Colin Britton, Senior Agent, NFU Mutual Chester Agency
My name is Colin Britton I am the Senior Agent of the Chester Agency and I have been Senior Agent for the past five years.
My day normally starts about seven thirty. I get up and feed all my girls. Namely five hens. And I leave home probably about 8 o’clock.
It takes about thirteen minutes to get to work, depending on the traffic. As soon as I get into the office I turn the Mutual computer on. And I make myself a cup of strong black coffee.
At the morning ‘buzz’ meetings we tend to look at the outstanding issues and we identify if there are areas within the office that we need to specialise on for that particular day.
The first thing I do when i sit down at my desk is to look at the diary and see what I have got on for that day, so what appointments there are and if there are any other things I need to be aware of. I then make phone calls to farmers on farming queries, I print some schedules and I look at my emails.
The meetings we have in a typical day may be a management meeting between the Sales Manager and the Office Manager. Other meetings we have in the office will include a meeting with the Agents. We probably meet for an hour each week or so, just to discuss issues that have cropped up that week.
On a normal working day I will probably spend most of the day out of the office. I tend to leave the office for my first one around about ten o’clock. It’s important to visit my clients at their place of work, mainly because I get a better understanding of what they do. The covers that they need. Without that visual view of the farm and the farming practices, it would be difficult to make a judgement.
Personally, ninety percent of the people that I deal with are farming clients and about ten percent are commercial clients. And they are commercial clients that I have picked up from referrals, probably from farmers over the last ten years or so.
My role outside of the NFU Mutual is also as an NFU Group Secretary. This tends to allow you access into the farm kitchen for a cup of tea and a cake, and to talk about farming matters and issues that they may have that they want some help to resolve.
Some of the social activities that we have during the year may include a boat trip down the Llangollen canal, but once a week we probably get together, go to the local pub and have a drink. Let our hair down basically.
The things I enjoy most about my job is the sense of achievement. The fact that last year we were the top overall Mutual Agency. I like to see the sales guys hitting targets. And I like to see a happy staff.
Aled Griffiths, Agent, NFU Mutual Newtown Agency
My name is Aled Griffiths. I’m an Agent at the Newtown branch of the NFU Mutual and I’ve been here for 14 years.
My day starts depending on when the kids get up. I tend to leave the house just before 8 in order to visit clients on the way in to the office. I live 27 miles away from the office at one end of our area. This does give me flexibility to enable me to visit clients on the way in to the office and on the way home as well.
I think it’s very important to visit our members at their place of work because you get to see exactly what happens at their location and I think it’s very important for me to see any gaps in cover that they might have.
OK, the next visit I’m going on is to see Hafren Furnishers Limited, they’re a key commercial account of ours. A furniture store which we picked up in 1999. Our client base is typically 70% being farming members with 30% being non-farming, commercial members.
Being an NFU Mutual Agent is a very responsible job and I take that responsibility very seriously. I aim to deliver the best possible service to our members by being a friendly, local face that they can get in touch with when they have a problem, when they have a need.
Typically I’ll be in the office for half of my working day, half of my working week in fact. When I get in to the office, the first thing I do is have a cup of tea and then I’ll sit down and read my emails and respond as I need to.
The other agent in the office is Richard Turner. Richard’s role within the business very much compliments my own. He’s there as a business partner and I treat him as an equal.
We have regular office meetings because we are a relatively small team we get people together around the table and we have a chat and discuss things as and when they arise.
Our financial consultant has an office within our office. We regularly meet with him to discuss on-going issues. He also enables us to provide the complete financial services package for our members.
The things that I love most about my job is the fact that I’m self-employed. I’m my own boss. The customers that we have, the members that we have, they’ve become friends and I’ve built very good relationships with our members.