Building a better business Podcast

This is an article that I wrote today and tried to put on LinkedIn but I was unable to ascertain if it went live or not. Just in case here it is in it's entirety : -

A few years ago I created a podcast called : PMICast designed to discuss issues around my medical insurance intermediary practice. It was intended to have a dual purpose. Firstly to (obviously) drive potential customers to my business but also to provide information and support across a range of issues around the UK private medical insurance (PMI) market. It was then and still is on the only podcast ever to have focused on this particular area of insurance business. Over the years I recorded, usually every two or three weeks and ended up with a library of 68 episodes, all of which are all still available for download on the web or iTunes (other pod catchers are of course available and I'm registered with most). I also built up a good listener base and at the peak I was regularly having several thousand people download and listen the the podcast.

The original format of the show changed slightly as it became harder to introduce new, relevant content and I ended up, still with the focus on PMI but I tied the show more into my business blog as well which allowed me to discuss a few different issues but keep the content relevant to my core audience. You can find my blog at :

www.localventure.blogspot.com

If you're interested in checking it out you will find that the blog is less devoted to medical insurance and reflects PMI, my business point of view and some of my personal interests as well. Whilst not directly relevant to my comments to follow on the podcast, the blog might be of interest for you to understand where I am coming from.

Over the last say three years the podcast and blog in tandem have raised my profile both with clients and professional introducers to my business (mainly IFA's, accountants and General Brokers). I have placed business with new clients due to these social media outlets and also put in place some important and very lucrative business contacts, directly as a result as well. This brings me to my problem ... the time involved in running my business has increased in part because of the success of the podcast and I've had less and less free time to concentrate on social media plus planning and recording the podcast. Also as other business priorities take over I have felt less inclined to search out interesting content to podcast. So on the rare occasion when I do find 30 minutes to spare to record an episode I found the content I might have to talk about to be dull and uninspiring. The thing is though that I know that having the podcast out there and regular makes my business really unique, adds real value and I can use it to further expand my business which is still definitely a priority for me moving forwards into 2017 and beyond.

With all of the above in mind I have decided to shift the focus of the podcast away from pure coverage of PMI (although I will stress that the name will remain unchanged and I will still want to feature content about my practice and medical insurance) and introduce other elements/discussions of business more generally, perhaps even with a bit of other relevant current affairs and technology news thrown in for good measure. I'm therefore working on a plan and outline strategy for a new pilot of episode #69 of the podcast. However I do wonder if this 're-invigoration' of the show might be assisted by the introduction of a new voice literally. What I'm therefore hoping to do is find a like-minded co-host for the new show. I'm looking for someone with an interest in business, current affairs and technology who (preferably) also owns their own business. That way we can offer the opinions of two entrepreneurs (hopefully from differing business sectors), set up some more dynamic content that provides for interesting content for listeners whilst at the same time gets the word about both of our businesses out there on-line.

Hopefully then this is a great opportunity for someone (probably aged between 30 and 50, male or female ) to join me and drive the project forward. There is no catch. No payment required. I will record the show (probably using a Skype call once a week or more likely fortnightly) and put it up live and then we can both be involved in the marketing and planning of future episodes if things click.

If you think that you might be interested visit the blog : www.localventure.blogspot.com to find out more about me. Then use pmicast@gmail.com to send me a message. You'll also find me on Twitter : @localventure1 and of course here on LinkedIn

Can't wait to hear back !

Phil Knight

Independent Healthcare Consultant + Podcasting Guru

Reinvigorating the podcast

You can find my business podcast on iTunes by searching for 'PMICast' (other pod catchers are of course available and I'm registered with most of them). You can also listen direct here : www.pmicast.podbean.com.

I launched the podcast some years ago and arrived at episode 68 a month or two ago but being honest have struggled because of work to find time to really get many episodes out. The problem is time but also getting content relevant and interesting enough (for me or listeners) to be bothered about recording an episode. At the moment I've got piles of ideas but still not a massive amount of interest. Thing is, I know it's something that I should still be doing regularly. It helps with profile and client/introducer acquisition and when on a roll can be quite fun.

I'm considering therefore changing the format of the podcast a little and seeing if I can find someone else to co-host the show with me. That would almost certainly mean I'd change the focus away from pure medical insurance onto more of a general 'about business/entrepreneurship' type affair. I have a pretty loyal band of listeners (several thousand listeners per month were regularly downloading it at it's height) and with some more consistent content it could benefit both my business and potentially also my co-hosts !

If you're interested in chatting about potentially working with me on this I'm happy to accept 'open auditions' from any one in the UK interested in the following topics - business, current affairs, insurance and possibly a bit of technology and science fiction (both personal interests) - an odd blend but it takes all sorts. If you have your own business then so much the better.

Call on : 07792 075748 or e-mail me : pkn4395@gmail.com for more information or to discuss.

Cheers

Phil Knight

How to avoid discrimination during recruitment

Here's another guest post from my colleague Mark at Croner - his details are at the bottom of the piece. If you do contact him as a result of reading about the issues here please do let him know where you found him. Thanks

Phil

Piece begins ....

