Spotlight on….Karen Milligan

In what capacity did you join BiP?

I joined BiP almost ten years ago as an exhibition sales executive and was promoted into the Senior sales role, followed by the Sales manager role and my current role is Head of Exhibition and Event Sales.

What takes up the most amount of your time in your day-to-day? 

Meetings tend to take up a lot of my time whether that’s event scoping meetings, project meetings, meetings with the sales team, SMT meetings or the most important ones – prospective client TEAMS meetings.

Are there any changes or initiatives you’d like to implement into BiP? 

I would like it if BiP adopted an early finish Friday as a permanent feature. Slightly longer working hours Mon – Thursday and a business wide early finish every Friday would be great. I think this would support a stronger work life balance overall.

What are the biggest challenges you have in your role – how could your colleagues help? 

If I was answering this a few years ago during a global lockdown and no face-to-face interactions being permitted, it would have warranted a very different answer – thank goodness that’s a thing of the past😊

The biggest challenge I find in my role just now comes down to me. Time management and being organised is not my best attribute (to put it mildly) so juggling everything and prioritising different tasks tends to be challenging at times.

I feel very fortunate to work with some amazing people across BiP and there really is a sense of willing everyone to succeed therefore, even in the crazy busy periods (which is always, when it comes to events!), I know that my own team, Laura A’s team and generally the wider business is always happy to lend a hand and help out to make sure what needs done, gets done.

What do you like most about your job? 

I love working in event sales and being a people manager in this industry is brilliant. The buzz of the chase and the satisfaction of achievement as well as the psychology behind what makes people tick all add to just some of the things I love about my job.

What do you like most about working at BiP? 

The main answer here must be everyone that works at BiP.

I do also love how we work in a constantly changing market. Every week there is something new to learn and BiP are very good at making sure everyone in the business can be as knowledgeable as possible across our market sectors.

What does a great day at work look like?

Being Head of Exhibition & Event Sales, the answer must be = Lots of event sales 😊

Do you have any unusual hobbies? 

Moving house lol. I have moved house many, many, times since joining BiP and I do think buying and selling houses is quite exciting but it’s a very expensive hobby, so my plan now is to look for a slightly cheaper hobby.

Been anywhere strange?

I haven’t been anywhere strange that I can think of, but I do like to travel. So, recently I have been trying to visit one or two new countries each year. I am only 10% of the way around the world’s list of countries so far.

Blow your own! … what do you excel at? Work or leisure 

I like to think I am a positive and friendly person.

Quick fire: 

  1. Coffee or tea – Tea
  2. Book or film – Film
  3. Cat or dog – Dog
  4. Hot or cold – Hot
  5. Salty or sweet – Sweet
  6. Tattooed or not – Tattooed
  7. Night out or night in – Both ?!
  8. Email or meeting – Meeting
  9. Teams calls: video call or audio? – Video
  10. Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Desk (but this is a bad habit that I am trying to stop!)
  11. Mountain or beach – Beach

Spotlight on…Amy Madden

In what capacity did you join BiP?

I joined BiP last September as the BI Marketing Executive. I then became the Senior Marketing Executive for Supply2Gov in January this year.

What takes up the most amount of your time in your day-to-day? 

Creating Email Campaigns; they are one of our main resources when campaigning for S2G.

What are the biggest challenges you have in your role – how could colleagues help? 

Not working directly with other people on Supply2Gov, sometimes you need other people to keep you creative. But the wider marketing team are a great support if I ever need to bounce ideas off them!

What do you like most about your job? 

That every day is different. Also, I get a lot of freedom to come up with different marketing strategies and campaigns for Supply2Gov.

What do you like most about working at BiP? 

The people! Everyone is so friendly and sociable.

What does a great day at work look like?

I like to start the day off with a coffee. If I get through my to-do list and registrations for Supply2Gov are on track, it’s always a good day!

Do you have any unusual hobbies? 

I recently started a boxing class. Not quite a pro yet, but it’s fun!

Been anywhere strange? (country/place/bar/tourist attraction?!) 

Not been anywhere strange, but my favourite place I have ever visited has to be New York.

