Unlocking Business Efficiency with the Right Executive Assistant

and I can tell you just from working for years with different executives, every single one of us gets into entrepreneurship because of the freedom that comes with it, right? Is there any freedom in entrepreneurship? That's a load of crap, right? It doesn't make sense.

Right.

But if you bring in an EA and it's a good EA, it will, it can create that for you on a different level than you've ever really experienced. And I don't think people really understand the value of that. Like they, they have this vision of entrepreneurship. And then they get into it and you're drowning.

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Welcome everyone to the latest episode of Kick Up Assets. I have a really exciting guest today, Jen. Jen, really happy to have you. You're the founder of the Kick Up Assistant. I love that name. It's Secret Fashion. It just says it all in a nutshell. So we're gonna chat about executive assistants, really dive in deep. So if you wanna give a little nutshell, like how you got started, the business grown, that'd be awesome.

Yeah, like she said, I'm Jen. I started The Geek Assistant about 2 and a half years ago. Realistically, I've been like playing with the name for 5, 6 years. I was planning originally for it to be more of like a peer-to-peer, like a mastermind sort of a group for EAs, which I ran one for several years. But it really developed into this just very organic coaching program. I have been an admin for 25 years and worked previously for Carrot as the CEO Trevor Mock's assistant for like almost 13 years. And during my tenure there, started doing coaching sessions with some of our higher-level clients, teaching them better ways to work with their assistants and just developing and fostering better relationships there. We had seen some really— and I just over the course of my career saw some really terrible relationships with EAs and their bosses. And I started seeing some of that building out in clients with Carrot stuff and really helping them develop that and see why they were having problems with their EAs and how they could fix them and ameliorate a lot of those issues. And it just really became this kind of side hustle passion project for me. I had clients reaching out and saying, hey, would you be willing to hop on a call and coach me and my EA around XYZ? And I was like, yeah, I'll do that. And then it just kind of just people heard I was doing it and it just kept happening. And then, uh, before I knew it, it was like a year had passed and I was spending an extra 30% of my work, 30 hours a week, um, between lunch breaks and weekends and nights focusing on the side business that I had no intention of growing. And, um, so in January of this year, 2024, I decided to leave Carrot and focus on this full-time. I brought in an assistant last August, so she's been with me for about a year now. And we've just been keep growing it and it's been so exciting to really step out. It's awkward sometimes. It feels awkward sitting on this fence between, because I still live and breathe EA work and I feel like I'm an EA at heart, but now somehow I'm also the CEO of this company and I, I don't understand. That gap sometimes feels a little awkward, but that's in a nutshell where I'm at, what I'm, what I've been doing.

So I think, yeah, I think it's a really important role. And I think as entrepreneurs, we often have this thing, we can do everything, do everything ourselves, and we, we're the only ones that can do it. But I feel like from what I've heard you say, it's like, it's the first great hire to have, because they really, and then the right kind of hire. And yeah, I'd love to hear you talk about like when it's the right time and the value and also EA versus a virtual assistant. VA, right? Because that gets thrown around a lot. Oh yeah. Real estate, right?

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah. So yeah, like you said, I feel, and you'll hear a lot of like experts around this, like just CEO kind of business coach guys talk about it a lot that they wish that had been the first hire they made was an EA. A lot of 'em don't make that choice. A lot of 'em feel like they need somebody in sales or they need somebody over here or there or whatever, operations and all these things and it's And realistically, an EA is, is the person that's going to unlock the most of your time. They're going to help you be able to focus more on these strategic things. As they slowly develop too, they become this strategic business partner that can be by your side if you let them. A lot of us as EAs, I say us, get held back into this bucket of we can manage an inbox and we can do email and calendaring and things like that, but that's where we live. They don't get to step into that scope of higher-level thinking. And so many of us are really good at that. And so that's part of where my coaching really comes in is helping both the executive and the EA see what level we can really bring, how we're being underutilized, and better ways to really plug us in. As to the when to hire, so many people feel like, oh, I can't bring somebody in at $70,000 a year. I can't bring somebody in at whatever. And it's like, that's maybe true at the beginning. But you don't have to hire somebody full-time right away. You can bring somebody in part-time. Maybe you don't need that full-time, but it's like maybe 5 to 10 hours a week could be enough to bring somebody in to manage your inbox, to start adjusting your calendar and kind of playing that calendar Tetris that you feel like you spend so much time doing. Having somebody alleviate some of those things, those like lower-level tasks and really being able to help you delegate those things out. And as the business grows, because it is growing. That's why you need some help as your business grows. You can give them more hours, more work, helping them start to see that proactive thinking that EAs are good at. A, a good EA is good at helping them see that, that opportunity to pull more things off of your lap, helping them. That's where I come in is helping coach them towards that proactive thinking, ways that they can work better together. So it, it's really about when you feel like when you start to feel that need, that pressure of I'm spending so much time in the weeds focusing on these things, which most executives do. And I remember being in that same space about a year ago. I was working full-time at Carrot and I'm trying to figure out how I can squeeze this 30 hours a week into my day-to-day. And I have 3 kids and a family, and it's just, I don't have time to, to spend an extra 30 hours a week on top of the 50 or more I was working. A guy at Carrot I was working with was like, Jen, you need to eat your own dog food. Why haven't you with hired an assistant?

Yeah.

And I was like, yeah, you're right. And I finally did. And I bit the bullet and I'm so glad. And I only brought her in at 5 hours a week at first. She worked for me for 6 months before I bumped her up to 10. She's got a full-time job also, so she just works 10 hours a week for me, but she does most of my follow-ups. She does calendar management and things like that, but she also does most of our social media. She does, she actually steps in and does some coaching calls now too with some of our clients because she's got things she's passionate about. She's also an EA, so it's like giving her that opportunity to own and harness that energy and excitement she has around things that she likes. And that's really what it's about is like helping empower us to, to realize what we can actually bring to the table. I know as like a lady entrepreneur, it's hard sometimes as a woman to plug into those things and to feel that like empowerment. And especially as a more of like a subordinate role, we don't get that a lot, hardly at all. So it's being able to nudge her in that direction and hopefully doing the same for other EAs as we go.

No, that makes a lot of sense. A lot of sense. I think that the buying back your time, because it's when you're in the weeds, it's really hard to be strategic or what's the best use of your time. And I think that's the key thing that we, yeah, that can really buy us time.

