At the end of March, the Imak team had a send-off for one of our founders, Grant Macdonald, and we here at Imak Advice sincerely wish him “our best” for his retirement. He was one of ours and the industry’s best!
Whilst this is something Grant had been working toward for some time, each of us here will miss having him in the office every day. We’ll miss his incredible generosity, dad jokes, political opinions, and great advice on how to help our clients.
I met Grant when I was 29 years old (I am 56, so that was a while ago), and I had not long been in the industry. He took time to coach me on some helpful ways to advise clients. It quickly occurred to me that this man was as comfortable around the kitchen table as he was at the boardroom table.
If Grant was your adviser, you’ll know how involved he liked to get in helping you with your situation. He really cared about the relationship and was not there just to make an insurance sale. Relationships are important to Grant, and he was not sitting in front of you as some transactional salesperson.
As one of our founders, this philosophy underpins our values here at Imak Advice. When we re-branded, we took time with all our staff to sit down with Dow Design to work out what Imak Advice would stand for. Essentially, we came up with phrases like “upfront and personal”, “straight-talking and no jargon”. This will not change going forward.
If you were a client of Grant’s and want to know who will be helping you now, you can call me. I can determine which one of our six advisers may be most suitable based on your insurance/investment portfolio. My details are Darryl Scott, 09 307 9300 or 021 536 402. Alternatively, you can email me at darryl@imak.co.nz.
Aside from this, you will be getting a call during the year from one of our advisers to see if they can help.
To finish, I will tell one of Grant’s best dad jokes.
“Father gets home from work to find his son fixed in front of his computer. The father thinks, “Has he been there all day? I need to get him out of the house.” Father says, “Son, get in the car. We’re going to the zoo”.
The son rolls his eyes and reluctantly gets in the car. They reach the zoo and only find one animal; it is a small dog in a cage. The son looks at the father, looks at the cage, then looks back at his father and says, “Dad, this is a Shitsu”.
Well, I thought it was funny. 😊
Darryl Scott
General Manager