Diary of an Insurance PR: Lysander’s Joe Malone

Monday

I’ll begin by saying that, unlike Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO, you won’t be getting any high performance tips from me. Hydration before caffeination? Absolutely not. Double espresso for me, please.

I live in Derbyshire, but work from a co-working space that is a 10-minute drive from my house. Despite working for a remote business, working from home is not for me. 

Monday mornings are sort of the same each week. We try to keep our diaries meeting-free so we can gather our thoughts, make a list of the essentials, and the nice-to-dos. 

As ever, I attempt to map out what my week will look like including any travel I may have, but contingency must always be included. 

Last week I pitched a few editorials to different publications on behalf of clients, so my main priority this morning is to follow up on those to see if I can get any commissioned. 

The ongoing issues in the Strait of Hormuz (I’m writing this in June) means I maintain a watching brief. There may be the need for a few of my clients to comment on any changes that occur.

Monday afternoon at 2pm is our weekly team meeting, which is the one guaranteed slot each week that the eight of us will be on a call together. 

We talk business, but also people’s cats and dogs (cue my colleague’s cat walking across her screen and her pretending to be annoyed about it…). 

It’s a good chance for us to run ideas past each other for any client work we have going on, and I often come away with a good idea or two.

Social media is ever-present in my job. Not a day goes by without drafting, posting or scheduling content for a client, so there’s posts to draft. 

Lots of our posts are what we call ‘always-on content’, so I’m ensuring our clients’ LinkedIn feeds don’t go quiet, producing a schedule of posts to spread out throughout the month. 

Other content comes in ad hoc, usually because a client is attending a conference tomorrow, and wants a ‘we’re attending’ style post, or something like that.

Tuesday

My diary is a little fuller today. With some of our clients, we have weekly meetings, with others it’s fortnightly or monthly. 

This morning, I have two of my monthly meetings (45 minutes each), so there’s a lot to catch up on. 

I usually begin a meeting by talking the client through where we’re at with the various bits of content we have going on. Sometimes it’s with me to progress, other times a gentle nudge for the client to review something is needed. 

Afterwards, I’m all ears for any new updates they may have. Some clients are full of information, and let us know well in advance if something is coming down the line. 

For others it’s a little more tricky, so it’s my job to try and extract as much information out of them while I have them on the call.

Once the meetings are done, I’ll update our working boards for those clients and add-in anything new. 

I got one of my editorials commissioned, by the way, so later today I will be writing an 800-word piece on why headless businesses are the way forward, before sending it to the client for review, then the journalists once approved. 

Usually, all our editorials are bylined to the CEO. There’s more social media posts to draft, too.

Wednesday

First things first, I need to book my train ticket for tomorrow. I’m heading down to London, as I tend to once a week/fortnight. 

This time, it’s to attend a small conference a client is hosting at the Lloyd’s Old Library. 

My job is to support them with key takeaways from the event, so we can leverage some content off the back of it. Must remember my notepad and pen.

There’s another two meetings in the diary today, more emails to send and reply to, and a few blogs to write. Oh, and social media posts to draft, but you knew that already.

The small co-working space I come to is usually frequented by the same people, which is nice. 

A few architects, structural engineers, a photographer, and an air conditioning inspector that literally eats toast all day (seriously). 

They tell me about their jobs, I tell them about mine. We pretend to understand each other. It’s quite fun. More coffee please.

Thursday

While I usually work a 9-5, traveling to London means catching the 6.18am train from Matlock. 

I change at Derby, then travel into London St Pancras, where I’ll then take the tube to wherever I need to be. Usually that’s south on the Northern Line to Bank, as a lot of our clients are based around that area. Lloyd’s is just a short walk from there. 

While each day is different, one thing that remains constant is the flurry of emails. 

I usually get around 100 a day, so I always have an eye on my inbox, even when I’m travelling. 

Working for an agency is culturally different to working in-house. I used to work in comms for Axa. Even if we can’t action a piece of work right away, we’ll always acknowledge emails from clients as they come in. Silence is not a good look.

The conference went really well, and the panel of speakers was super interesting and diverse. I took plenty of pictures, and made lots of notes. 

Off the back of this, I’ll publish a few LinkedIn posts, a thought-leadership blog, and think of a possible angle to pitch the CEO for an interview with a journalist. 

Often, as a PR, being at a conference requires you to listen and observe - the real action happens afterwards.

Friday

Back to the co-working space near home. Nigel is eating toast again.

Next week one of my clients is a guest on a podcast, so I’m hopping on a call with her today to run through the pre-submitted questions from the host. We’ll agree the key messages she’ll share, and make a list of the don’ts. 

That’s my only meeting, so the rest of my day will be spent drafting various bits of content, sending emails and following up on anything I’m waiting approval on. 

All in all, it’s been a usual week. It’s fast, but it’s diverse. We have more than 20 clients at Lysander PR, and I work across seven to eight of those, so every conversation I have and email I send is with a different hat on. 

The easiest mistake to make is emailing the wrong ‘Chris’, so while it’s a fast-paced job, diligence is always required.