Yeah. Oh, and, oh, sorry. I was gonna, I was gonna say you asked that question about the difference between an EA and a VA, and I forgot to touch on that. So from what I have seen, and I've worked with a lot of both, I think there's good value in both roles. And there is still a really big difference between a virtual assistant and a remote assistant. You can get really solid remote employees. In the day and age we live in after COVID, especially, working remotely has become this dream thing that everybody wants to do at this point now. Like people, most people have decided how much easier it is to work that way. You can find better talent, more opportunity by looking in the scope of the entire United States. Hiring a VA. They're really good at, I, I have found they tend to be better at more like specific task load things. If you have a direct need, lead follow-up things, if you, most of my industry and most of people probably that listen to you are focused more in the real estate world. It's, Dispo, TC, things like that. Having them having a very specific skillset for what they do. Most of them are not necessarily great at like proactive thinking and like taking kind of the bull by the horns kind of a thing. You need to tell them this is exactly Here's an exact process. You have to give them the process. They're not always great at building process. Now, there are the unicorns out there that's not necessarily true about, that you can have. I, I know an executive that has a fantastic VA, but that's definitely, that acts more like an EA, but that's a, like a, an exception as opposed to the norm, right? Most, a good EA is better at thinking proactively, helping keep you on track, helping, like you were talking about, buying back more of your time, helping, you know, really develop that, that strategic partnership growing to be able to pull you more out of the weeds and focus on your unique genius. You know, what some people like to call their superpowers to be able to focus on those things that are, that you're here, that you're excited about. You know, no, no executive wants to spend half their life in their inbox. No executive wants to spend like all their time doing these kind of little middleman tasks. Like, you know, even delegating and things like that, the less that you have to think about these other things, the more that I can take off your plate and do for you. That's where I shine. That's what I'm excited about. That's what I wanna do is like opening up more time for other people to let them focus on the things that excite them.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. I think I heard Trevor say, don't delegate your genius, which I think I love when you love something, then focus on it.

Yeah. Email, then, yeah, totally off topic, but I actually think that's a really interesting thing about AI. Bringing AI into what so many people are doing. It's really interesting to me to see how so many people are using AI to do things like create art and to write and things like that, because those are the things that people love to do. Those are like the creative juice flowing things. And you're like, oh, let's farm this out to AI. And it's so you can do what? So you can look at your inbox so you can do, spend time in the weeds doing these things that you don't like to do. Shouldn't we be farming those things out to EAs? Shouldn't we be farming those things out to AI instead of The things that like get our juices flowing. Now it's different if it's like, I hate writing copy, I'm not great at it. So if I can go and have AI do that for me, that's different. But if it's like, I am a marketing person and I love writing copy and doing that stuff, but letting AI create it, it seems so odd to me.

That's a good point. Yeah. No, I'm kind of, I, yeah. And that's, well, and that brings up a question I was gonna ask you about like technology and AI, and I think I think it has, like, I use Calendly, like a lot of people, and so that calendar management thing, but there's, how does that blend in or fold in with your, with this day and age?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's, it's interesting because the, the way it's developing with AI, it's moving so fast. It's like you feel like you get a harness on it, you feel like you understand what's going on, where the world is going with AI, and then tomorrow it's totally different. But I really feel like most EAs, are afraid of it, in all honesty. I went to a conference last year and I was shocked that I'm not even exaggerating this number. I'm probably understating it. At least 80% of the room out of, let's say about 450 people in this room, at least 80% of the room wasn't using AI at all, like on any level. And they didn't even know what ChatGPT was, let alone not using it. And it was bizarre to me to think the tools and resources that we have at our hands right now that are just not being used at all. It's, people are so afraid of it that they don't wanna use it. But the problem is that the reason you're afraid of it is because you're afraid it's gonna take your job. But if you don't learn how to use it, it's gonna take your job. So I don't understand the logic behind not using it for that reason when that's what's gonna happen because you don't know how. I know that the EAs I train and work with are gonna have a better understanding and grasp of using AI because we walk through that. That's one of the trainings that we teach around like ways that we use it. How to use it. It was funny, I was talking to somebody, I won't name names. I was like talking to somebody and she was telling me, she was like, oh yeah, I was trying to use ChatGPT and I just, I couldn't figure it out. I was like, well, tell me what you did. And she was literally using it like a search engine because I, I tell them, I was like, go through and just use it in your day-to-day life. Get comfortable using it. So it's like breathing. So when you want to use it for work, you'll have more comprehensive understanding of how to use it, how it works, those kind of things. And I was like, what did you do? And she literally put the name of, she was trying to get a recipe on how to cook something, which is a great use for it. You can totally use it for personal things, but she just put in, I, I don't even remember what she said, but she put in something like chicken fettuccine, like in, that's all she, that's the whole entire thing she put in ChatGPT. And I was like, okay, it, it doesn't, it's not Google. It doesn't, you have to ask it like, hey, I'm thinking about making ChatGPT or making ChatGPT, making chicken fettuccine for dinner. Can you give me a good recipe for it? Like. You, you need to give it more information. It doesn't know what that means.

You need to put the prompts in.

Yeah. Yeah. It needs good prompts. And the better you get at creating prompts, the better you're gonna, like, the better results you're gonna have. And so we work through with our clients how to do that, how to create good prompts to be able to develop useful information. And we use it for everything from creating agendas to creating copy to create editing information. Like I'm helping a client right now go through and he's writing a book. So helping him go through and edit the book a little bit by saying, how could the sentence be formulated a little bit better? You know, when you're writing and thinking, it's like when you're thinking out loud and you're writing things down, like sentences almost flow backwards sometimes. So it's like helping him reformat that. So it's like, it's still his words, but maybe framed a little different.

Yeah.

Obviously you could totally cheat and just say, hey, write this book for me. But that's probably not the best plan. Having ethical use of it is really important, but teaching people those things when it's— even people go through and not understand that you can put in, helping me set the tone. Like, I wanna have a professional energetic tone, or I wanna— this needs to be really personal, this needs to be really sensitive. Like, whatever it is, like giving them the understanding that it, it all comes down to that. And I think a lot of it really is— I've been thinking about it a lot lately and it's more around the idea of if you're gonna hire a contractor to do a job, and since a lot of, again, going back to real estate, people people, a lot of you deal with contractors and stuff, and it's not like you're going to just go to a contractor and say, hey, make me a bathroom and leave. You're going to give them very specifics about what you want. I want the shower here and I want it this style and I want the tile to be this color and like all this stuff. And then they can create it. They can come back and say, is this what you're thinking? Right? But if you just say, hey, give me a bathroom, and then they come back and they're like, hey, I asked it to make me a weekly agenda for me and my executive. And it's like this boring, bland thing that really follows no pattern. And it's like, okay, but you didn't give it any insight into Who you are, what your job looks like, what you guys want to talk about. Like, you need to give it more information, even the format of the agenda. I have a pretty standard, specific, I like all of my agendas to fit this very specific format. And so I make sure that ChatGPT is aware of that when it's building me an agenda. Timestamps, like how long do I want to spend on each subject and what things are we planning to cover? And I let it build it out so it's more robust than let's talk about these 4 topics. but giving it more information. It's just like dealing with anything. You can't just put in 3 words and expect it to give you exactly what you want.

