Trivinia Barber — Creating Momentum with Your EA

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill g. One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. You know whether you've tried to use an executive assistant before, Va ea, whatever it is, or you know you need to, or you've tried it and you haven't done it. Well, we've got some gold for you today. We have an expert here on all things related to working with others and we're going to get into that in just a minute with Trevinia Barber. Hey everybody, my name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of this show, the Scaling of Business podcast. We bring our show to you every week. We've got a new show on everything to do with growing your business, getting the strategy right, aligning the team, getting the right team, engaging them, executing better, even improving your cash model and a lot to do with the leadership required to get the company there. We bring our show to you every week, over 400 episodes now and all these. So if we aren't covering it today, I'm sure we have something in that back catalog. You'll find all that and more@scalingcoach.com our website, scalingcoach.com or wherever you're getting this now. So LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Apple, podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, et cetera, et cetera. Like wherever you get it, subscribe like it right there and you'll get them every week. So we put out stuff, we go live with the recordings and video, we put the audio out later. Hundreds of shows now. All right, I want to welcome Trevinia Barber. Trevinia, welcome to the show.

Hey Bill, thanks for having me here. I'm glad to be here.

Trevinia joins us from outside or in Savannah area really and is an all around expert speaker, podcast host, author, leadership consultant on all things to do with entrepreneurs and business leaders getting their executive assistance right. And she founded a company called Priority VA and developed this momentum method so that people could dial that in. And she's been featured on many other podcasts and shows and that kind of thing around the world. So I'm really excited to have you with us today.

Yeah, glad to be here. This is such an important topic for leaders. So glad to have the opportunity to chat about it.

Yeah, it really is. I think there's a couple categories, and we hear from them all with our audience. So we have early stage entrepreneurs who are hardly working with much of a team, and then we have people who have really well established, significant teams. And at every stage of growth, I mean, from I don't have any employees, solopreneurs up to I have thousands of employees, I see people all struggling with this. What is the job? How do I get somebody to work with me? How do I do more of my unique ability? How do I work well with that person? Right. How do we design it? How do we recruit it? How do I work well? That, I think, comes after you've hired it, and you're like, God, this isn't working out. And then you go through a couple and you're like, what is it that I'm doing wrong?

Yeah. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes it is you, but sometimes it's a faulty process. Right. So is this a people problem or a process problem? That's, like the number one question I always like to ask leaders, and we got to get down to the real answer of that. Sometimes it's truly that you've never worked with someone before. Maybe you're a great photographer or you're a great coach, but you have no idea how to build a team. And so that's where people like us come in to help leaders kind of figure out their stuff and make the right decisions so they can have the right person serving them.

Awesome. So as we get into that now, let's talk first about how you got into this line of work. Where did you get your experience? How did you develop your credibility in this area?

Well, I got my experience by being the ea. Right? So I started as an executive assistant when I was 18 years old, working in an adult daycare for Alzheimer's patients, serving the executive director there as their assistant moved on through my own corporate journey of being an executive assistant. And then when I wanted to have children and grow a family, I convinced my leadership to let me work from home, networked for a really long time until they got bought out by a national organization. And they said, you want to come back into the office? And at that point, I was like, Nah, I'm good. And so I started my freelance executive assistant journey. Got connected with some high level entrepreneurs who started talking about me on their podcasts or in their books or blogs or whatever. And from there, LinkedIn and Facebook and a few phone calls even came in of, can you be my EA too?

Yeah.

And interestingly, back in corporate, I helped onboard physicians into medical practices. And I would walk out of a meeting and I'd say, that guy's not going to work. And they'd be like, how do you know? And I was like, I'm just telling you, watch. And sure enough, you know, a few months later, they're like in the parking garage with a fentanyl needle in their arm or something. And the entrepreneurial light bulb went off for me, Bill. I was like, people didn't want Trevenia, right? They didn't care about me being their assistant. They just wanted someone that they could trust. And so nine years ago, I created Priority VA with the intent to help leaders get the help they need to grow and scale their business and focus on what they do best.