A recent BBC report has found that a job seeker with an ‘English-sounding name’ was offered three times the number of interviews as an identical applicant with a ‘Muslim name’.

CVs were sent from fake candidates “Mohamed Allam” and “Adam Henton”, with four interviews offered to Mohamed, and twelve to Adam.

The recent report concurs with previous academic reports concerning the matter, which have found that British Muslims are less proportionately represented in managerial and professional occupations than any other religious group.

Following the findings, and considering academic results before it, Croner’s Head of Legal Advisory, Paul Holcroft, warns that inadvertent discrimination can bring the same severity of consequences as deliberate discrimination.

“The recent report is worrying for employers for a number of reasons. The findings have attracted a lot of attention from various sources because they have been highlighted on well-known platforms, like the BBC.

“In actual fact, mindless discrimination happens on a daily basis. If an employer chooses to disregard one CV in favour of another, they must have tangible and solid evidence as to why they have made that decision.

“Even though we have seen Employment Tribunal claims drop dramatically since the introduction of fees, if a claimant believes that they have been discriminated against, even at the very early stages of a recruitment process, it’s going to be very difficult for an employer to form a solid argument if they lack evidence.

Given the sheer volume of CVs that an employer may deal with when recruiting for a position, it is clear to see the immediate difficulty with documenting the thought process behind rejecting or selecting an application, let alone remembering it.

Paul advises: “Recording all decisions throughout the recruitment process will bring extra admin work and time initially, which I would assume is what puts a majority of employers off.

“Having said that, the time that an Employment Tribunal can span is unattainable, so in the grand scheme of things, keeping sufficient notes when sifting through applications would most likely not compare to a fraction of the time, effort or money a Tribunal would demand.”

Amanda Beattie, Croner Litigation Field Manager, reminds: “Under the Equality Act 2010 (“the Act”), one of the protected characteristics afforded protection from discrimination is Religion and Belief. However, the other protected characteristics under the Act can also be relevant and susceptible to discrimination in the recruitment process.

“Under the Act, it is unlawful to directly discriminate against a person by treating them less favourably than they would treat others because of their religion or belief or another of the protected characteristics. Similarly, it is unlawful to indirectly discriminate against a person by applying a provision, criteria or practice (“PCP”), which puts that person and others who all hold a certain religion or belief or another protected characteristic at a disadvantage, which is not a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.”

Employers should remember that the Act applies equally to employees, workers and job applicants. Therefore, it is important for employers to keep accurate records of why job applicants were unsuccessful and ensure that the reason for the rejection is not discriminatory.

Mark Russell
Business Manager
Croner

Phone: 07976 948 441

Don't forget to send your insurance forms in

Everyone is really busy these days and my clients especially. They tend to be high net worth individuals, company directors, senior clinicians and so forth. This means that they always have a lot going on and filling in forms and remembering to send them back to me isn't always their top priority.

Obviously as advising on medical insurance is my living I have a different priority which is to chase those clients who need to let me have their forms back regularly so as to ensure they don't forget. I have a pretty robust diary system and generally chase clients once every week or two until they eventually come back to me. However it is not unheard of for people to forget altogether and I of course can only chase for so long.

Please remember then that (and I know it sounds as if I'm stating the obvious here) if you don't send the form back you won't have cover in place. It is not unheard of for me to chase a client over and over again for a form. Eventually give up, tell the client I have filed the papers and then at some point in time get a call from them wanting to make a claim but they can't seem to find their insurance membership information - this doesn't happen often but I've had it several times over the years and as you might imagine it can be difficult conversation, especially given I'm essentially having to confirm that not only can they not claim but that they're also a bit of a poor administrator into the process !

I've written about this issue before here and mentioned it several times on my podcast (click here for information or to listen). 

I raise the issue here on the blog (again) because I have a prospective client who first contacted me for a new medical insurance report and overview in March 2014 and since then I have written three reports for him, re-priced the cover at least five times and e-mailed him at least 50 times in total (plus had several telephone conversations) and am still to receive the completed application forms back and I just know that this gentleman is one of the very busy but slightly disorganised people who might think he's done it and sent it on to me whereas in fact the form is sat completed in a pile on his desk.

I've just sent him a reminder e-mail - hopefully he might read and respond to this one.

So please, clients don't ignore my e-mails !

What is a company handbook ?

Here's a brief guest post put together for me by a colleague : Mark  from Croner - a HR services company.

__________

What is an Employee Handbook

Some companies have them, some don't. A majority have had them written many years ago and in some cases the policies are now out of date.

Whilst there are no specific employers' duties in respect of an employee handbook, the content should include set rules and guidelines the employer would like all employees to adhere to.

The handbook, unlike contracts of employment, is a uniform document that is issued to all employees regardless of position or job role.

The main purpose of the handbook is to define clear policies and procedures which reflects the ethos and style of a particular organisation and consolidate its organisational values.