That's, that's a really good point. Yeah. You, the direction. I think that kind of brings me back to when you're, to circle that back to finding the right fit and your approach to that and how you go about searching for that person and figuring out what you need. And, you know, cuz I think if you could just put an ad out and And if you don't curate it or direct it, you're not gonna get there. And I think you have a really—

Yeah, totally. Yeah, we, I, I completely agree. I've seen so many people and I, that's another thing that we do and I didn't really talk about that is that we also do recruiting, like full-scale recruiting where we go through, because when I was still working at Carrot, I was, I didn't have time to do recruiting, so I was, I basically created this process around the best ways to find and hire an EA. And I was coaching clients. This is the things to do. This is where to post it. This is how, like, all those steps. And then when we left, when I left Carrot, I was like, we can actually do full-scale recruiting. So we took it that step further and started doing that for people. And we have such incredible results. Like, we, we've placed 4 EAs with new executives in the last month or so. And it's just, it's a night and day difference between, I had, I have a client that we're doing coaching with that. His EA, like he hired her, we talked and he decided he wanted to do it himself for less money, but it's, it, is it really less money when you have to take your time and energy and do all the interviewing and find the people? Most people give up and settle for somebody that's not really a good fit because they don't want to do the work to hire, which is what happened in this one situation with a client of mine. And he brought in this EA and is, still wants me to coach her and I'm coaching with him and she's just, she's, it's like a brick wall situation. She's not very coachable. She doesn't wanna learn. She doesn't wanna grow. She knows how to do what she knows how to do. I've literally heard her say on calls she doesn't want to do very standard specific parts of being an EA, and it just seems odd to me how she found herself in this position in the first place. But yeah, it's taking that step and knowing what it's about. Skillset, obviously we need to make sure that we find the right skillset, that the person can do the job that you need them to do. But then also that it's a personality line is more than anything. It's gotta be a, a good personality that if you don't like this person, if you don't like, I can teach somebody to do anything, but I can't teach them how to have a good personality. So if you guys don't get along well, then that's never gonna work. Right?

Yeah.

But it's, and it, it, and that coachability is part of that personality side. It's like if people are just not coachable, they're never gonna be coachable. That's just not that I've ever seen people change that part of themselves. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So we go through and we do that, but it's, we really like to focus on bringing them in and having them do very specific parts around how to bring them in. It's like we have them do test projects and we have them do specific things in the hiring process to make sure that this person will be a good fit and can do the job we need them to do. And it, it can be really tricky for some people, but it gives you a really clear insight into if the person isn't willing to put in a little bit of effort. To get the job, they're probably not gonna be willing to do the effort once they're in the job. So finding that, that line where, you know, they're willing to take it a step up and really show us what they can bring to the table because there's so many people looking for work and it's, they can say all day long, yeah, I'm really good at X, Y, Z, but it's once you actually see it in action, that's the only time you'll really know if they can actually do what they say they can do.

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We're talking about being coachable. What are some tips? I know you coach people on how to find that right person, you know, figure out what you're even looking for. Like, how do you know what to outsource? Yeah.

Yeah. So one thing, and I'd be happy to share a couple resources that we can maybe link up to this too afterwards. But one thing that I really, that I usually send out to, like, when we, so we do a first call with clients, like a discovery call to really see what their need is, what they're looking for, and help to figure out what you're talking about right here. So we talk about that their biggest pain points, sitting down and thinking about where you're struggling, what's keeping you from focusing on your unique genius? What's keeping you from focusing on those superpowers that you love to do? Like, I have a client right now that's very specific about his 4 superpowers that he's like, I'm really good at these 4 things, but I only spend 20% of my time doing them. He wants to be like 70 to 80% of his time doing them. So it's like, we had to go through and figure out what are these other things that are taking that 50% of your time that you're just not able to do that we can pull off and give to somebody else, whether it's to an EA or whatever. And figuring out what those things are that you want to focus on is really important. But one thing we like to do is, everybody's familiar with the job description. I like to use a tool we call the 4R doc, and it's more like roles, responsibilities, results, and requirements. And, but it's basically a job description, but it's my job description from when I worked at Carat. So what I'll do is I'll send that to clients and I can share it with you guys too. But I send that to clients and say, this is the, my 4R doc from Carrot. And this is the idea of what I did on a reg— on the regular at Carrot. And so they can look through it and say, okay, this is a good idea of what an EA can do. But the cool thing about it is, is that you're going to go through it and you're going to say, okay, there are things on this list that my EA will not need to do. Maybe it's a fully virtual office. I worked physically in the office for Carrot. Maybe it's not going to be like managing the office and making sure that there's paper goods or the kitchen is clean or things like that, but it might, or checking the mail, but it might involve other things, other aspects of my job that they hadn't even thought about. But what they can do then is go through and redline the things on my job description that say, no, they're not going to need to do this, but it might spark ideas of other things that they could have them do that they'd never really considered. So from that, they'll be able to build out their own kind of job description of that. Now we take that even another step forward where we use a tool called the energy audit. And those of you who follow Carrot and Trevor Malkin, Dan Martell are all familiar with this concept of an energy audit. But basic, if you're not though, basically it's like a two-column tool where it's split right down the middle. The left side is everything. It's literally a brain dump of everything you do, right? Just on the, you as the executive and you go through and on the left side is everything you do that That gives you energy. Everything you do that like you love to do, that when you do it, you feel fired up afterwards, you're fired up going into it. I'm really excited for this opportunity to do this thing. It could be sales calls, it could be creating content, it could be whatever it is, like those things that you love to do as the executive. And on the other side of the column is everything you do that drains your energy. Likely things like checking email, data input, research, things like that. And you can put all of that on your right side column. Now we, and that's where usually like Trevor and Dan have that tool. That's the main part of that tool. We also added a column onto ours though that's got, because I use it for different reasons than they use it for, we add a separate column on there to budget out time, how much time those drains are really taking you because most people don't think about that. Like you're like, okay, I know I spend a bunch of my time in my inbox every day, but what does that really look like? How much time are you spending? Because that's when you really will recognize the need for the EA already that you already know you have, but you'll recognize it a little bit more and you'll start to see like, I hadn't even thought about that being something I could hand off to my EA. So once you fill that out together, I'd go through it with you and say, okay, these are things that an EA can do and how much time that you can see right there that you can immediately have your EA take over. How many things are on that list? Because there's a lot of things that people don't even consider that an EA could maybe do. That can be pulled right off right away of things that you're just doing right now that you don't even think about. So those two tools, like the 4R doc and the energy audit alone, are a huge way to really gauge the need, the outcome, like what you can get this person to do right as soon as you pull them into this. And then from there, we get a really good scope of what we're looking for, the kind of person we're looking for. I also like them to have, I like to have the executive go through and do some kind of personality test. I've been a big fan of the Myers-Briggs for a long time, but also I've really been playing with the Predictive Index a little bit more lately and having them go through one of those because then we can really get an idea based on their personality, the type of personality that would be a good fit for them. We also use the DiSC just in hiring because it's, that gives you a really good idea of the type of people that specifically fall into certain buckets, especially for specific executives. You want an EA that's, um, complementary to what you are, what you do, things that maybe where you're weak, they're stronger. Now, you don't always want that to be true. You don't want them to be a better visionary than you, or like, like that's kind of, but I mean, you want to make sure this person has good follow-through. You want to make sure that this person is good at completion. You want to make sure, you know, that this person is like servant-hearted. Those kinds of things is really important. You know, hearing an EA, like that same one I was just talking about a little while ago, hearing an EA say like, I don't like to check inbox stuff. Like that's, oh, okay. Nobody does, but like, I don't love to do it either, but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna do it. And it's hearing that difference of I, I don't wanna do this, like insinuating they're not gonna do it. Like that's not so much serious-hearted. That's not so much coachability. We wanna make sure that we find a good fit for, to fill the need.

That makes a lot.

Yeah.