Yeah, it's really great. So before we get into all the secrets and that kind of thing, let's go through some of the stories because I always like to hear those that help me to see and understand the. The lessons better. You shared a few in getting ready. You can talk about those or we can go into any others that come to mind as you go. But why don't you start with Harry and Ashley? Are these their real names? Are these altered names?

Oh, no, we'll use real names. We're good, we're good. But Harry and Ashley are a great indication of a problem that we solve here at Priority VA to help leaders get traction. I mean, it's one of the things that is really important to us. And Harry came to us, Having worked with EAs in the past, and some good, some not so great. And he came to us because someone had said, no, they're really good at matching you with someone who will get you right. And so one of the things that we worked with Harry was to figure out what went wrong in his other relationships and why he was having sort of false starts with all of these people, right. He'd think it was going well and almost like driving a stick shift car, right? He's like dumping the clutch a lot of times. And what was happening is that, wow.

A manual transmission reference. I think we just lost half the audience. Who's driving?

Did I just age myself? Everyone should know how to drive a manual by the way. But what we were looking to do with Harry was to help get traction. And by that I mean get an EA who was going to get him, right? Who was going to take the time to understand how he worked, what he needed, and then help get him to out of the weeds and out of doing the things that he had no business doing. Interestingly, I was on a call with Harry earlier today and we were talking about how he used to be the one riding all the sops as a CEO of multiple businesses, right? So we had to get him out of that seat and put him in the visionary seat where he belonged. And so Ashley came along. She took the time and the energy to get to know him, to sit down with him and ask him all the questions instead of him sort of spoon feeding everything to his ea. And then she. He was able to quickly say, I'm taking this off your plate. I'm doing this. From now on, you go focus on doing this. And that allowed them to get traction that previously he'd really struggled to get because he felt like he had to keep sort of being a taskmaster for the EAs that he had working for him.

You know, a couple things I hear right off the bat in this story that I think are really relevant. So in many industries, we hire easier or other kinds of roles who want to break into an industry and who want to be us, right? We hire somebody like the super agent, hires the person who wants to be them someday, and they just get treated like hell and they get run through the mill and they learn their chops and then they become the person to take them over. And especially as a coach in this realm, I've encountered many people who have wanted to work with me, who wanted to have my job, and I never hired a one of them because I'm like, that's not what I need. I need somebody who's different than me, not like me.

I have such a funny story about that, Bill. So Clay Hebert is a brilliant human who helps people identify what he calls the six word intro. And it helps explain what you do to other people, right? To get them interested and wanting to know more. And so I said, clay, what would mine be? And he said, oh, yours is easy, you clone entrepreneurs. And I was like, yes, that's what we do. And for years we use that as our tagline, cloning. And then I started thinking, I was like, no. Oh my God, no. We do not want to freaking clone entrepreneurs. That's the last thing we want to do. We don't Want to replicate your problems, we want to help mitigate them. Right. And so, yeah, we had to change the way that we talked about what we did because you don't want to clone as much as you think you do.

That word I hear again and again from people, especially early stage people, people moving from small teams or solopreneur they like, I just want to clone myself. No, you don't. You want somebody to compliment you. Wanda, who's in the background getting the things ready and is my backbone, is really different for me. And there are many days that drives her crazy.

Yeah. And I think you have to have it is. You know, you can't have light without dark peanut butter and jelly. Right. You need that difference of opinion, those different skill sets. Right. Sometimes you, Bill, you're likely a visionary. You come up with ideas for days. Right. So you've got to be able to pass that baton to someone so they can execute on those ideas and know.

Which ones not to even bother with. Right. Know which ones to ignore, to let go. That was a nice idea in one ear, out the other.

Yeah, for sure.

Really a great first lesson. How about Frankie, Frank and Katie? I want to say Frankie and Katie, I think would make a better movie title.

Start teasing them and calling them that.

Frankie and Katie.

Frankie and Katie are a really great example of training. So training for the leader and training for the executive assistant. So Frank came to us, a really successful entrepreneur who had never had an executive assistant before. And that the point I want to make with that this story is that, yes, you can build a $50 million business and not have an executive assistant. You can for sure. But one of the things that Frank told us when he came to us, he said, you know, when I started out and I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I had this idea of going on vacation whenever I wanted and having a whole bunch of money and being able to wake up and work at 10am If I wanted to or not.

