This week Katrina Cliffe, MD of marketing company KC Communications, runs us through a week in her working life. To suggest another senior media or creative figure for A Week In My Life, please email david@prolificnorth.co.uk
Monday 17th April
My mornings always begin with a review of the news, usually via BBC Breakfast and various news apps on my phone. Keeping in mind the diverse industries our clients operate, I often find at least one sector specific topic that can be sent to the account management team. Once I’ve scoured the news, I head over to Twitter to see what’s trending.
As a mum of two girls, I keep my morning scroll through the news to a minimum before taking care of the morning rush and walking them to school (I’m lucky that home, school and the office are all within a 10-minute walk of each other).
Monday morning kicked off with the introduction of a new staff member and helping her get settled into the KC Office before heading out to a new business meeting. After a positive meeting discussing social media strategy, I’m back in the office for some one-to-one catch ups with the team on their clients and workload for the week.
Monday evenings are usually spent at my grandparents, who collect the girls from school, but as they’re on holiday, I finish early. After spending some time with the kids and my husband, it’s back to the laptop to work on my Diploma in Web & Social Media Analytics which I am undertaking with the CIM. The deadline for the first draft is coming up, so I envisage spending most of my week working on it.
Tuesday 18th April
Tuesday was an early start as I head to my former school to hold a career talk. I have recently been appointed the role of Enterprise Adviser at Salendine Nook High School in conjunction with the Leeds Enterprise Partnership, which gives me a great opportunity to provide support and guidance surrounding employment for pupils while also promoting marketing as a profession and the varying roles within the sector.
After the morning talk, I head back to the office for more briefings with the team before making my way to our new office to meet with decorators and various other tradespeople. We are set to move to a bigger office in April, so the past week has consisted of a lot of planning and envisioning the interior design.
Decorator briefed, I set off to meet with a potential client who is looking to move on from their current agency. Hopefully, we won them over and gave marketing and PR a good name again!
I get back to the office in time to fit a good afternoon of work in, leaving at 5:45, I grab the kids from the after-school club and catch up with my husband and kids over a very glamorous fish finger tea! Once again, I get my head down into my CIM Diploma.
Wednesday 19th April
With CPD playing an important part in the growth of KC Communications and the results we achieve for our clients, I attended a Leadership training session hosted by Connect Yorkshire in Leeds. Once back in the office it’s catching up on never ending stream of emails and phone messages.
At lunch, I pop out to see one of our latest clients who has just opened their business, which I also use as an opportunity to get some photography to promote on social media. We like to meet face to face with our clients wherever possible, so this was a great opportunity to see how their first day of business was going.
Rolling onto the evening, I attended a VIP screening of Logan along with Sarah, one of our account manager’s. Hosted for the business partners of Huddersfield Town Football Club, we were even treated to a VIP appearance from Professor X himself, Sir Patrick Stewart.
Thursday 20th April
For the first time all week I had the morning to get my head down in the office before more new business meetings (it’s been a busy week of new leads after we exhibited at the Kirklees Business Conference). Lots of time spent getting up to speed with existing projects and undertaking the planning for future activity. Most exciting was discussing exhibition opportunities with an overseas event management team for one of our clients.
Thursday evening I was invited as a guest to the Grant Thornton CEO Dinner in Leeds. The dinner was a follow-up to the Vibrant Economy conference they held in January around improving the vibrancy of Leeds and the wider Leeds City Region. Over a fabulous three course dinner, we discussed topics which arose in the conference, as expected the digital skills gap was a huge focus. The dinner was attended by a great mix of business leaders from varying sectors which made for a unique and interesting debate.
Friday 21st April
I’ve been looking forward to this day all week: a chance to catch up on the week’s activities before heading to my youngest daughter’s school to join her for dinner. School dinners have certainly changed since I was at primary school, but it was a great opportunity to spend some quality time together.
Following a lovely sunny afternoon in the playground I then head down to the new office to help scrape up the old carpet – never let it be said that I won’t muck in to get a job done!
After that, it’s home, curry on order (after all, I’ve just worked those calories off) before reviewing and getting my to-do list in order ready for the following week.
Saturday 22nd April
I spend ALL day working on my diploma to get the final draft completed. It’s a beautiful day outside which makes it all the more difficult.
Sunday 23rd April
It’s Sunday – or what I refer to as family day – so I fully embrace the opportunity to spend the day with my daughters and husband, which includes a lovely lunch and cocktails over at a country pub in Ripponden before heading back home in a food coma.
