4 minutes

A day in the life of an Agency Director with Sarah Williams

It’s all systems go here at Ortus as we approach the end of the first business quarter for 2022. Our team works tirelessly to maintain high performing accounts for our clients, but meanwhile, our Associate Director, Sarah, is firmly in the driving seat keeping the cogs turning behind the scenes for the agency as a whole.

We recently tasked Sarah with sharing the ins and outs of a ‘typical’ working day as the Director of our agency - here’s what she gets up to alongside her personal instagram pursuits, pooch sitting, styling her new build home and generally living!...

7am 

My alarm goes off, and I have found as the mornings are getting lighter I’m finding it easier to not snooze it over the next hour! I head straight to get changed into my gym gear and visit my makeshift home gym in our garage for 30-60 minutes of HIIT and weights. The change I find in myself from dragging myself out of bed and committing this time is crazy and I feel like I have so much more focus and energy in the day ahead when I have worked out.

8am

Over the next hour, I get myself ready, have a light breakfast and catch up on LinkedIn and emails and give my calendar a check on how my day is shaping up.

9am

This morning I have this hour booked out for myself to forecast how the agency is pacing in terms of our capacity, resources and new business that is looking likely for us over the next few months so I can plan for any recruitment, training and purchases in terms of tools and software to support our services in the coming months. I always schedule any number-related tasks for myself in the morning whilst my brain is most awake and focused! 

10am

As we approach the end of this quarter, it’s time for me to sit down with the team and review their QBR decks they have put together for their upcoming meetings with our clients. This is one of my favourite tasks to do as it allows me to look at the future thinking strategies being put forward, catch up with the latest industry updates and a chance for me to play devil's advocate on what other opportunities we could be discussing based on each client's objective, whether that is in the paid industry or wider industry/on-site opportunities for growth!

The ones I’ve read through today have been great, with a lot of actions coming to Q2 for our clients around enhanced conversions, first party focus and expanding testing of performance max campaigns to get ahead of the game when smart shopping retires in a few months time.

11:30am

I have a half hour call with our head of people and development to run through all things Ortus. We are a people first agency - so it’s a no-brainer that I have a monthly check in with her to discuss things like: our recruitment updates, how we create a great place to work, what more we could be doing to support our people, how we could further develop our people's skills, whether that is specifically within paid marketing or wider within our N21 group for areas such as confidence or presentation training. 

Lunch

A quick bowl of soup whilst catching up on emails and Slacks from this morning and then it’s straight into our office to join my marketing manager Becky for a meeting! I have to say I do love the perk of hybrid working so I can crack on with calls/work when I need but also have the option to work in the office for collaboration/team sessions as I do really appreciate the face to face element and bouncing ideas in a group setting. 

12:30pm

As myself and Becky bounce so many ideas off each other for our Ortus marketing plans, we try to do these in person when possible as we get so much more out of our session that way! We set out what outcomes we want to achieve by the end of the next quarter and work back from there on what needs to happen each month. We run through everything from our content plan and focus areas, upcoming collaboration work with our partners, upcoming publications we’re to be featured in and what marketing can do to support our recruitment plans over the next few months too!  

2:30pm

I have this time blocked out to focus on preparing for our teams upcoming “roundtable” - whereby it’s my turn to bring a trending topic/feature/set of insights in the industry to our team for us to discuss if this is something that may impact our clients and if so, what can we do to support/capitalise on as a result. We brought this in as a great way to get our team away from their desk and really think about external factors which can/may affect our clients' businesses in the future and work together to come up with an action plan where required too!

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3:30pm

We have a new starter in our team this week, so I have taken her in to a meeting to run through areas on our Ortus values, our culture and also to run through more technical bits like our client proposals - so she gets to see first hand what we propose to our clients, how we approach briefs and how our strategies are formulated to achieve their overarching objectives. 

4:30pm

As we approach the end of another month, I spend the last part of my afternoon writing up both our client newsletter and my own newsletter, wrapping up on what has happened in the last month, industry updates you need to know about and some top tips along the way.


I wish I could write that I do something crazy with my weeknight evenings - but I’m very much the type to simply enjoy spending it with my partner, friends or family and it always revolves around a big hearty meal! Whilst the nights are starting to get lighter I'm loving nothing more than finishing work and going for a walk in the sunshine as we head into Spring!

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Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn here for a catch up on anything business/paid marketing!