A lot of people start business like that and it doesn't go that way exactly.

Right. The reality of what it meant to build an amazing business like he had was, you know, him maybe writing emails at 2am in his boxer shorts at the kitchen table. Right. It had become something very different. And so he came to us saying, like, I heard that everyone should have an EA and here I am. And what we were trying to do with Frank and Katie was we were trying to get him space because his co founder was going away on maternity leave. And all of a sudden the weight of the reality of what was about to hit him in mere weeks became very real. And so he came to us looking for some support, and we paired him with Katie, who has been such a rock star. Instead of him needing to say, hey, Katie, here's my business, and here are the, you know, seven happy hops that I want you to handle for me, she came into the business and she said, all right, Frank, here's what I need from you. Right. She onboarded him instead of him needing to onboard her. And that only happens when you have an EA that has training. In that case, she can train him how to best use her. And that's just been such a beautiful case of how someone who's never had help could pretty quickly instantly feel the relief of having the right person serve them.

So I think that does point to a really good thing. There are a lot of folks who have kind of the right personality traits, the right preferences and skills to be an assistant of some kind, but they don't necessarily know how to organize it, how to take the things from their. From their boss like that.

Yeah, yeah. There's. There's three things, I think, that make up good training for an executive assistant. And the first is kind of tactical competency, right? Like, if you can't figure out a time zone, then this job is going to be pretty hard for you. Right? So there's got to be just this competency to get in and figure out what you're supposed to do. And then you have to have that comprehensive onboarding piece. You got to know the right questions to ask and honestly when to ask them, right? So that you can get the answers that you need from your leader. And then you've got to have personal development. You know, you and I, likely, we join masterminds for CEOs and for founders and leaders of companies, right? You go get help where you need it, and you get support where you need it. But a lot of EAs, they sort of stop. They get the gig, right? And they're like, all right, this is my boss and this is what I do. And we're trying to encourage EAs, like, you're a leader, too, so why don't you go get leadership support so that you can be better at the job that you do, too?

Yeah, that's, I think, a really useful thing to think about, like, get the. Learn how to do that. Give your EA some support. And there are a variety of training programs and organizations out there. You have one.

I do.

Which we'll plug and go ahead and tell them about it now.

Well, we we do, we have a mentorship. It's basically a mastermind for executive assistants where they go to get encouraged, equipped, empowered and really engaged with. Right. We like to say we fill them up so they are ready to pour out to you and take care. And I look at it this way, you as a leader, you go to a mastermind, you make sure that you are learning the cutting edge technologies and things and new tactics and, and even new theories of how to lead.

Absolutely.

Your EA needs to be doing the same thing and for a relatively low cost you can ensure that your EA is getting the same support. So really they're not coming to you looking for it. Right. So they're getting it elsewhere.

Well, we can put the link there. We'll mention again at the end, we'll put it in the show notes. It's. Is it Momentum Headquart or is that not the. Yeah, momentum headquarters.com momentum headquarters.com. i think that's a great thing to think about. And the instinct is either we don't give them any training at all or we give them really company or job specific training or we try to bring them into our world. Oh, they should come with me to my like whatever it is. And no, they need a different skill set to do a different job than you need to do. So it's not necessarily bringing them into your world that makes the difference. Training around others who are doing the same kind of thing I think can be really helpful. Sharing, learning, learning how to solve these problems together. We don't have to reinvent everything.

One of the things that I think Bill is also really important is that you're not. You don't go to your mastermind to just complain. Right. You go to solve problems. And so that's what we've really tried to create in our mentorship is I don't want people just complaining and bitching about their bosses all day long. I want them to come with their problems so we can solve them for good. So that they're lives and their leaders lives are impacted in a positive way. So yeah, you also have to be sure that you're creating an opportunity for them to actually up level, not just do the status quo, but to actually get better.

Yeah. So we talked about first getting ready for it, finding the right kind of person, now training. Talk about Shelley and Fiona and Heather.

