LIVE from RISKWORLD 2022: Shari Paul, Alliant
Shari Paul, First Vice President for Alliant, heads all of Alliant’s digital media and sat down with host Jamie Gassmann in the R3 Continuum booth at RISKWORLD 2022. They discussed the value of social media in the insurance industry, the multiple podcasts Alliant has, advice for effectively using social media, podcasting, and more.
Workplace MVP is underwritten and presented by R3 Continuum and produced by the Minneapolis-St.Paul Studio of Business RadioX®.
This show was originally broadcast from the RIMS 2022 RISKWORLD Conference held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California.
Shari Paul, Alliant
Shari Paul is First Vice President and Senior Marketing Manager for Alliant Insurance Services. Shari is a data-driven marketing and digital media communications professional with over 20 years of experience within a variety of industries focused on customer acquisition, satisfaction, and retention.
Alliant Insurance Services is among the largest and fastest-growing insurance brokerage and consulting firms in the United States. Fueled by entrepreneurialism and driven by results, Alliant operates on the belief that more is possible and expectations are meant to be exceeded.
Their clients and partners have profound confidence in them to deliver in all market climates through the design and delivery of innovative solutions and services across a broad range of industry verticals.
Alliant’s people stand as the backbone of the organization. They proudly employ a team of diverse, driven, and exceptional people and invest heavily in their success, giving our brokerage and consulting teams the freedom and resources they need to help their clients grow their businesses to remarkable heights. The result is a dynamic team of professionals who consistently perform at the highest level while caring and giving back to causes that impact their communities and the world at large.
Alliant is built on teamwork and collaboration, a philosophy that has guided its growth and evolution for almost 100 years. They rise together to meet challenges, think together to drive innovation, and thrive together in business and in the diverse communities where they operate.
As one of the top 10 largest insurance brokerage firms in the U.S., Alliant combines the power and breadth of big-company resources with a hyper-personalized approach that puts your interests above everything else.
Their culture of entrepreneurialism, collaboration, and innovation gives them the independence and accountability to create solutions that uniquely match your needs. Because when people come first, more is possible.
About Workplace MVP
Every day, around the world, organizations of all sizes face disruptive events and situations. Within those workplaces are everyday heroes in human resources, risk management, security, business continuity, and the C-suite. They don’t call themselves heroes though. On the contrary, they simply show up every day, laboring for the well-being of employees in their care, readying the workplace for and planning responses to disruption. This show, Workplace MVP, confers on these heroes the designation they deserve, Workplace MVP (Most Valuable Professionals), and gives them the forum to tell their story. As you hear their experiences, you will learn first-hand, real-life approaches to readying the workplace, responses to crisis situations, and overcoming challenges of disruption. Visit our show archive here.
Workplace MVP Host Jamie Gassmann
In addition to serving as the host to the Workplace MVP podcast, Jamie Gassmann is the Director of Marketing at R3 Continuum (R3c). Collectively, she has more than fourteen years of marketing experience. Across her tenure, she has experience working in and with various industries including banking, real estate, retail, crisis management, insurance, business continuity, and more. She holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Mass Communications with special interest in Advertising and Public Relations and a Master of Business Administration from Paseka School of Business, Minnesota State University.
R3 Continuum
R3 Continuum is a global leader in workplace behavioral health and security solutions. R3c helps ensure the psychological and physical safety of organizations and their people in today’s ever-changing and often unpredictable world. Through their continuum of tailored solutions, including evaluations, crisis response, executive optimization, protective services, and more, they help organizations maintain and cultivate a workplace of wellbeing so that their people can thrive. Learn more about R3c at www.r3c.com.
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TRANSCRIPT
Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting Live from RISKWORLD 2022 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, it’s time for Workplace MVP. Brought to you by R3 Continuum, a global leader in helping workplaces thrive during disruptive times. Now, here’s your host.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:21] Hi, everyone. Jamie Gassmann here, your host of Workplace MVP, coming to you from RISKWORLD 2022. And with me is Shari Paul. Hi, Shari.
Shari Paul: [00:00:32] Hello.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:33] And welcome to the episode. Give me a little background of your role and who you’re with.
Shari Paul: [00:00:38] I am here with Alliant Insurance. We are one of the largest brokers in North America. And I do all of the digital marketing, digital media for the company.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:00:52] Wonderful. And I know you have a very specific topic. I think you guys even have your own podcast. What’s the name of your podcast?
Shari Paul: [00:00:58] We do. We have quite a few podcasts actually, because we have so many different specialties that there is – my gosh – The Financial R&R with Ron and Ryan. That’s one of the most popular ones. We’ve got Digging In with our agribusiness team. And then, just a blanket Alliant specialty podcast.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:23] Yeah, kind of covers a whole-.