That's a really strategic approach. How, so is that kind of the first step of documenting your energy audit and figuring out where, what you really hate doing. So I know I, I, I could list my—

yeah. And it, it really is, I think, because so many executives, like, they're like, okay, my business coach, and that's really where so much of it starts, right? It's like, my business coach told me I really should get an EA, but I don't even really know what they could do. And that's, and again, it really, we as EAs get really put into these buckets of 1950s secretaries, right? Like they answer the phones, they make appointments, they keep track of my calendar, they schedule my travel, and they do inbox. And it's like, okay, yes, we do all of those things, but it's not the '50s anymore. We also can be project managers. We also do special, special project coordinators, event planning. We do random runoff tasks. Like most of my EAs in my, like, that I do coaching with and stuff all come from like more the startup world. And so we always really fall into this one-off task list, random things. Like, for instance, I was HR at Carrot for 5 years because we didn't need a full-time HR person. And one day we literally got a letter in the mail that was like, hey Jen, you're HR of Carrot. And Trevor and I both were like, did either of us say that I was HR at Carrot? And neither of us, and you were like, no, neither of us said it, but apparently it's. What the government thinks. So here we are. And suddenly I was HR and I had no HR training. I had no idea what the heck I was doing. I had to learn it on the fly, but that's what we do as EAs. We're like, okay, we, we tend to be really good at overpromising but overdelivering at the same time. So it's like saying, yes, I, I don't know what I'm doing, but I will figure it out. I was reading something the other day and it was like the idea of jumping out of an airplane without a parachute, but building the parachute on the way down. Like it's that same kind of idea. Like knowing. I, I have no idea what I'm doing, but I could totally figure it out. And that's exactly where we fly the best. And so giving us those opportunities, but a lot of people don't give the EA that opportunity. It's, we stay in this bucket and that's all your EA can do. So when people are looking to hire an EA, those, that's the bucket they look at. And it's, but we can do research, we can present information to clients, we can do all the follow-up stuff, we can be a a mediator, we can be a go-between for you and company, like delegation things. It's saying, I don't wanna do this thing anymore. Can you hand it off to somebody else that can? And it doesn't mean I have to do it, but I can find somebody else that can. That way you don't have to find somebody else who can. Like I can say, okay, well, Bill on the team is really good at this thing. I will give it to him. Or maybe I'm gonna hire somebody on Fiverr to do it, whatever it is. But those things that are just, I always think about keep it simple, stupid. People are really good at overcomplicating everything and it doesn't need to be that hard. Just, hand it to somebody else that can do it. But like you said, as a solopreneur, you guys are so used to, and I say you guys, and I guess I'm in that same bucket now too, but we're so good at just head down, hustling through, doing everything ourselves because that's the way we've always done it. There's nobody else here to do it, so I have to do it. So then when somebody's on the team that can, it's still a lot of times really difficult to delegate that out. A good EA is good at pulling those things out and saying, I noticed that you spend a lot of time doing this crazy thing that you shouldn't be doing. How about I take that over so you don't have to? How about I go sit in on that meeting and take notes? It's not like you, you don't have to be in that meeting. I can do that for you. Being that voice of reason to say, you're not focusing on your unique genius. You're doing something silly over here that has nothing to do with it. Let me take that over. Let me find somebody else that can.

Yeah. I mean, what you're describing, it's very proactive and kind of entrepreneurial cuz that's what we do as entrepreneurs, right? We'll figure stuff out. And I think we think Maybe we're the only ones that are willing to, you know, but being open-minded like that, I think that's a really, that makes a lot of sense.

Okay.

So how do you go about finding someone or how do you trust someone to be like, okay, this, just, I'm gonna give you this responsibility and trust. I'm sure it's a learning curve and you don't just throw them out there and expect. What are the mistakes that we make?

I guess a lot of it goes back to that same thing that I was saying before that A lot of people, I think when they want to hire somebody on the, somebody themselves, you're already so busy, you're already so stressed out, you already don't have the time, like giving it to somebody else. Now, obviously I'm not going to toot my own horn and say, obviously we can hire for you, but seriously, we can do it for you. But if you, if not us, then there is a bunch of other recruiting companies that do recruiting. Our sole focus is only EAs, maybe chief of staff situations, but realistically, like we focus right in that niche. That's the only thing we hire for. And finding somebody to do that work for you, it's going to fix so much of that stress. Like I would say most of the time when people start hiring, I'm not even kidding. We, we posted a, a remote EA role like a few months back and literally got 1,500 applications for it. So it's like going through, and this was a part-time job, it wasn't even a full-time one. So it's like going through, having to go through like us as a team of this is what we do. It took us like a week to go through those 1,500 applications. And then it's like the next step. Okay. Like here is, we asked them to send us a video. So then we had to watch through what, 500 videos trying to decide if any of these videos are worth like pursuing to an interview. And it's like, who has time? You guys don't, like executives don't have time to do that cuz you don't have time. You need an assistant for a reason. So instead they post a job on Facebook or on Craigslist or wherever, and I don't know if people are still posting jobs on Craigslist. Like on LinkedIn or whatever, right? And they get like a few that come in and then they end up settling because they really don't wanna do the work to find a good EA and they settle for somebody. And I think that's a huge mistake. Like they end up finding somebody that can do the job based on the skillset alone. And then the skillset that they see is based on the resume qualifications as opposed to what they can actually do. I can tell you right now, yeah, I can fly an airplane. I can, that's not true. I can say it though. It doesn't mean that it's real. Did you see me park an airplane? Have you seen my pilot's license? No, I didn't, because it doesn't exist, but I can still say it. So it's like making sure that we go out of our way to make sure that we actually see like active, positive communication. I ask them to do a video where they teach me something, and I have to tell you, I've seen some really fun, amazing videos of these people because we as EAs are always behind the scenes. So seeing them step out of their shell a little bit to make these videos that really speak to what they're passionate about, really speaks to who they are as a person. And how, and that's a big thing is I can't tell you how many times as an EA I've been asked to go learn, there's this new software out, I want you to go check it out and come back and tell me about it. Go do a demo with this thing and let us know if this is something we should be trying. Go do research around this and then tell me the top 3 in this industry or whatever it is. But being able to come back and convey that information back to the executive and say, this is what I learned, and having it be like coherent and make sense to them because it may make sense to me, but it may not make sense to you if I try to explain it to you. So we ask them to show us something and it's like, we have seen some really incredible videos and people do things like, I've seen people teach us how to do a correct bicep curl or fold a heart out of a dollar, like an origami heart or bake bread. But then we've also seen people build websites using Canva or how to organize your Asana task list or whatever, like various things, whether it's work-related or not. But it's, you can see them being passionate and excited to share something. Now we've also seen some really weird videos that you're like, why? We had one the other day where this guy was talking about how he's a great communicator and he sounded like he had marbles in his mouth the whole time he was talking. It was just, he was, his whole thing was like, oh, I'll teach you how to communicate better and network and like this. But I could barely understand half of what he was saying. And so it's like, that gives me, it's easy for you to say you're a good communicator, but I just learned that is not quite true. So I'm not gonna pursue him to, to do more interviews or anything with, because it's maybe not exactly what he, how he sees himself is not the accurate depiction of who he is. Right? So we have them do that, but then we also have them, I do an interview with them and very much like we are doing right now, I like to keep my interviews, like most people are like, tell me your strengths and weaknesses. Tell me about your last role, like those kind of things. I can read all that on your resume.

Right.