Quick fire: 

  1. Coffee or tea – Coffee
  2. Book or film – Film
  3. Cat or dog – Dog – I have a dog called Ruby.
  4. Hot or cold – Cold
  5. Salty or sweet – Salty
  6. Tattooed or not – Tattooed
  7. Night out or night in – Night out
  8. Email or meeting – Email
  9. Teams calls: video call or audio? Audio
  10. Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Breakout altogether
  11. Mountain or beach – Beach

Spotlight on…Fraser Haddow

In what capacity did you join BiP? What role did you start in and what role do you have now?

I joined BiP in the role of Scrum Master, but have recently transitioned to Platform Success Manager.

Whattakes up the most amount of your time in your day-to-day? 

Azure DevOps! It’s the platform that allows us to track progress on our product development and keep track of any issues, so it’s use forms a large part of the role.

What do you like most about your job? 

I like seeing a product improvement travel through all the stages from idea to implementation and then deployment, overseeing the journey to completion provides a great sense of satisfaction.

What do you like most about working at BiP? 

I like interacting with lots of people that span multiple departments and roles, this keeps things interesting, and it always helps to see things from other people’s perspectives.

What does a great day at work look like?

It always starts with coffee – then a day with a few meetings (not too little or too many!) and some time to get some work done. Ideally, right now a good day also involves bugs being closed and no new ones being opened.

Do you have any unusual hobbies?

I’m a big movie nerd and am very into low budget/indie horror which is maybe unusual! Music wise, I also am very into death metal and New York hardcore which is a little unusual.

Been anywhere strange? (country/place/bar/tourist attraction?!)

The most fascinating place I’ve been is a city called Varanasi in India – would recommend to anyone, it’s super interesting.

Blow your own! … what do you excel at? Work or leisure

I like to think I’m quite good at guitar and drums. Work wise – I think I’m pretty good at being organised, but my colleagues can tell you if that’s true or not!

Quick fire: 

  1. Coffee or tea – Coffee
  2. Book or film – Film
  3. Cat or dog – Dog (I have a Spanish greyhound)
  4. Hot or cold – Hot
  5. Salty or sweet – Salty
  6. Tattooed or not – Not
  7. Night out or night in – Night in 
  8. Email or meeting – Depends on how many other meetings are on!
  9. Teams calls: video call or audio? – Video
  10. Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Usually al-desko
  11. Mountain or beach – Beach

Spotlight on…David Stewart

Thanks for joining me, David. How are you enjoying life at BiP?

I really like it, even though it’s taken a while to get to grips with B2B. I came from B2C, so I‘d never done business sales before, but the rewards are starting to come through. I managed to do 175% of my target last month and I’m on track for target this month – if everything goes to plan!

What did you do before coming to BiP?

I had a seven-year career at EE, starting as a part time sales advisor through to managing a couple of shops and being a sales manager for them.

And what would you like to be in the future is there a dream job or a dream position?

Aspirational goals? I’d love to get to director level at some point within a company. So be that Sales Director, Operations Director, that’s my goal

What takes up the most of your day-to-day?

Most of my day is genuine client interaction, customer interaction and reaching out to new prospects. Understanding what their challenges and struggles are to work with the public sector.

And what sort of challenges do your customers have? what sort of challenges can you help solve for them?

The challenges I’m hearing are that they don’t understand how to build the relationships with the public sector buyer before the tenders are published. They need to get in there as early as possible, to develop these relationships and we really are making a difference to their business because they’re not just running a tender, we’re helping them build a relationship for future business.

It’s actually good to know you’re making a difference to somebody when you’re selling something.

Do you prefer to be Working from Home or in the office?

I like being in the office. I like having an atmosphere around me and the support network, your manager and your teammates. I’ve always thrived off a good atmosphere, so I prefer to be in the office than work from home.

Are there any sort of changes or initiatives you’d like to implement into BiP?

I ran a couple of charitable events at EE before, Charity 11 aside football matches and things like that. There’s a lot of buildings around, there’s the BBC, The Village hotel, big corporations, big businesses that I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t want to get involved in charity stuff like this. It’d be great to implement something like that.

What the biggest challenges you have in your role?