Yeah, two amazing leaders. Founded an amazing company in Canada called the Idea Suite and you know, one of the foundations of building a good relationship with an executive assistant. And it starts really with trust. If you don't have trust, you have nothing. Now, some leaders are the type that they're going to give you trust until you break it and then you're a little bit in trouble. Others are a little bit more guarded, right? And you have to earn their respect, earn their trust. And Shelley and Fiona are rock stars. They are amazing. We did a search for them called a spotlight search, meaning we had an executive assistant in our network who had served other leaders who we got glowing reviews from. Like, saved my life. Like, I would never work without them, all those things. So we placed this EA in their.

Company, worked somewhere else, didn't work here, didn't work here.

And that's the whole point, right, is that who's a fit for you might not be a fit for someone else. And especially when you have two leaders, right? A CO, CEOs or maybe an EA serving an entire C suite. It might work for one fraction of that C suite, but not the other. And if everyone doesn't have trust, it's not going to work. And so we had to start over, which, fine, totally great. We do those types of things. And we found them. Heather. And the beautiful thing about Heather was that she was patient enough with Shelly and with Fiona to be able to go at their pace, to earn their trust, to take the small little task, crush that, wait for the next one, right? Maybe wait to be given access to credit cards and emails and calendar management and all those things. She just met them exactly where they were, built the trust by doing what she said she was going to do, by taking care of the things that she needed to do. And what happened is that they were like, oh, my gosh, this is magical. This is exactly what we had hoped for in the first placement. And the only way that that can happen is by getting consistent results, right? Just always knocking it out of the park. Now, look, we're humans and people are going to make mistakes, but if you're consistent, 90% of the time when you slip up, it's going to be okay. But we have to have consistent results. We also have to have active commitments, commitment to learn, to get better, to be patient and to wait. And then the final piece of that trust factor is, is connected communication. And that looks like being vulnerable, being able to ask hard questions and being able to be seen as an ea.

Yeah. You know, I hear something else that you didn't directly speak to, but is what I often call the Goldilocks principle. Like, the person for the job is not just any old bear, but is the right one for the right situation. So the accounting firm, the lawyer, whatever, the cfo, the person you need at every stage is different, and not everybody grows with it. If you find an EA who worked for 20 years for somebody else and was really great and always awesome, but now, for the first time in 20 years, they're working for somebody new, they may hate you and not work at all. Well, with your style. Just as the person who's been in a new job every year and has worked with 10 different or more executives of some kind might also be disaster, because they're always, like, moving on and not seeing it through. So there's some balance always to finding that right fit for the job, the people, the team.

Yeah. And I think that the key to finding the right fit. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I guess it depends on who you're talking to. It actually starts with the leader, right? So I talk to a lot of leaders who are like, that one didn't work, and it's always everyone else. Right? And I. I wrote a book that's coming out next year, and it really. It's. It's all about toxic leadership. And one of the principles of toxic leadership is that we tend to abdicate responsibility and we tend to, like, blame everyone else. And when I have leaders that come and they've had nine EAs in 18 months, I'm like, friend, hi.

Take a look in the mirror.

At what point do you have to look in the mirror instead of walking around with a magnifying glass blaming everyone else? Right. Let's look in the mirror and let's address your leadership gaps. And this is why people like you, Bill, exist, right? To help leaders be better leaders, so that when we present them a beautiful, amazing, smart, talented, awesome human to work with them, they don't blow it up.

Well, this is a favorite subject of mine because it's a thing that I love and hate, right? When things go wrong, I really hate being responsible for it. I really hate that it started with me, that I'm the source of it. I really, really hate that. And to be honest, I resist it as long as possible. I go looking to blame Wanda or somebody else. I make it up just because I see her there. But I'd rather blame anybody but myself. And I hang on to that for a while, but ultimately, I know that it started with me. I set up the situation, and the minute that I look in the mirror and say, what did I do? I. I'm actually dealing with the person that's easiest to Change that I have the most direct control over the guy looking back at me. And that's a really hard thing for entrepreneurs to get their head around. Especially if you've been successful, Right. Sometimes the more successful the people that I coach with billion dollar businesses, hundreds of million dollars of sales, are sometimes often the most stubborn, arrogant, like, who are you talking to? What have you done? And blah, blah, blah. And like, I know something about something. I'm like, okay, but then why did you hire me in the first place? Because something ain't working, buddy.

