Hello, I'm John Kitson, and this is my blog.

This is my third week in the new role as Regional Broker Director and it’s been all the usual things you would expect starting a new role; busy, a little bit daunting, but most of all exciting.

‘I wanna be elected’ sang Alice Cooper

You may ‘wanna be elected’ but it can’t be easy when you hear conversations along the lines of ‘they’re all the same’, ‘not much difference between them’, ‘difficult to tell them apart these days’.  Leaves you wondering what it is that makes people choose?…. but they do.  Decisions made on a whole raft of things from the rational to gut feeling. But I wonder if customers … the people who buy insurance products and services… sometimes feel ‘they’re all the same’ when they think about insurers?  How would we perform in the equivalent of a ‘ ‘Prime Minister Debate’?  Would customers feel ‘they’re all the same’ because they feel we treat them ‘all the same’?  Does the owner of body repair business feel we understand what his business really needs or is he seen as ‘another garage’?

Wow, how good is this!  53 years old and I’ve actually been asked to write a piece for Janice’s Blog!

My name is Alan Drury and I work with the Broker Trading Teams across the North West of England, Nottingham and Northern Ireland.  I’ve operated in most markets in the UK but now ‘almost’ feel an honorary Northerner having lived in the North West since 1993.   I actually still like Eastenders though rather than “The Street” as my PA calls it..! It helps me keep in touch with my Essex roots.

I have a confession to make – I find General Elections fascinating. I know this puts me in a small minority of the population but we all have our crosses to bear.

Paul:    Yes, I’ll do a guest blog, but only if I can do a special one.

Brigid: Paul, what do you mean, ‘a special one’, special like the Canadian Hockey Team? (Brigid Murphy)

Paul:    No, although they were impressive.

“Would you guest on Janice’s blog? It’s an opportunity.”

Hmmm. I tend toward Ambrose Bierce’s view; Opportunity defined as ‘an occasion for grasping a disappointment’.

“John, can you pick up a new role….can you take us back to number 1 for personal lines in the broker market……oh, and do it in 2010 please…..oh, and take the brokers with you by becoming the Aviva face on personal lines” ……..mmmm I thought………another massive personal lines challenge I thought.

So here I am (at last), 9 months since the birth of the Janice & John blog and 42 ‘posts’ later (see I’ve got the terminology right already, a natural!) it’s finally my turn to blog. Brian Spinks, head of sales & marketing, officially a guest blogger.

If there has been one theme running through my life over the last six months, its change – with a capital C!

It’s 7 weeks since I wrote my first ever blog, it hasn’t turned me into a blog addict, a ‘Twitterer’ or a ‘Facebook’ regular. I like talking too much to ever do all my communications via virtual means, any of you who’ve met me will know that to be the case.

My name is Phil Bayles. I look after Broker business in the south of UK as well as National Brokers and London Property Owners. I live in Southampton and support Southampton FC – I get a lot of sympathy from taxi drivers at the moment on that count.

I am Alan, son of Sander, father to Fraser, native of Kilmarnock, friend to English Andrew, I am many things to many people but at this moment I am the ‘Johnblogstitute’.

I’m not blogging solely because I have the same initials. That’s just a coincidence! The main and most important reason I’m blogging is because of the role I perform for John and Janice. For those that don’t know me, I have worked for Norwich Union (soon to become Aviva) for 20 years, family man, Norwich born and bred and I love my football.

Hi I’m Janice.

I’m now doing something I’ve never done before, even in these days of technology, blogs and twitters, it seems like everybody’s at it but me. I’ve managed to survive without ever writing a blog. This week, I’ve decided to get in on the act so I’m writing a guest blog for John.