Shari Paul: [00:01:25] Yes.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:25] … kind of-
Shari Paul: [00:01:25] Covers gamut.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:01:26] … gamut of different topics and area of conversations around the industry. And I know one of the things that we were talking about before we jumped on our mics mix was about the power of social media in this industry. So, what are some of your thoughts around that?
Shari Paul: [00:01:42] Absolutely. You know, what’s interesting about the insurance industry is that it’s not very social media — I don’t want to say savvy, but there — it’s hard to get someone on board with doing the social media or seeing the ROI or seeing the value in it. And what we discovered with the pandemic is that there was a lot of opportunities with doing podcasts, with doing the webinars, with doing different type of digital media and digital experiences that worked out phenomenally. So, that’s-
Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:18] Yeah. So, it’s almost like creating an ecosystem from your organization, basically, that extends out of just the in-person opportunities like a conference because, obviously, the last couple of years, it wasn’t as readily available.
Shari Paul: [00:02:31] Right.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:31] And you know, virtually, it’s tough to network on a conference virtually.
Shari Paul: [00:02:36] It is.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:02:36] It’s what I’ve found. So, talk to me about, like if somebody was really wanting to put together kind of — from a social media perspective, kind of a program and promoting that internally, how could they build that case internally to kind of get that kind of moving through the ranks?
Shari Paul: [00:02:50] Yeah. What’s great is to find your cheerleaders, right? To find those evangelists of social media. And we have quite a few that have gone out and actually started their own blogs, they post on social media, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram almost daily. And from that, what we have found, actually, is we’re getting a lot of press attention. So, we have gotten quite a few journalists reach out to us based on the topics that we’ve been putting out to do interviews. So, it’s actually been phenomenal.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:25] Yeah. So, it’s like almost like finding those thought leaders that are willing to present themselves as that in a very public way?
Shari Paul: [00:03:32] Right. I mean, you put a thought leadership piece out or, you know, an article or something like that, or press release, and it’s one dimensional. So, you don’t really get to go into the different thoughts or, you know, it’s just that at that one time. But when you’ve got a lot of people on talking about what’s going on, you get a lot more, I think, bang for the buck there.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:03:56] Yeah, absolutely. And like staying really current with industry trends, and things that you’re seeing and you know, people that might be looking they’re looking for something right now, you know.
Shari Paul: [00:04:05] Absolutely.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:05] Not that happened four years ago. They want to know what’s the current world. So, if you’ve got like somebody who maybe is a little hesitant in your organization, but, you know they’re brilliant, you know, what are some of the tactics you’ve used to convince them to get behind your microphone?
Shari Paul: [00:04:20] Constantly asking. Constantly, “Come on, I know you can do it. I know you can do it.” Yes, we’ve had a few that are reluctant, but once you get them going, and they get that first podcast under their belt, then they understand that it’s easy.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:35] Yeah. Once they get the taste of that media, right? And the attention.
Shari Paul: [00:04:40] Yeah.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:40] Just like all of us, right? We can, like, thrive on that in a way.
Shari Paul: [00:04:45] Absolutely.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:04:45] So, if there was one like leaving, you know, idea or advice or concept you wanted to leave on this episode for anybody that might be listening post-show, what would that be?
Shari Paul: [00:04:57] Just do it. Jump in and do it. You know, you don’t have to worry about equipment. There’s a million different ways to do it. There is lots of, you know, mics and things that you — I mean, we do ours on Zoom, you know. So, we do produce them afterwards. But, you know, just get in there and do it. There are so many topics and so many news items that just, you know, hit the airways, that you’ve got to get something out there quick, and having someone sit down and write something or try to respond to it, it’s not as – it just doesn’t work as well as doing a podcast or or a social media feed.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:39] Yeah, wonderful. Well, it’s been great to have you on an episode.
Shari Paul: [00:05:42] Thank you so much.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:43] Yes. Thank you so much for joining us. And if somebody wanted to get a hold of you to get more information from you, how can they reach you?
Shari Paul: [00:05:50] www.alliant.com or you can give me an email at shari.paul@alliant.com.
Jamie Gassmann: [00:05:59] Wonderful. Thanks again so much for joining us.
Shari Paul: [00:06:06] Thank you.
Outro: [00:06:06] Thank you for joining us on Workplace MVP. R3 Continuum is a proud sponsor of this show and is delighted to celebrate most valuable professionals who work diligently to secure safe workplaces where employees can thrive.