Well, and I'll tell you that the question behind the question there, right, Is really often how insecure are they actually? And that happens. And we have to push through that sometimes with a lot of leaders as we're onboarding them, I ask hard questions, right? I'm like, I need to know the back end sort of shit show that's going on behind your business. I can't find you your right fit. If I just get the front stage, if I get how great of a leader you are and how many, you know, so and so has been with you for 20 years, like, but yet you're yelling at people behind the scenes, right? I got to know because I believe there is a great executive assistant out there for even the most difficult leaders.

See, there's real power in that. And you think about the downfall of so many. You know, Ellen, who I loved as a comedian, had a great show. That kind of thing really came apart because it was revealed that she was kind of a, to use your term, a shit show behind the scenes.

Yeah. She has a great front stage, right?

Like, hey, I'm awesome. I'm Ellen. Look at me. But then like, ooh, not so good behind, right? Yeah.

And I think if we can get honest about who we really are, right. I cuss like a sailor. I throw pens. I'm glad I don't work in an office. Right. This is why remote and virtual works well for me. But if I brought someone on my team and I didn't tell them upfront that I'm going to use an F bomb probably dozens of times a day, and that is something they can't handle, then I'm doing them and me a disservice. So get brutally honest about who you are and how you show up, and the right people are going to be attracted to that. The wrong people will be repelled by it. And that's exactly what we want.

Yeah, it's a really good. It's a really good thing to know who you are and be Straight about it if you're willing to manage it a little bit. I started mentoring a guy recently who comes from a Mormon LDS background. And I'm like, listen, I'm going to say fuck a few times. This show particular is about to get flagged for a language. Right. But that's who. And I've been fired recently. I've had people decline to work with me because I'm like, I told you that's kind of how I am. And they're like, yeah, we didn't realize you were going to say seven F bombs before noon. And I'm like, yeah, sometimes, not always, but sometimes that's going to be the way because I really care. And I'm not holding anything back. I'm not. I'm just like going in for what I see and I want you to win. And they're like, yeah, we get that and we want to work with somebody else. It's too much for us.

We had a leader one time work with us who was pretty transparent about who they knew and how they showed up. And we tried to express that to the executive assistant as best we could to prepare them for what they were about to walk into. And it was interesting when this human decided it wasn't going to be a fit for them. The EA decided this. They said, it really bothers me that they want me to heat up their food in a toaster oven because they're too afraid to use the microwave. Or it really bothers me that all they do is name drop all of the celebrities that they've hung out with over the years. And so that's a good learning moment for leaders everywhere. Be really honest. If you're going to name drop celebrities, do it in the interview, right? If you have a quirk about you that's important for you, that is a non negotiable for you. Get that out there at the very beginning so that we're not having someone come in and go, oh, whoa, this, this person's a little bit, you know, off kilter for what I want to do because again, it has to be a fit for both parties. And I think that some leaders make the mistake of they think like they're just the one doing the interviewing. Right. But they should also be interviewed as well.

I also think there's being like self aware. So maybe if you realized you were going to name drop celebrities endlessly, you might also get in touch with maybe I'm. Maybe I'm a little insecure. And there is a time and a place to manage it. So sometimes I'll catch myself and I'll be like, f that because I realize I want to tone it down a little bit for people. But there is. Yeah, I mean, always for both sides. The self awareness is really, really powerful. And then being willing to deal with your. To either own it or manage it or whatever it is like that. So, yeah. All right, so let's break it down a little bit. How do we decide whether or not we need an assistant? What the assistant looks like, what the assistant's job is, who to look for. Let's take through the first step of getting started with assuming that and we'll get on to the training and the working with and that kind of thing. But the first bit, like.

You need an assistant. Most of the time I would say my one caveat, the blanket answer is.

You, if you're in business, you should have an assistant.

