THANK YOU!!

Steve and Rick-

I would like to thank you for the amazing opportunity you gave me working with SilverSide Insurance.  Both of you taught me so much, yet I feel like I still have so much to learn.  I enjoyed these past few months immensely.  I was able to learn so much about the insurance, annuity, and financial services field.  This internship also helped reaffirm what I wish to do for my career once I graduate! I enjoyed working with all of our agents and clients as well.  It was great to have a good laugh and talk business with them at the same time.

You two were extremely flexible with my schedule and took the time to work on projects for my class  blog which I appreciated so much as well! I learned so much about the business outside of SilverSide as well when we talked about your work experience.  Both of you have seen the ups and downs of the industry and have adapted to keep the business afloat.  This is an invaluable knowledge of information I took away from both of you on how to adapt to the ever changing business world.

I wish you both the best and will keep in touch!  I hope business continues to be great and SilverSide continues to acquire new agents and new business!

Best Regards,

Brady Madden

The Take-Away of SilverSide

These past few months, I have taken in so much knowledge, information, and training from my internship with SilverSide Insurance.  I never knew there were so many dynamics and variables in how the business development field operates.  I also gained a better understanding of how the the financial industry and stock market work.  It is amazing how interchangeable each area of business is and how they interact with each other.

The most important things I have learned are better communication skills and how to apply them both over the phone and in person and how to better multi-task and adapt to having multiple projects going on at once.  This internship also reaffirmed my desire to work in the business development field.  I am sad my internship has come to an end, but I look forward to what the future holds, especially when I begin to apply for full time positions.

In terms of my first post and what I expected to take away, I think I met all of my expectations of what I wanted to take away from this.  It has sharpened my business, leadership, and communication skills and has prepared me for a full time career when I graduate in May.

Organizational Strengths

What are the strengths of your organization? If you were in charge of a similar organization, are there any things you would do differently?

In terms of strengths of this organization, I believe the communication skills and people skills my supervisors and co-workers have make a huge difference.  The entire scope of this business is communicating with agents, clients, and vendors.  This involves a lot of face to face meetings as well as conversations over the phone.  I think flexibility and the ability to manage multiple products at once goes a long way to ensuring the success of the organization.  

If I was in charge of a similar organization, the one thing I would change is less phone calls and more face to face meetings with all these clients.  While a phone meeting is convenient, it is often difficult in my opinion to convey the same message and understand the necessary take away and action items for it.  I also feel like communicating with people directly is more effective than trying to convey the message over the phone.  I also think this is much more valuable with clients as it shows them you are taking the time to personally meet with them and help ensure their success!

P.S- I tried several times to change the font size to normal, however, it keeps defaulting to smallest so I apologize for the small text.

Career Services Write Up

Last week, I was able to attend a leadership development seminar for campus leaders.  I learned so many great tools during this workshop and most importantly for me, how to delegate out tasks better. I sometimes get overwhelmed with the amount of things to do and end up doing them myself thinking it will take longer to instruct and guide someone else on how to do it. I learned that taking the time to teach and mentor early on will help employees learn and adapt to doing the task on their own and it will flow much better down the line.  I also learned how important praising employees for their good work and being constructive when helping them fix something they did wrong.  The ratio is 4 praises to every 1 constructive criticism or feedback on an issue.  From the workshops I have attended, I learned there are so many components of being a leader or manager than just the title or responsibility itself.  I definitely think people should continually attend these seminars on learning how to be a better leader and to continually improve their skills.

Free Write- What's with the weather?

Why has it been so cold here lately? First and foremost let me say that I do not have a problem with cold weather.  I have lived in many different places were the average temp in the winter is in the 20's-30's.  Yet, for some reason, 40-50 degrees here feels exactly like those lower and much colder temps. It is like a cold that chills your entire inside down here.  I have felt colder this week than when I am up in the mountains snowboarding.  It does not help either that I do not buy warm clothes anymore thinking that living in Phoenix one would not need them. I must admit that this cooler weather does make hiking a much more pleasurable activity when it is not 90-110 degrees out! Hope everyone else is keeping warm and ready for some time off next week.

Free Write - Costco

So this is going to be my very random free write.  I was just in Costco on Monday and was shocked by how busy it was.  I arrived right as the store opened and there was already a line at the gas station and car wash.  I followed a wave of people into the store and within minutes, all of the aisles were packed full of people.  An hour later after wander around the store looking at all the new items with no exit in site (sound familiar..almost like a Vegas casino) I make my way to the front of the store to get in line.  There were so many people in line with full carts.  I felt bad for the guy behind me who was buying one item.  After nearly 15 minutes of waiting in line, I finally was able to check out. After I left the store I realized I needed gas as well. Another 15 minutes later and I was done at the gas station.  When it was all said and done, I had spent 2 hours at Costco that morning. Amazing that 2 hours was gone just like that! Yet, I will fall right back into the same trap next week..

Public Service or Urban Governance?

I would say my internship demonstrates more of a public service than an urban governance.  While it deals more with the private sector, ultimately what we are doing is promoting and informing people about investment opportunities to better their retirement and future through annuities and life insurance. The public service is teaching people to be wise with their money and invest it instead of spending it.  In doing so, we can help improve the economy and the financial well being of these people. This internship has been interesting in the sense that it has been a mix of both public and private sector practices.