Managing customer timelines and managing my own pipeline. That’s the hardest part of this job. Not knowing when something’s going to come in and when something’s pulled out from under you.

My colleagues and my manager Chris help me regularly with this and are extremely supportive.

What do you like most about your job?

The interaction with people, I’m a big people person. I really enjoy speaking to people in different industries, different businesses and just learning more about what they’re doing for two reasons. It builds up my knowledge of the market in general and lets me understand what businesses are really struggling with. Speaking to people and making a difference is the thing that makes a big difference to me. Speaking to someone about the challenges they’re having, and if I can genuinely fix it for them, that’s what I like most.

What do you like most about working at BiP?

The culture is very good so far and very much gives back as well and looks after its employees.

The support and the culture in the business to make sure everyone succeeds is incredible.

What does a great day at work look like?

A great day looks like this: seeing my name up in that sales board a few times on one day. As soon as a deal comes in, but also coming in to a reasonably filled diary.

Do you have any unusual hobbies?

I’m a very keen badminton player. I’ve been playing for years competitively. I had my own deejaying business for a couple of years as well.

Quick fire.

  1. Coffee or tea – Coffee
  2. Book or film – film
  3. Cat or Dog – Dog, I have a dog.
  4. Hot or cold – I prefer being cold
  5. Salty or sweet – Sweet
  6. Tattooed or not – tattooed
  7. Night out or night in – Night out.
  8. E-mail or meeting – Meeting
  9. Teams call video or audio – Video, always video.
  10. Lunchtime: Al-desko, break room or break out altogether – Break out altogether, I like sitting in the breakout zones.
  11. Mountain or beach – Beach

A spotlight on… Jen Flitcroft

Jen is based in our Salford office, working on sales for Cadence Marketing. She’s been with the company for over seven years, seeing BiP take on the Ingenium brand in 2016 and moving to the Media City office in 2017.

In what capacity did you join BiP? What role did you start in and what role do you have now? 

I joined back in 2015 prior to the BIP acquisition as a BDM. Went off on maternity leave in 2016 and came back to a new company and a new office! I have since progressed through a couple of role changes to become a Senior Account Manager. My role is to seek out organisations that want to increase their reach into the public sector through targeting marketing campaigns, persuade them to have a meeting with me, and show them all the amazing ways we can help them to achieve their business goals 😊

What takes up the most amount of time in your day-to-day?  

It’s a really varied role, which is why I love working here – generating leads, prospecting, onboarding, account management, firefighting – but the majority of time is spent cold-calling and holding meetings with new prospects.

Are there any changes or initiatives you’d like to implement into BiP?  

I’d actually love a ‘bring your kid to work day’ as I’d love my little boy to spend a day seeing what Mummy does when she’s not at home! There’s quite a few of us with little ones and it would be lovely to have them all in here together (not sure how Stu McAndrew would feel about that though, ha!).

What are the biggest challenges you have in your role – how could your colleagues help?

Fitting everything into the day! I personally struggle with time management – getting all of my admin done, making enough prospecting calls, ensuring my current clients are happy, lead-sourcing, etc. There have already been quite a few changes to the structure of the Cadence team lately which is taking a lot of the client management and delivery away from us, which massively helps, but I could really use my own admin assistant!

What do you like most about your job?  

I love speaking to so many different people and learning about their businesses, really getting under the skin of what they need and then being able to actually help them, seeing a job well done.

What do you like most about working at BiP?  

I’ve made some great friends here, some lovely long-standing relationships and we’re a very tight-knit team, which makes all the difference on a bad day!

What does a great day at work look like? 

Everyone being in a great mood, a buzz in the air with everyone on the phone, having really good conversations with new prospects, getting them excited about what we do, and of course, closing some nice big deals!

Do you have any unusual hobbies?  

Not necessarily unusual, though possibly a bit ridiculous given my age (I’m 41, not 8) but I have a serious and rather expensive Lego habit – (Hey Jen, no judging it’s ages 4 to 99 on the box!) I also sing back-up in a band/duo and I am trying (and failing) to write a book!

Blow your own! … what do you excel at?