How about you just tell me who you are and we get to know each other? And that's, I ask them weird questions. I like to really mix it up because I don't want them to go into autopilot interview mode.

Right.

So I'll ask them questions like, how many tennis balls can you fit in a school bus? Or, I don't really care about the answer, but it, it shakes their brain up. So when I ask them an actual question that I actually care about the answer, their brain is not in autopilot and they'll actually give me a real response. I ask them like, if you had a superpower, what would it be? Like, if you, like those kind of questions, just because I want to see who they really are so that I can see if they're going to be a good fit for the executive that I'm actually hiring. And that really helps a lot. And then working with the executive because it's like, where your biggest pain points are, right? Like, what are the things that you struggle with that you want to, like, when this EA comes in, this is my dream 40. This is the list of things that I'm going to hand off as soon as she's here. And I say she, because most of us are females. But she says, this, these are the things that I'm gonna hand off to my EA as soon as she comes in. As soon as she's in this role, I'm gonna give her these top 3 things. Okay, so we can look at those top 3 things and say, let's build a test project around one of those 3 things and like actually put it in front of the EA before they come into the role to see if they can even handle the work you need them to do. We were hiring for a client and I asked him to help me create this test project and he was looking for more of a green EA. He was okay with The idea of coaching her and not starting with somebody like super high tier, high level, that's totally fine. But the test project he wanted them to do was more of like high tier EA work. So we had to dumb it down because I was like, you're not going to find a low level EA that can do exactly what you need here. So we had to dumb down the project a little bit to make it to where it was made more sense for a lower tiered EA to be able to figure out how to do. But I didn't, if he expects her to be able to come in and do it, I'm not going to just say no, we're not going to give this test project. Let's make it a little easier so where she can come in and still do it. And we saw people pull out because they were, you know, again, greenies, but they were like, this isn't anything I've ever seen or could do. But then even some of them came in and they were like, oh, I've never seen it, but I'm gonna try it. And that's who I'm looking for are the people that are willing to be a little bit more proactive to even reach out and say, hey, can you give me a little bit more context here? I need more information. So many people are afraid of that, of asking for help or asking for feedback. And it's, I, I really even stress to them in our interviews, if you have questions through this test project, do not hesitate to reach out to me. Maybe it was there, maybe I put a hole in it for a reason. I want you to come back and talk to me if you feel like you need to. Not if you don't feel like you need to, that's totally fine. But if you feel like there's a gap in the information you got, ask me about it. And it, it's funny to see the, the way that people come back with those kind of things or just drop off the face of the planet because they're afraid of the test project. But again, it gives me a clear indication of who this person is, how they behave, and what they do. And then we have different steps that we do if it's going to be an in-person hire or a remote hire, and we have them do different things. But right there, those things are a very clear indication of what we're looking for, and I feel like those steps get missed a lot. It's just like, let's have a conversation. Let me read your resume. Yes, you can do the job. Good deal. You're hired. And then 3 months later, I get a call and they're like, my EA sucks. I don't know what to do. And it's like, you didn't take my advice in the first place. The problem, big problem in the beginning. But we go through and we try to coach through it and fix it. But it's, if it's not the right fit, it's not the right fit. And that's really where a lot of people struggle with. It's they want to keep trying to put like a square peg in a round hole.

And that's, it's such an interesting, and I don't know, I, I've never talked to other recruiters in depth, but I think as entrepreneurs, we, we will tackle things. People do scary things and we, I think maybe we think other people will do that too, but if that's not in your DNA, like you said, that's not coachable. If you're gonna get hung up on like not being comfortable with something or, yeah, because I imagine in this role that you are doing new things, you are, like you said, testing software. I think that that's a really cool approach. So I guess it goes to like doing it, the process, never taking the time in the beginning. Don't just put an ad out there and just throw someone to the sharks, basically. Do people do that? Is that kind of the typical, like, I put an ad out, they're qualified, they have a great resume, and then—

Yep. Yep. I think that's the main way that a lot of these, like, really, and I don't wanna say crappy EAs, but they really aren't great because we as executives just, and it's funny because I've seen, I've actually done this myself where I've gone through and almost hired people into our company and not gone through our full process. And afterwards, I'm kicking myself like, why, why are you not eating your own dog food? Like you're being so stupid. You know the right way to do this and you're just like, because I don't have the time. I don't have the, like I should just hire somebody else to, to hire for me maybe. But like bringing, knowing the tools and everything doesn't mean you're gonna use them or do them the right way or that you have time. And that's really what so much of it is, is that we as executives don't have the time to do these things. That we need to, that we need to be doing to focus on, to, to bring in the right talent, right? There's a reason you need to bring them in in the first place is that you don't have time to do it. So it's like being able to step back and give that to somebody else to do it, to focus on those things. But yeah, but it doesn't mean that we don't do the same thing. We post the job to all the different various places that the job should be posted, whether it's Guru or LinkedIn or Indeed or. Social media, like we post the heck out of it in social media and to all the various places. We look for like groups, like if, if we were gonna hire for somebody in Columbus, Ohio, I'm gonna find a Columbus, Ohio Facebook group for hiring jobs open there. We'll do those specific things and look for the talent pools. We'll, I post into all the EA Facebook social media, you know, Instagram groups and say, hey, this person is hiring for a job, hit me up if you're interested. Those kind of things, because that's where you're gonna find the right talent. Looking in that niche places into the EA groups is a really good way to do it. But not everybody has access to those 'cause they're not all EAs. And then I think too, there's something, something I've really been learning a lot since becoming more of like the CEO role is trusting your own gut. Like I think we as women in a lot of ways are like, this sounds so like feminist and I'm not even that kind of a person. But men are really good at speaking to how we should be doing business, right? Giving us advice, which isn't bad. Take advice. People have really good advice. Take it. But at the same time, it's like, if— how many times as you as a businesswoman have been told advice by men, specifically by men, like, this is the way you should be doing this, and in your gut you're like, that's not the way I wanna do business, but I trust him as an advisor, so I should take his advice. And then 6 months later you're like, I really should have trusted my gut and not done it this way. And it happens to all of us. And so like being okay with trusting your gut and saying, wait, let me step back and let me think about what I'm doing here. And that doesn't just have to be for men and women. It can be the same thing cuz I can guarantee men fall into that same bucket where they're like thinking, I shouldn't have followed this because I trust this guy. I took his advice. It doesn't always have to be great advice. If your gut is telling you not to go forward with something that you think is a bad idea, then don't do it. Like really look at like the full thing of what you're doing there. And I think that goes through with hiring and everything, like whatever we're looking at, how you're looking for a person. If there's a little bit of a red flag in your head that this person may not be the right fit, there is a vast world of people out there that you can hire through. Do not settle because you're still gonna be in the same boat in 6 months looking for somebody else. A lot of times with a lawsuit to follow because people are jerks. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, there's the, the strategic part and the capability, but then there's that kind of cultural fit too. Do they match? I don't know how you hire for that or how, if you're leading with values or what that is because that's such a big part of work life too.

