure a steady flow of warm opportunities for the business and my sales team.

When I work from home I still get up, wash, shave and dress for work. It’s not a grunge day, it’s a workday and I need to feel like it is. Part of that is going into my home office where work can be completed efficiently and I still, feel like I’m at work, working. Having the right space is absolutely essential.

Could I do this in the office?

Well yes, I could, but the opportunity cost is too high, let me explain.

I will inevitably lose time to work which other people would quite happily have done had I not been there and then there are the immediate tasks that arrive in my inbox, another rabbit hole to disappear down. Urgent tasks will of course get forwarded for immediate action and I can happily forget them.

Then there are the phone calls which represent lost time, when another member of the team would have dealt with the call and any resulting work to be done in a perfectly excellent way.

Before you know its midday and he rest of the day just disappears in the fall out from all those calls and emails and then it’s time to go home and I haven’t done any of the strategic planning I had hoped to achieve that day.

So today is a work day, a strategic day, a day to make our business, stronger and more successful and that fills me with the true spirit of adventure and the endless possibilities I might discover, if I just give myself a little time and space to find them.

Have a great day everyone.

Working From Home

A good set up to work from