Pretty much. My one caveat to that is that I personally believe that you should not go into debt to get help. You need to be revenue positive. So for all the solopreneurs out there, or the, you know, mompreneurs, or the people who are just still scrappy and getting started, you're going to have to suck it up for a little bit and just do the work until you're revenue positive. And then at that point, my suggestion is to not go sort of full bore and hire a full time employee or get an executive assistant at that stage. Hire a virtual assistant. There are so many in this world today. You can go offshore, you can go nearshore, you can get someone in your town or someone you know in another state a couple time zones away. So start with where you're at. There are some companies that do as little as five hours a week. We don't, we have a 10 hour threshold for that. But get support that can scale and can grow with you. But I want to give you a couple of caveats to that. The word virtual assistant, people are like, I need a va. I need a va. And I'm like, whoa, okay, that's changing. Interestingly, my company is named Priority va. We are going through a rebrand to remove that right now.

Well, I don't think. I've never worked with a virtual assistant. They've all been living, breathing human beings.

Correct. But the term virtual assistant now is more like an industry. Right. Than it is a title. You've got VAs that are doing your podcast, others that are doing your graphics, others that are writing your copy. I mean, so it's an industry. And I would tell you about a VA is that they typically own tasks. Tasks. Okay. It's less likely that they're going to own an outcome. They're going to own a task for you, which is great if that's what you want. But I would say as you start to grow and your leadership is scaling up, right. You need to have someone who's going to own outcomes for you. And that's where I tend to think that.

Powerful, powerful insight. Yes. Do you have people doing work or producing outcomes? Right, exactly.

And look, look, both are okay. I'm not here to like bash the virtual assistant industry. I just think that there's a time and a place when it works well, right.

We have both. So just to give some examples, bring it to life, make it real for people. Right. I have people that do work on our social posts and they repurpose things. They put them out, but they're not promising any number of leads, traffic, anything else. They're like, we'll take this, we'll do that. Great. They do that. Right. I have somebody else who gets our audio ready and distributes our show each week and that kind of thing. They're like, we'll take this, you'll do that. We do this, you do that. But they're not like, we're going to grow your show. There's no commitment at all to the results produced or the reason for doing any of it. Right. Same thing with my bookkeeping, with my taxes. I don't know what else I'm thinking of, like graphic design. Like I have a whole range of, of what might be called virtual or remote. And they're like regular people that I've worked with for 10 or more years in many cases. And then I have Wanda. Wanda's getting a lot of shout outs. This show who actually cares about the outcome. And I've been pretty clear from the beginning. I don't want to worry about a session. I want the session to be managed to take care of. I want you to think about it beforehand and after and I want to do my part of it. But I want you to really own it. And probably that's the most critical thing, right? Like manage it. Now, that doesn't mean I don't check in all the time. Hey, are we ready for that or we got that. Is everybody scheduled? Right. I'm just thinking of like regular recurring conversations. And she's like, yeah, yeah, no, okay, yes. You know, so, but, but really she's doing most of the owning of it, thinking about it, managing it, which frees me up a Great deal.

Exactly. Right. So your job in this case is to, you know, go live and deliver a great interview. It is not to say, are the graphics done, is the audio ready? Like, hey, you know that. And that's where a virtual assistant can really come in handy for you if you're looking to work with a contractor. If you want to work with a contractor. Again, I want to give you both sides of this. Right. So working with a contractor means they set their rates, right? They set the terms of the contract. They get a client that's going to pay them $5 an hour more, they might leave. Right? So when you're working with an employee, it makes it a little bit different. They hopefully you have vetted them well enough and they are all in on you and you're all in on them.

That big distinction. So virtual assistant has come to mean a whole range of things today. But, but it means generally like, well, correct me if I'm wrong, it means generally remote, not in your office. And it often means fractional or not full time for you.

Correct.

They're actual real people. I'm not aware of any AI assistants yet. Maybe for scheduling. There have been some attempts at it, but all mediocre chat. You could have somebody at Chatbot.

Yes. Yeah. Virtual assistants are fantastic when you need fractional support, when you don't have the type of revenue that could sustain a part time or a full time employee or benefits that might be required. Right. But there are some downsides to working with a contractor as well, like I mentioned, right. They might leave, they might have a change of heart and not like working with you anymore. Right. Whereas with an employee, they've got more skin in the game, right. You've got more time to build trust, to give them training. You can require training of an employee where you can't of a contractor. Right. And then they, they have more capacity to give to you so that the traction can happen.

