It's who I am, rather than my job.

The South Cotswolds Agency of NFU Mutual is the result of a merger between three neighbouring agencies. Oliver Bayston has been an Agent of NFU Mutual for seven years, and we talked to him about leading and managing such a large agency, the support they get from NFU Mutual, and how they’re continuing to grow their client base.

Hi Oliver - what’s your background and what attracted you to be an Agent of NFU Mutual seven years ago?
I came from a corporate sales and operations background in the agricultural sector, but what genuinely excited me about the Agent opportunity was that I could be ambitious in my approach, with the freedom to execute my own strategy, but would still have the reassurance, oversight and support of NFU Mutual. So, it’s the best of both worlds, because you’re responsible for the business and how you move forward, but you've got that overarching support alongside you.

Having an agricultural background was a slight benefit, but it’s definitely not a requirement. I think if you look at the skillset of managing people, engaging the team, getting people behind you, selling a vision, executing a strategy, and dealing with people, you’ll find them in any sector.

Can you tell us about the agency, your position and how the Agent business partnership works?
We've got sites in Wooton-under-Edge, Chippenham and Swindon, but we're one agency business, known as South Cotswolds. There are 38 of us in total – four Agents working in partnership, and we employ 34 staff across the three sites.

Each site was originally a stand-alone agency, so when we merged the agencies, we put a lot of emphasis on understanding how the four Agents would work together as partners. NFU Mutual supported us with that, providing a business development coach, who helped us identify our skills and attributes. That really helped us to develop a plan based on our individual strengths, so we could be clear on who was accountable for specific areas of the business.

We've structured our team into three broad groups – commercial, farming, and High Net Worth. So, whilst we have three sites, our structure is by client group, rather than geographical.

Caroline leads on the farming sector, and Anna focuses on High Net Worth. Mark is effectively our head of sales, responsible for sales performance across the agency, the technical development of our team, and he also leads our ever-growing commercial sector.

I lead on business strategy, people development and HR, which I enjoy, and I've got quite a lot of experience in that area. The other area I lead on is agency business finance, so paying the bills and forecasting our income. I’m also the agency’s main contact with NFU Mutual. We have a lot of day-to-day interaction with them, so I'm their go-to person in the business, ensuring good communication both ways.

Being accountable for specific areas doesn't mean that the other partners are divorced from it. Quite the opposite – we all have input, which is what a partnership is all about.

So, how do you split your business between commercial, farming and High Net Worth?
Farming is an important business sector for us where we have a large well established client base. The two big areas of growth are commercial and High Net Worth. In our Agency, when we talk about commercial, it’s businesses that aren’t rooted in farming. So, retail, hospitality, construction, manufacturing, distribution, and traditionally, food businesses – the whole range, really. And they can be any size, from a café on the local high street, through to a large hotel and a national food distribution business.

I think the NFU Mutual values, to which our agency holds, really helps in this sector – personal service, no quibble claims approach, the ethical side of the mutual status, and always doing the right thing for the client. These are very powerful values when you start talking to the director of a business.

So, our commercial business has grown rapidly and now accounts for around 50% of our new business acquisition. That’s something that we're really looking to grow further. And we're in a great area, where the NFU Mutual proposition resonates with the kind of businesses we want to deal with.

High Net Worth is a growing sector for us, too. We’re lucky to have a lot of great opportunities locally. So, we’re really focusing on our strategy in that area, and to date have been really successful in generating a good new business pipeline.

What’s your proposition to commercial and High Net Worth clients?
Our proposition is around a personal, local service. Clients appreciate being able to speak to someone who’s taken the time to understand their specific situation and has seen their business or property. A trusted advisor who sits down with them, talks things through and actually gets to know them and takes a more holistic, tailored approach to their needs. Our personal service differentiates our proposition. We’re proud to provide great advice and a great service, which ultimately leads to a 95% client renewal rate.

You talked about having support from NFU Mutual – what kind of support has your agency had?
There’s a lot – as well as the business development support when we merged, there’s been business leadership development training for all four of us Agents and for our teams in areas such as cross-selling and financial services lead generation. That came about by talking to NFU Mutual, presenting a business case and getting their agreement to support us. And there’s usually a bit of joint investment in the training events we run – for example, we hire the venue and NFU Mutual provides the speaker or trainer.

And then there’s day-to-day support in areas such as strategic planning and business development. In the regional team, the quality development consultant supports us in meeting our regulatory obligations and assesses our training and competence as Agents. And we have monthly reviews with our sales development manager who works closely supporting the management team and looking for ways they can add value to our business. We've also got a good relationship with underwriting, and we've been piloting dedicated on-site underwriting, which is really helping us to win more new business.

So, there's a large amount of support from NFU Mutual and a lot of it is support you wouldn’t necessarily get if you were self-employed business owner not tied to an Insurer. They’re always very responsive when you ask, but it’s bottom-up, rather than top-down, so it’s up to you to identify how you can move your business forward and ask for the right support.

It sounds like you really enjoy being a self-employed Agent of NFU Mutual. What do you like most about it?
The main thing for me is the variety. There are so many facets to it – the sales elements, people management elements, compliance elements and operational elements. I really enjoy being hands-on, with my own book of clients, but also being able to step back and see the bigger picture for our business. There are always new challenges. I don't think I'll ever actually stand on the top of the hill and say, “I've done it,” because it's evolving all the time.

But mainly, it's about people – not only the client relationships but the people in the team. And that really is the best part about it for me. We've got people here who we took on as trainees, fresh out of school, college or university, who a few years later, have really progressed into high calibre insurance professionals who provide excellent advice and service to clients and really add value to our business.

It is a bit of a cliché, but I've been doing this for seven years now, and I never have that sinking feeling of realising the weekend's over and the week is about to begin. I just seamlessly transition between my personal and business life, and that's quite a nice place to be.

It’s challenging. It's intense. To do it well, it consumes you. But it's who I am, rather than simply a job. You can really benefit when you get it right, which makes it a very rewarding opportunity.

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