Follow Carrie Round London For A Day
Onefish Twofish consultant, Carrie, spends a busy day with clients in London. Find out how much she can pack into a day and who she met...
"Today is going to be a busy day, so I’m at my desk bright and early at 7am, checking emails and tidying up loose ends before I head to London on the train.
My carriage is quiet so it’s straight out with the laptop for 54 minutes of furious copywriting. I tend to procrastinate heavily when it comes to writing copy, always leaving it to the last possible moment. But give me a finite period of uninterrupted time and I can write up to 1000 good quality words of copy an hour. By the time I get to Paddington, I’ve written a complete first draft of an important case study based on eight interviews with a FTSE100 company. This is a great feeling which buoys me all the way to my first meeting.
At 11am, I meet up with a coach and entrepreneur I met a couple of years ago at a seminar on building and selling a consultancy. He’s a fascinating man and someone who doesn’t limit himself to one particular domain of expertise which I have always found refreshing. We have coffee and a good chat about both our businesses, with helpful insight in both directions.
By 1pm, I’m late for my next appointment so I scuttle from Charing Cross to Aldwych to view a venue booked by a client for an upcoming event. It’s stunning and all the staff are extremely helpful which is a great start. The only problem is, our event marketing has been a little too successful and we’re running the risk of overfilling the room. So we have a quick chat about chair configurations before I realise I’m running late, again…
It’s 1.45pm and I’ve hot-footed it to the Institute of Directors on Pall Mall (new, not old). Onefish Twofish has set up and populated two taster sessions for a client programme so I’m here to help run the event and continue to market the programme. Pleasingly, we have not a single no-show and the first taster session goes really well.
After a quick debrief, I nip upstairs to the members’ room where I’m meeting a client for a project meeting. We’re building a new website and I have first concepts and templates to show round. Our new bling-bling printer has not let me down and it feels great to hand round beautiful designs in what feels like a full on brochure. The designs are well received, we choose one and map out the whole website structure in a very productive one hour session. The client very kindly buys me a glass of wine – but on an empty stomach this is enough to make me forget to pay (oopsie!).
Lunch-come-dinner is at Prets where I try to soak up the alcohol with coffee and a sandwich. The next taster session begins at 7pm and this time we do have a couple of drop-outs. However, those who came more than made up for this in quality. Bizarrely, as the evening goes on I realise that I’ve met one of the delegates before when we each worked for previous employers. Plus two other delegates had been seated next to one another on a plane earlier that week. At 8.30 we’re booted out of our room so we move on to the wine bar at the old IoD to continue the serendipity.
Finally at 10pm, I head home on the train, making the most of the 63 minutes home to edit a white paper I’m due to send to a client for approval the next day. I don’t always use the late return journey so productively so I return home feeling very virtuous and ready for the next day of action."
Created on 19 September 2007