Yeah. Yeah. And we do, we speak to, I really like to, in that discovery call I was talking about that first intro call, we really like to dig into what's important to you as a business owner. Can you share your core values? Can you share your mission statement? Share your vision with us so we get a better, clearer understanding of who you are as a business owner, what's important to you. Also, if I can get an opportunity to spend some extra time with that executive, I'll dig into that a little bit too, because I want to get to know who they are. It's funny, I have— working in the real estate field, it's called the boys club, right? There's a lot of men that really work in this industry, and I honestly, I tend to thrive better in that situation where I work more closely with men most of the time, in all honesty. But it's interesting though, because their use of language sometimes is interesting. Like they, they can be pretty profane. And I found that to be true in a lot of these real estate investing businesses. Like a lot of 'em are just, they use a lot of profanity and it doesn't offend me. I don't care. Like it, it's fine. But I have to be really careful about making sure that NEA that I'm working with, if I'm considering bringing you into this company and I know if in their Slack channel the F-word is dropped every 35 seconds, like I probably should mention that in the hiring. Hey, are you comfortable with profanity? Are you comfortable with this level of, like, it's part of just their culture. It's who they are. Like, are you okay with that? And, like, I had, I had a client once that we were hiring for, and the day and age we live in, I, it's like you have to touch base on, there's, like the PC way to deal with things. And I'm like, okay, like to be clear, He's gay. Are you comfortable with the fact that he's gay? Because obviously it's gonna bleed into the business. And she's like, yeah, like that's totally fine. But then I didn't think about the fact that he uses the F word every 35 seconds. And so, and this lady was like in her 50s and I'm like, sorry about that. Like, I probably should have mentioned that when I brought you in that, that he's a potty mouth. So like, you know, you needed to know that. But it's like, she was totally fine with him being gay, but the whole profanity thing was a little bit uncomfortable for her at first. And so it's like making sure to really have them understand what the culture is like at the company, but then we have to know what the culture is at the company while we're hiring for it too. So it's like really being clear about that and upfront about that. Even if you don't use somebody like us and you go through and you do the hiring yourself, it's be very careful about being yourself in interviews as the executive. Like you need to be you because they need to see who they're actually going to work for. It's like dating, right? Like you go in and you start dating somebody and it's like, by date 3, they're a completely different person than the first time you met them. I probably wouldn't have kept dating you if you were this way. And it's that same idea. If the executive completely changes when they hire and you're like, whoa, you were not laid back, you're analytical and a lunatic. That's probably important for me to know going into the role. But it's the same thing, like me as an EA, I'm so organized and I can do all these things. And then it's like, I am massively ADHD and flighty and flaky. It's like, I might've been able to see that more if I'd have dug in a little bit more than beyond skillset.

No, that makes a lot of sense. I'm trying to think, okay, so I think my follow-up is say, and I, I, for anyone listening, Jen, I've talked to you, I've done an intro call. I think your process is really valuable and well worth working with someone like yourself because I think we don't have the time. We're probably gonna act too quickly and then get the wrong fit and then think, oh, I don't, it's not for me. So I think there's a lot of value and you have a very defined process that really involves this. So say you go through this, you hire someone like yourself, how do you know, how do you onboard someone properly without just throwing them out there? What's like, how many, you have touch bases or what's the kind of, what do you coach people on with that?

Yeah. Well, so we've built out like a pretty robust onboarding process in general that this is like the way that I share with clients. The week before they bring in an EA, this is our onboarding process. This is how you can go through and do that. A big part of it is really like shadowing them. In all honesty, the more opportunity that your EA can fly on the wall with you, be in the room while you're in meetings, that they need to be able to learn your business. I can tell you almost every single executive I've ever met with at some point has mentioned the idea that they want their EA to basically read their mind. But then they don't want to dedicate time with the CA to be able to get to know them well enough to do that. So I feel like that's a really important step that gets very overlooked. So it's like, literally I'm hiring for a client right now and he's already put a desk behind him in his office and she, he's like, that's where she's gonna live. She's gonna hang out behind me all the time. And that's like the dream. That's what you want to have. Now there's a little bit of like feeling like micromanaged as the EA maybe, but at the same time, it's not about micromanaging them. They need, like you as the executive, I need somebody to micromanage me. I want somebody to tell me what I'm supposed to be doing, to remind me like, hey, you're supposed to be focusing on this priority, not this random thing that is not on your list at all. Why are you over here? You should be here. But that'll only work if that person's behind you, if that person's spending that much time with you, if that person's aware of what you're doing all the time. So the more opportunity for that is one thing. Um, and really digging into like company vision, values, mission statement, those things, digging in with other people on your team, spending time with the people that are your direct reports. Getting to know who's important to you and why, and what's important to you and why. And it's the same thing with your inbox, like going through and really being able to see what's— because your inbox in a lot of ways, like I always say, it's like a window to your soul, right? Like you can see the way that you operate your business almost completely through your inbox. I can see you, who's important to you that you're communicating the most with, the way that you communicate to you, like the things you're ignoring, the things that you're reading but not doing anything with. What I can go through and read your sent emails and see who you actually followed up with and why. Where are you sending things to? Tell me, there are so many things where we're just like, I'm not going to deal with this, but I'm going to send this to John on my team. So you'll forward an email, like me being able to see that, like what things you're forwarding out, what things you're delegating out. It just gives me a lot more clarity into how you operate as a business owner and the things that are important to you. Teaching those skill sets to an EA. What we do, part of our recruiting process also includes a 6-month session, uh, 6 months of coaching with me where we go through and I'll do, um, a lot of our clients like to do like weekly at first where I'll do weekly 30-minute sessions with the EA. If the executive wants to be on those, they can too, but mostly it's just me and the EA digging into onboarding processes, how to manage an inbox, how to organize a calendar, how to think like an executive, all of those kind of different things that an EA really needs to learn at the beginning if they don't already know. And A lot of these EAs will come in and they'll be seasoned EAs, but it's, I can still teach you the way that I manage an inbox and maybe you'll learn something a little bit different than the way you've always done it. And that's a huge thing, I think, for a lot of people. I'm working with an EA right now and she's just got, in all honesty, she's probably a more, not in, maybe she definitely is a more seasoned EA than I am, but most of her skillset came from more like corporate work. And so she's in a whole different world working with a solopreneur type situation. She's been very fast-paced. Supporting multiple executives, doing a lot of stressful work, and now she's really slowing down with this new executive that's so chill and laid back, and he's just like a real estate investor that only works like 30 hours a week and like just doesn't always know what the heck is going on. So me coaching her through that, even like, okay, this is how you can dig in with him and help him be better. It's, she's, I'm used to calendar Tetris and he meets with somebody like, he only does like 2 calls a week. I don't even know what's happening. And so it's like helping her figure out how to navigate this because he needs a bunch of help. But where do we plug her in and helping her find that? And so I think that's, does that kind of answer that question?

Yeah, no, it does. I really like, so the shadowing part and under, and the whole mind reading thing, how can you do that if you're not ingrained? So if someone's remote, are you just going to have fun hanging out on Zoom or how do you do that remotely?

