Hayley Peters oversees PR services at Manchester-based communications, social and creative agency Smoking Gun.
One of the agency’s leading figures, she’s worked with clients including Aldi, Warburtons, Holiday Inn, and All Saints in her career, having joined Smoking Gun in 2014.
Prior to Smoking Gun, Peters worked at Weber Shandwick for eight years, joining Smoking Gun originally as Associate Director. With a passion for data and insights, she has a great deal of experience in areas like travel, hospitality, and mother and baby.
We found out how a recent week in her life looked.
Monday
Monday = WFH day. Since COVID, Smoking Gun has kept Mondays and Fridays to WFH days. It was something the team overwhelmingly voted in favour of, providing a better work-life balance for all.
I’m up first in our house – breakfast sorted for the rabble. While they’re all quiet and eating, I quickly catch up on emails and check Twitter for any breaking news. Kids clothes are laid out – I always have the intention of doing it the night before but I’m usually flaked out on the sofa, mustering just enough energy to wash my face and brush my teeth before bed.
I check my oldest son is all packed up and heads out on time for high school. One down, three to go! I throw a packed lunch together for the fussy five-year-old who refuses the free school meals he could have. He literally won’t entertain anything but a ham sandwich.
I chase the five- and three-year-old around the house to do their hair and brush their teeth. Shoes – where are everyone’s shoes?! The five-year-old heads off to school with my husband. Two down. I whisk the one- and three-year-old into the car and head for nursery.
Once back home, I have a quick tidy up – there’s breakfast stuff, PJs and toys everywhere! – which usually means throwing all the breakfast stuff in the sink, the clothes on the bed, and closing the door until later… and I’m ready to begin the (paid) working day.
A lovely cuppa, a silent house; what a treat! I check the news headlines and we have a team planning call to start the week. Mid-morning I have a weekly client call with one of our biggest clients. We have a big brand launch coming up and the business is relatively new to PR so we’re working very closely with the marketing team to take the C-suite on that journey.
Email catch ups. I don’t work Fridays so have quite a bit to catch up on. I tend to use Monday to get my head down and get on with some of my bigger tasks which require thinking time.
I have a strategy document to pull together for a client. We’re helping them to improve their measurement across all marcomms, and are looking at developing a Google Data Studio Dashboard. This pulls all data together from different sources into one easy to read, dynamic dashboard, which will save time and help them make more informed decisions.
Next up, I have a call with the Account Managers as we’re currently reviewing our media database/monitoring tool – they’re trialling Propel, so I’m keen to get their feedback.
I check in with one of our Account Managers – we have a big sell-in going on and are yet to land broadcast opps, so we discuss how we make the pitch more compelling for broadcast media.
Another client call regarding a big link-building project going live next month for a cycling specialist law firm – the call is to discuss the microsite element, what’s required and brief the dev team.
We find out the dev team might not have the resource to help with the interactive build element, so I put in a follow-up call to a supplier to see if they can help.
For the final job of the day, I pull a quick supporting document together for the law firm client so they can brief the agent of our campaign ambassador. The kids come through the door with dad and it’s on to tea, homework, and bedtime routines.
Tuesday
Up early for 6am run coach training – I’ve been doing this six months now, and I love it. It gives me accountability and has massively improved my fitness and pace.
Home for 6:50am, a quick shower and then the morning routine with the kids begins. I arrive in the office just after 9am.
We have our monthly management meeting at 10am – today we’re heading off-site to Dishoom which is a couple of doors down from the office – the breakfast naan is so good!
In the meeting, we review where we are tracking against revenue targets, client growth opportunities and issues, resourcing, and Smoking Gun’s own marketing. Since the end of January it’s gone new business crazy, so we spend quite a bit of time reviewing briefs and assessing what is a good fit for the agency and the resource required.
I use the afternoon to get the client budget report up-to-date and review team capacity across the agency – the senior team want to know who can support on current client pressures, live new business briefs, and Smoking Gun marketing work.