That's brilliant. So that's the first bit of it. Getting the job defined, figuring out what you need and what you can afford. Right. Balancing. In the beginning I had a range of part time people, contributors recommended by friends, and then I went to full time or first nearly full time single person, then almost full time, then full time, and had a range of people full time for years now, but still complimented by lots of other people doing special tasks. And I think that'll be the case for a long time because you can today, Right. There are things that really suit themselves to being one sort of specialist who's going to just do this. And that isn't in the skill set of your primary assistant.

Yeah, yeah, we call it our core team. Right. So we've got our core team. These are our W2 employees. They're full time now. I happen to have an all remote team, but a lot of the leaders we work with, their core team is in house, in person with them, or hybrid now after Covid, but. And then they supplement. Right. And they actually empower their executive assistant to go hire a virtual assistant for five hours a week to offload some of the things they no longer find useful to do. So it can be a very layered relationship.

Well, that's the thing. Even in a role like my job as a coach, consultant, advisor, podcast host, that kind of thing. Until the pandemic hit, we still spent some hours a week in the office and I had a regular physical office and we spent some time there together. And then since the pandemic, we went all remote all the time. And so we actually meet up to work with clients in person from time to time. But most of the time I'm working in this home office studio, and then we meet on the road at a resort or some other off site location or that kind of thing like that. And it's either Wanda or somebody else who comes along to the session. Right. So there are sometimes face to face, but there's no more office for many of us anymore. Yeah, like a regular person.

And I don't think it has to be. I mean, I. But that's also a question that you have to be able to be willing to answer honestly. Right. If you need someone outside of your office being like, bill, I need you to sign this bill, what's the answer for this? Because that's the only way to chase you down. And if you know that about yourself, then yes, in person is better for you, which, I mean, we do all of that stuff now. So it makes it a lot easier. If someone is adamant that they have to have a person sitting inside their office, then we can meet that expectation for them as well, for sure.

And that is definitely a thing that would make a difference for me. I do have enough history where I'm used to having somebody put a check, a contract or something in front of me, me, knock on my door, say they're waiting in the lobby, that kind of thing. I, you know, that's a long old habit. And then I can be distracted working from home as well, like, oh, some contractors here, this or that, or who knows what, like, you know, sure. Okay, so that's. That Talk about how do we develop the trust and learn to work together and learn to empower each other as leader ea.

So trust is the foundational piece, right? I tend to implore leaders to. They've got to work at their own pace for sure, but they've got to build sort of stage gates in, right. So that they can relinquish control. I like to tell leaders to stop being a helicopter CEO, right? And just hovering over, like making sure that their team is doing everything they're supposed to do. And so trust to me is developed by consistency, but it goes both ways. And this is where a lot of leaders I think get it wrong. They're like, I need to be able to trust you and you didn't do that on time. Or all of the, what myriad of excuses and frustrations that leaders sometimes have. But what they don't look at is how they're breaking trust with their team, right? So it's a two way street, each of these things. We'll talk about it. There are things that the leader has to do, right? Stop canceling your meetings with your EA because it's the easiest meeting to cancel, right? You're sitting that way too. Sometimes I have to speak hard truths to these leaders who they're like, it becomes easy, oh, I'll just talk to her later, I'll talk to him tomorrow. And the reality is that you're breaking that barrier of like, dang it, I thought I was going to be able to count on Bill today, but. But as usual, no, I can't. Right? So trust is built by keeping your meetings. It is built by actually saying the hard things. If they messed up, tell them they messed up. But if they did something great, tell them that too. I am famous for telling my team, I am not giving you a parade for showing up to work. I'm not like, this is not how I show up. Right? But I will throw confetti when you go above and beyond. But also in order to develop trust, you got to define what above and beyond is. Is it working 18 hour days for you? Is that what constitutes above and beyond? Or is it getting on a call with a podcast guest when their Internet goes out to reschedule and figure out what they're going to do, right? So what's above and beyond? You have to define that for yourself and make sure your team knows what that is. And then I think the final aspect of building trust is really, really that active commitment to working together. Now, we've had people who get placed with an executive assistant and it's like going great, five months in, seven months in, and then all of a sudden something happens, but they don't say anything. Right. And then at month nine or month 11, they're like, this isn't working. And so you have to have active commitment to communication, to. I can't tell you how many people, Bill, I talked to who have worked for their leader for years and they've never had an employee review. Right. So trust is built by doing the things you say you're going to do when you hire them too.