That was kind of, yeah. And that's a big thing is spending as much time as you can together, whether it's Zoom, Teams, Google Meets, whatever software platform you guys use. Keeping that screen open with them as often as you can. Really scheduling, and this is a huge thing that I swear just frustrates the heck out of me because I hear it so much, that gets very overlooked, is having regular, like, I, I am like a fucking Nazi about it when I first start working with my clients, like, the week before we lay out an onboarding plan, and I'm like, okay, this is what you, you need to do, is I want you to set up a meeting cadence with your EA right now, like, When are you meeting with them? What is that gonna look like in this first 3 months? Let's get it on. I want you to put it on the calendar while, while we're on call. Schedule this on your calendar, a recurring meeting. And I want you to think of this as sacred time that never gets moved, that doesn't get— now granted, there's travel and there's illness and things like that that come up, but we need to figure out a way where this is a consistent thing. It's not like, oh, I wanna go golfing with my buddies, so I'm gonna cancel this week, or I wanna, I don't really have a lot to cover with her, so I'm not gonna have that meeting. Like those things, that's. No, that's not okay. You meet with her consistently every Monday, every Friday. The first part, it's like the first month at least, I say daily, like a 15-minute check-in every day. Meet with them and go through. If you need more, that's fine, but don't take less. And really making it very clear that this is important because like I've had clients where I've gone through and helped them hire and then going through with them and I find out they're not meeting regularly and then they're frustrated. That they're like, she doesn't know what she's supposed to be doing and like that. And then it really comes down to let's dig into why. And it always comes down to that they're not meeting regularly. How is she supposed to know? Now, if you've been NEA for a year for somebody and you're missing here and there meetings, that kind of a thing, I'll have a better understanding what I'm supposed to be doing in my role, right? Because I've been there for a year. But if you're in the first month and you're not meeting consistently with your executive, how are you supposed to know what the heck you're doing? How are you supposed to learn that? Like Dan Martell talks about, like in his book, he's got that book, Buy Back Your Time. And in that book he talks about, there's a chapter in the book, I think it's like chapter 6 or something that says clone yourself. And it's literally like most executives want an EA that's almost just like they are. Like that's really what it comes down to is I want somebody that thinks a lot like me, that can do a lot of the same things I can do, but maybe is more organized or has something to those extent. So it's like finding that person. And being able to like really dig in there with them and saying, but you have to invest that time. And that's really what gets lost. A lot of it is like investing into that person and people overcomplicate that like they do everything else and they wanna make it to where it's, I have to like dedicate an hour and a half, 2 hours, 3 hours a week or a day or whatever with this person. And it's even if you just let them sit in on sales meetings with you, even if you let them sit in on your level 10s or whatever it is, like just having them come to meetings, having them be with you, seeing how you operate, seeing Who's important to you and what you do. Now, you should have dedicated time with that person also where you talk through priorities and goals and planning and this is what I'm working on today. Those kind of things are really important, but also just letting them be around you to learn how you do things and why you do things, because then eventually they can start doing those things too.

And that's not taking extra time, it's just integrating them into your—

yep.

What you're doing. Yeah. That's really good. That's really insightful. So much good stuff. Okay, so I'm curious, and I'm sure you've got lots of like success stories. I'd love to hear a couple examples of a real estate entrepreneur that had an EA and was just like, my life— I don't know, what are like the biggest wins that just make you happy and content in this?

Or, you know? Yeah, we had, I had one that, so in January, I think it was like one of the first clients that I took on officially after I left Carrot. And it's amazing these relationships that I'm getting to build with these executives, first of all, just, and their assistants, in all honesty. It's just, it's really beautiful stuff. And I'm like such a big fan of just networking and creating relationships. That's probably one of my favorite things just on the planet. But I had this client in January that started with us and I'd met him before at Carrot events and things like that. And he'd seen on Facebook that I was doing my own thing and he reached out to me and he was like, I'm drowning. I don't know what to do. Everything was just felt like it was imploding in his world. And we started working together and I started doing something that I don't typically advertise, so I'll mention it, but this does not mean I do it all the time, guys, where I do fractional EA support because I wasn't working at Carrot, so I had a little extra time. So I was like, I'll do a little bit of fractional work with you to learn more about you and while I help you find an EA, right? So I started doing that with him, got to know him really well. We're actually pretty good friends now. He's a really good dude. And he, we spent a couple months working. We spent like a month working together while I started, you know, looking for an EA for him. We started interviewing people, found a phenomenal EA. She is just so good and just, I, every time, like his, I can feel like so much weight lifted off of everything he does. He's so much like de-stressed. He's able to really focus on these things that are just really driving his business forward. And it, it drastically changed the way that he operates because now he's not stuck in the weeds. When I met him, his inbox was like just a shit show. It was, it was insane. Like I went in there and, cause I was doing fractional support and it's, they'll tell me those things like my inbox is crazy. And then you see it and you're just like, oh, this is way worse than I expected it to be. And that was the case. And bringing her in and giving that opportunity for him to feel like he didn't have to be in there all the time, that just those kind of things afterwards was a huge weight. We had a client that we just hired for in the last few weeks, honestly. And he's, he's, it's, I mentioned him earlier, but he's very, he's a very laid back CEO, but at the same time he was so just like in the weeds and he was, he felt like he was drowning and he's very much a lifestyle type of guy as opposed to he doesn't want to work. He doesn't wanna live to work. He really wants to work to live. And I don't think, I think he's been down that hustle and grind of like really entrepreneurship and doing all that before. And he was really getting burnt out by it. And we hired this just maybe one of the best DAs we've ever hired before. And she is just, she's so seasoned and so just intelligent and such a hard worker. And she's really, every time I talk to her, she's just, we're going through and I'm giving her ways that she can look at what he's doing. 'Cause she feels like she's, again, she came from this very corporate world where she's always busy working for this like slower-paced situation, she's really pulling things off of him. And every time I talk to her, she's like, yeah, I took over this new process, or I built out this new thing. And it's just like the way that his work life has changed. She's like, now he's just like, he hardly ever, he doesn't even work the afternoons anymore, or he takes Fridays off every week. And he wasn't able to do that for so long. And I can tell you just from working for years with different executives, every single one of us gets into entrepreneurship because of the freedom that comes with it, right? Is there any freedom in entrepreneurship? That's a load of crap, right? It doesn't make sense.

Right.

But if you bring in an EA and it's a good EA, it will, it can create that for you on a different level than you've ever really experienced. And I don't think people really understand the value of that. Like they, they have this vision of entrepreneurship and then they get into it and you're drowning and it's, you wanna buy back the time to focus on the things that actually make you want to do your business. Then bring an EA in to change the game.

That is very insightful. It's kind of like, you know, passive income, which is awesome.

Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, because we do start this to make our own schedules, to have freedom of time, but I feel like when we get into it, we're often just, we're never off. We don't have space. We don't have time to delegate to people. That's really, I love that.

Okay.

Is there anything else we didn't cover or if someone's on the fence about this or when, you know, I think obviously any tips of like when to pull the trigger or look, hire someone like yourself, what's that tipping point usually where people are like, okay, this is the right thing to do?