When issuing an employee handbook, either in hard copy or online, the employer is providing all employees with a resource which can be easily referred to at any point by the employee.

The Employee Handbook is one of the most important tools for communication between employer and employee.

To find out what policies and procedures should be in yours, or if you have any concerns regarding your HR, you can call me on 07976948441 or visit Croner for more information and ask us how we can assist your organisation to streamline your HR

Mark Russell

Business Development Manager 

A catch up post ...

Couple of things I wanted to get off my chest.

Firstly Storm Debra or Deirdre or whatever the Met Office are calling it is about to hit Scotland and the North of England with (apparently) gusts of wind up to 90 mph but averaging around 50 mph and snow (30 cm on high ground in Scotland) rain and so forth. This storm has been headline news on all the breakfast shows. My question is though, isn't it supposed to be cold, windy and snowy in Winter ? Suck it up guys, this is simply the usual British weather. In other breaking news this morning : water is wet, dogs hate cats and Donald Trump is still a liar.

It's starting to get to me in shops when you pay on your debit card and the assistant asks me if I want my receipt. Two things. Firstly if I don't take the receipt how will I remember to deduct the money from my bank account balance to know how much money I have left and secondly with no receipt how do I prove, if asked, that I paid for goods and didn't shoplift them ?

Medical insurance for high net worth clients

The business of advising clients on their medical insurance requirements is a relatively complex task based primarily around the mixing of clients health and lifestyle requirements  with a set of insurance products which vary widely in benefit construction and administration/claims by the various insurance companies. As clients get older and more financially secure the level of involvement and support tends to increase.

Although I work with a very wide range of personal and corporate clients as my practice has grown and developed over the years I have tended more and more in the personal sector to look after senior professionals and high net worth (HNW) types of clients.

The basic premise of finding suitable cover at the right price for these kinds of client is at its most basic no different from advising any other client, however there are some additional factors to bear in mind :

1) Personal 'foibles' and fact-finding - one doesn't get to be successful and accumulate a degree of personal wealth without knowing your own mind and perhaps developing some idiosyncracies. This means that when fact-finding one has to bear in mind that the kinds of questions you need to ask will be subtly different. This will usually mean that a HNW client will possibly already have medical insurance cover in place and have extremely clear thoughts about what they do and don't like about products and insurers. If they are new to medical insurance it might be a requirement for a specific benefit or access to one more expensive hospital or a particular consultant they want to see in the future. Regardless, the fact-finding process which always sits at the centre of client advice really becomes an art form and not a science.

2) Available income - price is going to be an issue with any client as medical insurance is a commoditised product whether we like it or not. However the wealthier a client the less likely they are to actually need or want PMI. Think of it like this : private medical treatment is expensive and most of us wouldn't dream of paying tens of thousands of pounds for a hip replacement or £ 600 or £ 700 for an MRI scan. However if you are wealthy and have large amounts of disposable cash then perhaps you can afford to simply pay treatment providers direct for the best treatment. That said in my experience HNW clients are always canny about their health and wealth. They can understand the value of medical insurance cover for high value claim items and wish to insure against future possible medical problems. This means that their cover will typically include very comprehensive benefits for in-patient and day case cover (the more expensive elements of PMI costs) but often they will self insure for initial diagnostics and out-patient investigations. This means typically that a HNW client will make maximum use of those insurers who might offer flexible, modular based products.

3) Treating the Customer Fairly - this is a central tenet of all insurance sales these days and rightly so. I think though that it is worth stating that the average HNW client probably expects more from their representatives and as a result can be more work to stay on top of. This isn't necessarily a problem, it just means that with this kind of client one cannot take a hands off approach and leave things to chance - the client drives the business and how it is transacted.

4) Insurer service - there are some insurers who are more 'bureaucratic' than others. Not a problem - every business has the right to run it's internal practices as they wish This means though that I might tend not to select some companies for a more demanding client. In practice my HNW clients tend to favour the smaller, more customer focused insurers anyway. These smaller or newer players in the market tend to keep red tape to a minimum and can make good homes for discerning clients. That's not to say that the larger insurers won't necessarily feature in a review for a HNW clients. It simply means that other insurers who might be a little more expensive tend to compete on a more even playing field.

5) Going that extra mile - as a last thought, you might imagine that as HNW clients are more work and do require more support that one needs to constantly ingratiate oneself and be seen to be working hard on their behalf. In fact in my experience nothing could be farther from the truth. They need things to happen quickly and quietly behind the scenes and a good HNW client is one who expects things to happen for them and when it does, without fuss that is the way to keep them happy in the longer term.

If you are a client who needs advice on medical insurance (and related cover) regardless of how much you earn or are worth - let me know on :

07792 075748

or

philknight@pch.uk.com

Whether you are a Lord, Landlord or simple Mister or Missus I would be happy to help you with your medical insurance cover.

If you're an IFA, Accountant or general broker who wants an easier life and perhaps to subcontract your medical insurance business to a specialist, again I can help.