Greg Fairbotham is CEO and Founder at Cheshire-based electric vehicle sharing platform Zoom EV.
He left the oil and gas sector to set up Zoom EV, a Mobility as a Service (MaaS) provider, which encourages drivers to choose electric vehicles by making the switch easier and cheaper.
We found out how a recent week in his life went, which starts on a Sunday…
Sunday
PLANNING – the key to any successful week is knowing the key things you must get done and actioned. On Sundays, I look at what I’ve got coming up that coming week and what essential tasks need to be started or completed. This means I already know what I’ve got to achieve on delivering to make a successful week, assuming there are no curve balls, of which there tend to be a few.
I also run through my diary with my wife as she runs her own business. We go through it day by day so that we’ve both got an understanding of what meetings the other has and what we need to get done as a family. As we have a 20-month-old, we need to be as on it as possible!
Monday
All days start early with a 20-month-old… 5.30 am to be precise. So I’m up getting him fed and playing numbers games and football. Generally, I try and keep Mondays free from travel. I tend to drop my son at nursery and then get home to do exercise – I’ve converted my garage into a gym, as I like to start my week as I mean to go on… positively!
Not travelling means I can blitz through key actions early on in the week. We have partner calls with Direct Line Group (DLG) to check project performance and tie-ins and I’ll check in with the Zoom Member Support team to ensure they’re across the requests that came in over the weekend and the customers I responded to over that period.
Monday evening is around spending time with my son, it’s usually playing in the garden, making sure he waters the plants (we’ve nailed getting him to enjoy such menial tasks!) and playing a bit of football.
Tuesday
Tuesday we’re out early as my wife runs with a friend in nearby Tatton Park.
First up, I have my call with Zoom’s Head of Marketing to run through the key marketing activities that we have going on. As we have large organisations as our partners and with that number of partners increasing, it’s important to ensure we’re on top of the various activities and managing the various launches. Recently we’ve had new initiatives with DLG and Churchill go live, so there has been a lot of focus on the campaigns for these initiatives and the communications going out to the various customer sets that we have.
In the afternoon, it’s usually a couple of tie-in calls with clients to run through the next phases of projects with the likes of Lloyds Banking Group and the DLG EV team.
Tuesday evening at 8.30 pm it’s football time, so I get to burn off the steam for the day. After football, it’s home for a peppermint tea whilst I run through the Projects board before the team call the following morning. I’ll probably also throw in some YouTube videos on the latest blockchain and crypto updates as this is another area of passion for me.
Wednesday
Hump day…. Wednesday (another early start) and another day for my son at nursery so it’s all about getting him ready, fed and watered. If my wife has dropped him off then I’ll likely go in the garage gym for an early workout. It’s usually a quick burner as I’ve got my projects call at 9am that I like to be ready for.
The projects call is a great way for the team to check in and ensure we’re across as much as possible. It also gives us all the opportunity to get the latest updates as well as know where there might be some sticking points and where people might need some help. We utilise ASANA to go through these projects and tick off outstanding actions and add in new ones that require completion. We try and rattle through as quickly as we can, without losing the effectiveness of the session. It’s important that we also discuss any issues that anyone is experiencing as we like to feed these back proactively to suppliers wherever possible.
Swiftly after this meeting, we go into some of our dealer-group launch meetings. Wednesday is usually a good day to get calls and meetings in the diary so it’s usually a busy one! I may throw in a run for good measure.
Thursday
A day for smashing through some tasks. My wife and I are lucky to have the support of some amazing grandparents, so on Thursdays ‘NANA’ is on hand to manage the mischief.
Generally it will be a day of continuing business development and tying in with the rest of the team on a personal level. We’re a small team but as we all work remotely I like to try and connect personally with each member for at least five minutes as we’re so busy throughout the week.
I like to try and keep Thursday open to complete as many tasks as possible, whether it be completing or reviewing contracts, working on business proposals, or following up with key partners. Without fail, they will be some firefighting that has to be done but that’s par for the course! In the evening I like to write up my notes and actions from the week in anticipation of our team meeting the following day.
Friday
The Friday morning workout is an absolute MUST and a staple part of the week. It finishes the work week strong and starts the weekend right.
I always look forward to the team Friday morning meeting. The first 15 minutes are our coffee and catch-up, talking about things in our personal lives, our families and sometimes the utterly ridiculous! We’re pretty good at helping one another with the latest films and book recommendations and of course plenty of food talk.
We also run through performance numbers, new customers in the week, where they have come from etc. This means we are aware of expected numbers and can look to work with our partners where needed. Again, we’re a small team but with this approach and working as connectedly as we do, the team cover so much ground and it’s amazing to watch and be part of.
Post the team call, I’ll tend to have a couple of partner calls that focus on the implementation of our solution. We’ve got a few large partners we’re working with who require quite a lot of guidance on the utilisation of our data upload and API mechanisms and as they tend to be large groups, finance and insurance organisations there is a lot of red tape. We have to keep pushing on these fronts towards launches in the next quarter. We like to make sure everything is as lined up as possible and being honest it’s a good way of keeping partners on track wherever possible!
Towards the end of the day, I’ll tend to make a couple of tie-in calls with the team or some of our key partners that we have outstanding relationships with to keep things aligned and moving forward. I like to also try and get the team to finish early wherever possible. There are tough weeks and lots of spinning plates, so it’s good to try and give people an hour or so back to start the weekend early, especially when it’s sunny! Zoom EV has a fantastic team so making sure we reward them and continue to promote a healthy balance is incredibly important.