Yeah. So I think that there's a lot of what we just talked about. A lot of people really, I think it's really interesting because especially this solopreneur type of entrepreneur. But it's like in the CEO and like the more like corporate level, like C-suite type executives, uh, in like Fortune 500 companies and all that, like they get like business coaches because of the companies they work for. But solopreneurs are really good at seeking out coaches and, uh, like looking for that business development help for themselves. But the idea of investing in other employees sometimes is very under the radar. It, it doesn't see, especially in the EA. It does not seem to be a thing, and I'm speaking from years of experience in this, it's not a thing that a lot of executives recognize the value in what really investing in something like that for your EA, or even to hire an EA, can really be for you because it really is just, it's investing back into yourself by investing into your EA. The better that they get at their role, the more proactive and progress your business can be, like the further forward your business can be driven because your EA is more exceptional. There are so many like tips and things that EAs— again, it goes back to that thing we've already talked about. It's like we get put into these buckets and boxes and the more that, you know, we, you know, the more and more years go by, it's like, it's harder to feel like confident that your EA can do these harder things because you've never had them do them before. So, You know, it, it's harder and harder to ask them to deal with special projects or to take on something new because you don't think it's in their skillset because you've never given it to them before. So it's like the more opportunity that you can give them, whether it's coaching, whether it's sending them to events, uh, again, like I can say, we can coach them, we can bring on and teach them these things all day long, but there are way other, there are other resources out there too. If you decide you don't want to use our training sources and stuff like that, go find other places that are also doing it. Like live events or whether it's podcasts and books and resources, there's just so much good information out there. It does not have to be us if you just dislike me and that's fine. Go out there and, and invest in your EA because she or he can grow so much more to really create the strategic partnership that you have not realized yet. And I think that's a big thing right there is just recognizing like, You can see the value in investing in yourself, and so you'll hire business coaches for you. You need to recognize the importance in doing the same thing for your EA.

That makes a lot of sense. And that seeing them as a strategic partner, I think that's just a very different kind of lens.

Yes.

Love that. Yes. I'm very inspired. Anything else that quickly that we didn't touch on that you preach or tell people about how you help or? Or anyway, but just—

Yeah. And there's a couple things that I would really suggest that if you're on the fence with hiring or looking at anything, I know I've already spoken to this a little bit, but there is a book. There's Dan Martell, like I've mentioned several times. I've been accused of being a Dan Martell fangirl, but read his book. He wrote a book called Buy Back Your Time. If you have not read it yet, you should read it. Again, there's a chapter in there, I believe it's like chapter 6 or something that's called Clone Yourself, and it really speaks to the idea of hiring an EA and why it's important. Why it should be the first hire that you make, but having that, that resource of that book, there's just so much really good information. A lot of the training and stuff that I do comes out of that book, and really will speak to the importance of this role. If you're an EA and you're listening to this and you haven't ever read the book, there's a book by Jeremy Burrows called The Leader Assistant. A lot of EAs call it like the EA Bible. Read it if you have not, listen to it on Audible, whatever, but like really dig in. Jeremy's really smart, knows a lot of stuff. He's a really solid resource for information. So those two things I would say, just invest in your own growth. And that's the other thing is like going back to that, EA or executives are so good in investing in their own growth. If you are an EA, fight for that for yourself. Took me years to realize that I needed to do that. I would read books and do things like that, but I didn't really pursue it a whole lot until pretty far into my career. I don't think I even realized that existed for EAs, and I think that's true for a lot of EAs is that they don't even realize that those resources exist. So invest in yourself and in your growth because if you are, your executive will see that and will want to invest more back into you too. If they see the value that you're bringing, it's like I've had executives tell me like, I wanna give her a raise, but I need to see that the value she's bringing. And that's a really difficult thing to see as an EA. So like from your EA where, you know, like your business is growing, but you're not attesting it to your EA. Look and see why. What is really bringing growth? Are you able to focus more on your priorities now that you have an EA? That's because your EA is there. Recognize the correlation between those two and you'll see why bringing that person in really did buy back more of your time, really did open your business up for growth. So you as the EA recognize the importance of your value and invest in that yourself as much as you can, but also as the executive, invest into your EA because they will help your business grow if you do.

This has been so fun. I have a couple wrap-up questions.

Yes.

Covered some of it, but so I always like to ask the top business or life advice to live life.

Yeah, I spoke to it a little bit, but I think I've been thinking, I, this is, again, I've been thinking about this so much lately is really Just trusting your gut, knowing that every day we all have to make so many decisions. You probably understand your business and what you, your vision, what you want better than anybody else does. And there is a lot of noise out there. People are going to give you advice till they're blue in the face to tell you how and why you should be doing everything you should be doing. But if you feel a red flag, if you feel like maybe this isn't what I want to do or the direction I want to go, don't let other people tell you where your business should go. How your business should grow, what things you should be focusing on. Focus on what you want to do to make your business what you want it to be. I've been being told for like over a year how fast my business could grow if I XYZ and do all these things. And I really, I wanna work like 30 hours a week. I don't wanna work 100 hours a week. I don't wanna build this like crazy empire of like million— who doesn't want millions of dollars? But I don't want to work that way. I wanna be able to focus. I have 3 kids. I wanna be able to spend time with my family. I wanna be able to invest in that. And the business is important, but it's not what's my driving factor. So I think like trusting my gut to say, I can slow down, I can focus where I wanna focus. I can take the clients I wanna take. I can say no to people if I don't wanna work with them. That it's okay. It's okay to say no. It's okay to trust your gut. It's okay to listen to advice. Like I always think about that idea of eat the meat and spit out the bones. Like people will share good advice with you all day long, but it doesn't mean you have to take all of it. So be okay with that. Recognize that.

Yeah. Okay. Your superpower and how you've used it in your business.

Yeah, I would say probably recognizing problems, like seeing problems in situations and being able to help navigate through them, I think is probably my biggest. I'm a problem solver, so I will, I'm really good at helping people, whether it's like executives or their EAs, seeing that where their issue is, they'll come to me and they'll say, this is what they think is the problem, but then really finding the underlying problem of how they got there and helping them find that solve. Okay.

Yeah, no, I mean, it, there's a lot of— we talked about this, you've mentioned the Buy Back Your Time, which I'm currently reading. It's great. A book or a podcast or anything, I think you have any other resources I would like to ask that.

Yeah. So those two books I mentioned earlier are probably a big part of that. There's also a website that has, they have podcasts and books and all kinds of stuff, but it's called All Things Admin. This is obviously more for executive assistants. They have a whole bunch of resources. They have a lot of really cool books that are like little short kind of reads. They have a book called Become a Procedures Pro, a lot, and which is good for both executives and their assistants. But a lot of executives really struggle with creating process and like that. And All Things Admin is solid on really all of those things and really digging in and helping you develop process and build that stuff out. And so much of like my growth and development in that arena has come from them.

I love it. Okay. No, I think we all need help with that.

Sure.

Okay. And then the last thing, how can people find you, work with you, reach out if they're interested? Yeah. Yeah.

Again, we're gonna share some resources. I'll send some stuff your way afterwards so that they can do that. But then also, so take advantage of that stuff and then hit us up. But you can email me, Jen, J-E-N, at thekickassistant, like all one word,.com. You can go to our website, it's thekickassistant.com. Kickass assistant. Feel free to hit us up and we will help you however we can. I'm all about just like wanting to help businesses grow and develop. So feel free to reach out. We can set up a call to chat and see how we might be able to serve you or point you in the right direction of somebody else that could.

I love that. Jen, thank you so much. It's been really insightful and inspiring. I hope people got some good takeaways. So thanks for taking the time. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I'll link everything up in the show notes. Yeah. Thank you so much.

I—

Definitely. Thank you for having me.