Workwise, I think my biggest strength is getting people to talk and open up to me. In my personal life, I’m going to say I think I’m a pretty awesome mum – the best in the world according to my six-year-old!

Quick fire:  

  1. Coffee or tea - tea
  2. Book or film - book
  3. Cat or dog - cat
  4. Hot or cold - cold
  5. Salty or sweet – salty
  6. Tattooed or not - not
  7. Night out or night in – night out
  8. Email or meeting – meeting
  9. Teams calls: video call or audio? video
  10. Eating: al-desko, break room or break out altogether - prefer the pub, but it’s al-desko usually!
  11. Mountain or beach – mountain (sand gets everywhere!)

BiP One Recognition – Q3 Outstanding Performance Award

Our third and final winner of the Q3 BiP Recognition Awards was, Asman Hussain, who won the Outstanding Performance Award.

Let’s hear from Asman’s line manager Simon Inman:

“Asman joined BiP in December and within his first week we experienced a network outage, during the incident, Asman was a beacon of calm and light. Still fresh to the business, Asman showed outstanding and unflappable support from the start and was able to hit the ground running and support to get us back online.”

Congratulations Azi!

BiP One Recognition – Q3 Values Award

Our second winner of the BiP ONE Recognition Awards for Q3 was Isobel Wright, who was the winner of our Values Award.

Isobel’s line manager Chris Logue had a few words to say on her success:

“Izzy has really stepped up the last few months within credit control and exceeded all targets. She has done so in a professional manner and is always on hand to assist others in the team. Over the last few months, Izzy has started working from an updated system with new features and has been testing every aspect to make sure when we change over it will be done seamlessly and smoothly. This has been a big ask but Izzy has done a brilliant job. The amount of time this will save the team is invaluable and again underlines the fact Izzy always demonstrates BiP’s core values.”

Well done Isobel!

BiP One Recognition – Q3 Sales Excellence Award

At our BiP One Recognition Awards last week, we are delighted to announce that the winner of the Sales Excellence Award for Q3 is Elizabeth Anderson

To shout about Liz’s success, lets hear from the Head of Exhibition Sales, Gus MacKenzie:

“Liz was nominated for this award for a number of reasons. Crucially she achieved her quarterly target in style with a record breaking performance, in so doing achieving each individual monthly target. Her contribution to our Record Team result in January was excellent. During the period Liz secured three headline sponsorship deals for our forthcoming events, as well as being successful in taking BiP’s wider product portfolio to the market. A well-deserved result which now puts Liz within touching distance of her annual revenue target for 22/23.”

Well done Liz!!

BiP One Recognition – Q2 Values Award

The final winner of our Q2 Awards was Robert Atherton, who was the worthy winner of the Values Award.

Here is a little bit from Rob’s line manager Grahame Steed…

“Rob is a highly deserving recipient of the Values award. He exemplifies our values with his consistently high level of professionalism and openness – whether dealing with external clients or colleagues. He is always willing to embrace change and try new approaches. He is also an excellent content creator who supports his colleagues and strives to deliver outstanding results. Anyone that works with Rob has only positive things to say about their experience, so it’s great to see this recognised.”

Well done Rob!!

BiP One Recognition – Q2 Outstanding Performance Award

Our second winner of the BiP ONE Recognition Awards for Q2 was our lovely Event Coordinator Mhairi MacNeil who won the Outstanding Performance Award.

Mhairi’s line manager Laura Aitkenhead had a few words to say…

“Mhairi moved into a new role in the events team only three weeks before the start of our event season in Q2. The job and skill set are very different to her previous role, however Mhairi jumped straight in and picked up the GO Awards Scotland and Wales, showing a passion for these projects, and a commitment to making them the best events possible. She worked with stakeholders across the business to ensure all requirements were met, showing after only a short space of time, a clear understanding of the key aspects of this new role. Mhairi really stepped up to the mark and I’m delighted to have her as Co-Ordinator in the Events Team”

Congratulations Mhairi!

BiP Solutions Limited is a company registered in Scotland with Company Number SC086146 and VAT number 383030966 and having its registered office at Medius, 60 Pacific Quay, Glasgow, G51 1DZ.

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