5:00 a.m.
My morning routine: about 30 minutes of yoga, then breakfast. While I eat, I use my iPhone to check any emails. I rely on Google Reader to keep up with many publications and look for something to post on our blog.
6:30 a.m.
I submit our daily blog post which instantly cross-posts to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. I am a firm believer in the idea that different people rely on different social media sites.
6:45 a.m.
I dive in to the industry emails that I have subscribed to, looking for more blog post ideas and making sure that I am up-to-date on any changes in our industry. I also use HootSuite to check up on overnight Twitter activity.
7:00 a.m.
I received a referral for a startup business that is in need of health insurance quickly. I spend the next hour running quotes and putting together a proposal for them. Typically, we can turn around a new small group client in 10-14 days.
8:00 a.m.
I review communications from carriers, our proposal and our analysis for an afternoon meeting with our largest health insurance renewal, as well as current plans, utilization and alternative funding concepts, then check my math. We have developed our own internal software, PHIT, that we can use to do advanced plan design modeling for our clients. I review those results as well.
9:00 a.m.
Go to a client meeting. Questions pop up in the meeting for the competing carrier so I make notes and fire them off to the rep in the lobby before I leave.
10:30 a.m.
Sitting the in car, I get a message that a major billing issue that we have been working on with a carrier was fixed, saving our client thousands of dollars. I also get an email back from the carrier with a few answers from my previous meeting, so I fire off a quick email to the client before I hit the road.
12:00 p.m.
Meet up with my business partner, my dad John, for lunch and to prepare for our next meeting. We get 99% of our business through referrals and this upcoming meeting is with a large group that has confided in us that they are overwhelmed with handling their benefits.
2:30 p.m.
Finishing up with a prospect meeting. We often have potential clients who have their benefits managed by someone who is working on many other things, like payroll, recruiting, finance and more. We like to operate as an outsourced benefits department for our clients, alleviating them from dealing with benefits questions. They have a question and simply call us and we handle it. This prospective client was no different. Had a great meeting and have a follow up for next week - confident we will get the business.
3:30 p.m.
Get back to the office and get caught up on emails, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Reader updates, bookmarking articles to read later. We have few physical offices because we set up our company to be virtual. All of our files are encrypted and stored in the cloud, so anywhere we have an internet connection we can work.
5:00 p.m.
Head to a cocktail party for a charity that my dad sits on the board of to see some of our vendors and clients more socially.
7:30 p.m.
Head home to walk our Great Dane mix, Lua, and respond to any late emails. I do the social media sweep for the third time today to make sure I am staying on top of everything that is going on before I head back out the door again for my adult hockey league game. I won't be home until after 11 p.m. It's been a long but great day.
Seltzer is co-founder of Pittsburgh-based J. Seltzer Associates.
