Gemma Sky Homes – A Typical Day	Thor Microsoft - A typical day
Adam Mars - A typical day

Gemma
“Our role is to book appointments with agents who manage multiple blocks of flats and sell Sky Freeshare dishes.

There is no such thing as a typical day working with Sky Homes. I usually spend two days a week working from home as I need to ensure I keep booking new appointments with managing agents. I also need to plan and prepare for meeting I have booked with agents and follow up from meetings held the previous day, send out confirmation of what we agreed and carryout any action points or administration.

The managing agents I work with can have anything between one and 1000 blocks of flats so I have to allocate my time accordingly in order to get the maximum benefit for Sky. I have some very big accounts and these appointments can take a full day to ensure the agents really understand what we can offer to their tenants. However a typical appointment can take between half and three hours. I cover a quarter of the UK so I have to plan my traveling times and book appointments that are geographically close to one another.

Once I have finished an appointment and get confirmation from the agent that we are going to proceed I need to load the block addresses onto our on line work flow system. I will then get an alert when they each address signs up to Sky and monitor the account as surveys are done and ASHA’s (Assigned Sky Homes Agents) install the dishes.

Oh and I also need to find time for hospitality – I had to take six managing agents to see Chelsea v Arsenal on Sunday!”

Thor
I arrange my day the evening before by planning my journey and the calls I need to make. My calls will be influenced by specific requests or what POS needs to be arranged. When I have chosen which calls I need to do I prepare the POS required so that I am ready to go in the morning. I take with me my POS bag, which contains the cycle brief that I need to refer to. My travel varies from day to day. My journey can be as little as 20 miles up to 100 miles in one day. I also use the train as sometimes it is not feasible to drive to a call e.g. central London and the city. This can be very challenging when you have large amounts of POS material

My calls primarily consist of Gamestation, Game and PC World. Game and Gamestation are very similar calls. I normally stop for a coffee and a snack rather than take lunch; in fact even if I eat it’s normally on the go. Sometimes traffic or accidents will mean I have to skip a call and re-arrange journeys on the fly. Often certain requests will mean I have to arrange my journey a certain way. For example I currently have to visit Virgin Megastore, Tottenham Court Rd once a week. This means I have to have at least one train day each week of the cycle so I can accommodate this request.

I often get interrupted by text updates and calls for requests or get information as the day goes on. I sometimes have to arrange to do more calls than normal in order to free up time for events, conferences, meetings, training etc. which means I have to be flexible with my schedule and timetable. Once at my calls I will say hello to staff, have a brief conversation about new products and recent developments. I will then site POS and finally do my audit and implement any paid for POS/Endcaps/Bays etc.

In PC World there is usually a much bigger need to merchandise. These calls normally take between one and half to two and half hours to complete. The merchandising includes tidying and organising bays, removing competitor products and increasing facings and availability. Once I am home the first thing I do is complete pocket pay to claim for my wages and expenses including petrol. I e-mail my photographs every other day (or as required). I then prepare for the next day.

Adam
I need to do at least four calls a day. My role is part time so I have to plan my journey carefully to ensure I fit the calls in and finish on time. Once I know the calls I am making I can pack all the equipment I will need in the boot of the car, this could be display stands, point of sales material or product samples.

At the start of the working day I review my personal and business objectives in relation to the calls I am going to make. Some of them may be first appointments and others may be sites I have been to before and need to see how sales have improved since my last visit.

I make decisions, for example, where I am going to sight an additional mini chocolate display, or if there is a children’s soft indoor play area which has recently changed hands whether I need to meet the new manager.

Today I am visiting a Wildlife Park and an RAF Airbase, in these I am auditing the vending machines to make sure the correct amount of Mars’ products are stocked and to record how much stock has been sold since my last visit. So my calls are very varied !

After each call I analyse how the call went and set new objectives for my next call. Whilst driving around my territory I am constantly looking for new sites that may sell chocolate, these could be leisure centres, police stations or large business premises where employees will be buying snacks.

My area manager is very supportive and I speak to him at least once a day to discuss any problems, competitor activity or successes.

I finish the day by ordering any equipment I am running low on and finally I plug in my PPC (hand held computer) so that Head Office will receive my day’s data for the next day reports.