6:30 am: Wake up, shower and read morning paper while kids are having breakfast. Scout the ads for any competitor’s ads and read the industry and competitor news in the papers as well.
8:20 am: In the office. Nice and quite this early and since we sit in a noisy open office environment these precious quiet morning minutes before the rest of the team shows up allow me to catch up on the night’s emails and do some quiet strategic thinking and solitary brainstorming before the day begins.
9:00 am: The team begins to filter in and we huddle in the conference room for our morning marketing meeting. Sadly the team continues to filter in till8:15 am and the meeting never starts on time which is why I have withdrawn the coffee and doughnuts morning incentive I used to offer a year ago! We discuss the day’s deliverables, deadlines and all pending projects and visits/meetings planned for the day. If a brainstorming session or other sessions are necessary following this meeting we schedule them for a fixed time later on in the day rather than allowing the meeting to drag endlessly for everyone.
9:45 am: The day begins in earnest. The floor is a bustle of activity with phones ringing, colleagues chatting, mini-meetings taking place and the delivery boys delivering coffee, tea and morning snacks. I settle down and start responding to my emails and returning any urgent phone calls.
10:00 am: Meeting with our PR Agency here in our offices. We have just signed on a new corporate PR agency and they are still getting to know our vision, mission, objectives and array of products/services. Today is a familiarization meeting to introduce them to the members of the executive team and our products/services and new upcoming initiatives in detail. I already have2 press releases pending and am anxious to start the PR process as soon as possible.
11:30 am: Sneak out of the PR meeting leaving the marketing manager to take the lead as I cannot afford to dedicate any more time to it – busy day ahead! Check my emails and voice-mail again then sit down to respond to morning messages. Spend half an hour reading through the field sales reports and analyzing trends for the week versus historic trends. I have an elaborate spreadsheet n my system which I review on a daily basis and analyze in depth one a week.
12:15 pm: Quick sandwich lunch at my desk with an energetic young marketing coordinator to go through some promotional materials he has created working closely with the advertising agency following my approval of a seasonal promotional campaign on a rather slow-moving cosmetics product. I am very happy with the samples and photos he shows me of the point-of-sales materials and set-up.
2 pm: Meeting with production manager from the factory. We are behind schedule with a new cosmetic product we are launching and they are visiting us today to explain results of latest clinical trials on product and make suggestions for moving forward. There are issues with the shelf life of this product still which we are unhappy with and they need to resolve before we take this to market. This delay is proving to be an expensive exercise and if we fail to sanction a suitable product this year it will have been a very expensive exercise indeed!
4 pm: Meeting with advertising agency for preview of point-of-sales materials for another product range we market. Our brief was very clear as it comes from our company’s headquarters overseas mostly and there is not too much room for variation in the local markets – fortunately, they have managed to meet the brief exactly.
6 pm: Back in office. Open up my marketing budget spreadsheet and make some checks and updates. I spend30 minutes analysing numbers and trying to squeeze some slack out of my budget for some advertising activity in a new medium we have decided to explore.
6:30 pm: Meeting to interview a candidate for a position on my team. I manage16 people around the region and interviewing is a routine part of my job.
7:30 pm: Check our website for some updates I requested implemented on the pages related to our new competition which we are hosting to promote a certain product; the competition is my brainchild and is attracting tonnes of attention and response from around the region!
8:00 pm: Lost myself browsing the net as usual looking at other product competitions and our competitors’ products and websites. Time to head home! But not before I send a few more emails to the team with some ideas I just had . . . .
8:30 pm: Force myself out the door of the office – still so much to do . . . . .
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