I personally hate and recommend regularly against the regular sort of structured employee review, but it's not actually that, that I am against. I'm against that having an absence of feedback. Right. I like instead of that regular thing like, this is not okay. This is a no pass and I need to count on this or whatever it is, and then having that conversation, but also then saying, oh, really appreciate that, thank you for that. That was good. You know, that active, regular feedback. Yeah, right.

We've got to have feedback loops, good and bad. And we have a, we have a methodology in our business. It's like we don't go 24 hours without closing a loop, good or bad. If someone's pissed me off, they need to know within 24 hours that I'm frustrated and if they've shined similarly, I have to say, like, way to knock that email out of the park or way to get that flight handled for me, whatever it is.

Yes. Well, so what haven't I asked about? I feel like we've covered setting it up, knowing that you need one. The answer is yes. Then what kind? What? Like designing, finding that person, getting them the right training, having, developing the trust, maintaining that over time.

Yeah. I think the conversation that needs to be had is. It's a deeper one. Right. I think we can start with this whole idea of I just need my email managed or I just need to have my calendar done. But the reality is, is that it is a lot deeper a conversation than just getting stuff off of your plate. It is the idea of moving from busy. Right. Of feeling like you kind of have a grasp on things or whatever, to being driven to where you're making momentum and you're getting action and things are happening in your business that maybe were only happening haphazardly before getting support. But the whole goal of this is finding someone who you can build a team with that is going to create the space for you, the capacity for you, and is going to help you be centered. They're going to help you be calm. They're going to help you get the leverage that you really are looking for. They're going to help you get the speed that you want. And so I just want to remind leaders, make sure you're having the right conversation about what you're looking for because you're not really looking to get your inbox at zero. You're not, you're looking to not feel overwhelmed every morning. That's what you're truly wanting, right? And so make sure that you're looking for the right thing. Thing.

It's a great place to close. There's so much more to say. Momentum headquarters.com we'll put the link there on the screen and there you go. Momentum headquarters.com and we'll put it in the show notes and it's not hard to remember. There's a little spelling practice there, but Trevinia Barber is our gal. We've given many shout outs to Wanda Mitchell in the background today. Just got an extraordinary level on the shout out meter today. So thank you, Wanda, for helping get our show ready and prepared and even deal with Internet breakdowns, reschedulings and endless things like that again and again. It takes something to do it week in, week out. Also to my friend and mentor, Vern Harnish, who created the Rockefeller Habits and the Scaling up framework that we use to help our clients grow. And to the folks at Podfly Productions who get our show ready and out the door every week. If you want to suggest a guest, get some feedback, help find a coach in your area, your industry, or for whatever you need, send us a note. Info scalingcoach.com infoscalingcoach.com is a good email for us. Our website, of course, scalingcoach.com but if you like subscribe wherever you go there, if you want to do something nice for us, give us a review. We also appreciate hearing from you. What have you done with our shows and our guests? Things like that we love. You know, we shout out into the ether every week and we have no idea often what difference we make. And then we find ourselves somewhere. I was at a conference the other day and this guy walked up to me and said, hey, I am here from Kuwait City. I don't know if you remember me. And I'm, I couldn't quite place him. I mean, I sort of did, but not he's like, I'm here because of you and what you said that day. And like, you know, I've grown and I've moved my business in this way and I'm like ah, it's really great. So we love to hear from you. Send us a note infosalingcoach.com it makes a real difference for us. Thank you again for everyone for listening, for watching. Keep Scaling Up. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Align, it's the official software for scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our scaling up client team. Unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by Aligned. To try it now, go to aligntoday.com billg1 more time. Aligntoday. Com Bill G that's aligntoday.com Bill G Check it out and try it now.