On this week’s episode, Ethan Bull, co-founder of ProAssisting, joins the show to discuss the powerful impact an executive assistant can have on both your MSP and personal life. Win back your time from tasks you SHOULDN’T be doing and use that free time to invest in your family and focus on areas of the business you’re best suited for as owner/CEO.
Chapters:
0:00 - Intro
1:48 - Why 29 hour work day?
4:40 - Why do you need an executive assistant?
9:11 - “I don’t have that much to hand off”
16:40 - How do I find an EA?
25:14 - Full-time vs part-time EA
34:48 - Resources for hiring an EA
40:33 - The positive impacts of an EA
43:32 - Conclusion
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🤝 Connect with Ethan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ethanbull/
🤝 ProAssisting: https://www.proassisting.com/
🤝 Connect with Damien: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dstevens
📺 Watch on YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbzzyR7yX9l9XQaZCBp0v0g
[00:00:00] Hey guys, today's episode is sponsored by Surveacity. Surveacity does two things very differently from any other backup in DR company. The first is they are maniacal about testing your backups. Daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly. Last, they're crazy enough to manage the backups and take
[00:00:19] over 80% of the operations, so it's done for you proactively but allows you to put your hands on it to be the hero when needed. If you want all of that, plus a mutable and unlimited storage, make sure to take a look at Surveacity.com.
[00:00:35] You know, if your goal is to sell the business, being a key man is a lot of times considered a negative and the more that you can pull yourself out of the business through leverage
[00:00:52] of an executive assistant and the rest of your support staff, the more valuable your business becomes. Hey guys, Damien Stevens, host of MSP Mindset. Have you ever been frustrated because you're not getting enough done and you're working all the time? Join me as I talk with Ethan
[00:01:16] Bull, the author of the 29-hour workday and we talk about how you can win back your time, have so much less to do and get more done. It feels like 29-hours a workday, done with his secret guide
[00:01:31] to leveraging an executive assistant to do that for you. You'd like to hear about how I did that, how I sent my assistant through his academy and how he teaches others how to do that.
[00:01:42] Don't miss out on this conversation. So I want to talk about that because you've been in the VA, you're running business now, training EAs. But before we get into some of that I wanted to figure
[00:01:55] out, or when did you start to think about, I need to write this book. You wrote the book, the 29-hour workday. When was it first? It became an idea. Well my wife Stephanie is also a career executive assistant. Our main business is providing
[00:02:16] fractional remote executive assistant support to business owners, entrepreneurs, non-executive board directors. We can get talk about that. The training company, the process thing Academy is an offshoot of our main business and we wrote the book because
[00:02:36] we felt it was a really good use of our time, our knowledge, that aligned with our business. In a way that allowed us to put the instruction manual down on the table for how someone
[00:02:52] can really leverage their assistant and how to think of that support, how to find the right assistant, how to know what's in bounds and out of bounds in terms of how to view their support.
[00:03:05] You know I'll give you a sneak peek, not many things are out of bounds, depending on the relationship that you form. So it was aligned with our business interests and in terms of sharing that knowledge. That's kind of what it's all about,
[00:03:24] probably why we're here right now. Yeah so I've read the book, I enjoyed it, told me it helped me and my amazing executive assistant Jordan definitely recommended it. I wanted to ask a few questions for those that I haven't read it at least yet.
[00:03:40] Why are the 29 hour workday? It's a little play on the four hour work week by Tim Ferris. We feel that high level executive assistant work falls under five performance multipliers and that's being a business partner slash strategic advisor,
[00:04:05] chief of staff, a project manager, an assistant slash scheduler and a personal assistant. And if you take the five performance multipliers and implement them into your world, your workday should go from 24 hours to 29 hours. And I know workday is nine to five but if you're a business owner,
[00:04:31] you know as I am, I know that I am consistently thinking about the business and even dreaming about it. So there you go. Let's let's dig into this a little bit. I will confess, I built my business, bought my first business, I built this business all these years.
[00:04:51] And I thought, I don't need an executive assistant. Right? I had all of these, I can do it myself. I'm not too good for it. I'm in a technology business. It's not like anybody's
[00:05:04] going to copy your facts or, you know, I'm dating myself saying word facts but still, I just had this view that I didn't need an assistant first and secondly,
[00:05:18] I think that I, I also had what I really believe is now to be false belief. That like I wouldn't have enough for them to do, wouldn't be interesting for them and there wouldn't be any return
[00:05:32] on even figuring out to hire an assistant. So help, help the folks listening understand, what do they need to be thinking about if they're running their business and they don't have an assistant?
[00:05:49] Well, I mean, we can go two roads. We can go down the dollars and cents road or we can go down the quality of life rub. So the dollars and cents is pretty simple if you're running it business.
[00:06:03] At the end of the year you sit there and say, okay, you know, this was my free cash flow. You know, post-ebita, I don't really buy, you know, I'm more in the Warren Buffet campus than
[00:06:17] I don't, I don't really buy into ebita. It's just what's your cash? What's your free cash flow? Divide that by 2,000 hours and that's kind of your hourly rate as a business owner. And so anything you can get done or if something's taking you 15 minutes,
[00:06:37] you take your hourly rate and divide it by four, that's how much you're paying to do that. And so being able to bring someone in that you know like and trust,
[00:06:52] who can take that off of your plate, how much do you need to do before you cover the cost of compensating that person? Pretty straightforward. Now if you look at it on the quality of life side, it's how many of those things get bumped down the priority list.
[00:07:18] Still need to happen, but they continually get bumped just because you don't like doing them or they become so big that you have to do it in chunks and it takes a long time and, you know,
[00:07:31] in that respect, it's more along the lines of you're running this business to live a great life. So bring someone in who can give you that time back and then you can
[00:07:48] you can take that time and it doesn't even have to go back into the business, it can go into the personal side of the ledger and it gives you flexibility. But sometimes it can be very difficult to fight
[00:08:03] the quote unquote, I can do it faster myself syndrome and I try to explain to prospects of ours, you know, you may have to do something that takes a little longer this time even though
[00:08:17] you could do it quicker on your own, all in an effort to train someone. So then you never have to do it again and the time dividend that that pays over month and a month out here in a
[00:08:29] near-out can be quite substantial. And frankly it's about sometimes it's also about putting a buffer between you and everyone else and if that relationship is created the right way and if that relationship is presented to people in your company and outside of your company in the
[00:08:49] right way, as a true partnership as someone who can speak for you, a lot of questions that fill up your inbox and your text string are never going to get asked again because those questions are
[00:09:00] going to be asked to the assistant and they're going to know the answers. So yeah I mean that's kind of maybe a 10,000 foot view. Let me jump back. So a lot of folks listening, I know you don't have
[00:09:15] one because that didn't, right? You're sitting there, you're working all the time, you don't have an executive assistant and if you're like me, you're thinking I don't have that much, you know,
[00:09:25] I don't know, I don't think I want to give them my email, maybe it's got a lot of technical in it. I really don't need too many errands run. I'm certainly not a movie producer for example where you
[00:09:37] kind of started. So I think there's a lot of small businesses, especially the tech ones listening that are sitting there like I was speaking from my experience going, I just don't know
[00:09:48] that I have that much to do and I have lots to do working but that I can hand off. So help, I guess help cross that that mental divide where you go what could I really do? Because I know
[00:10:03] that I was in that camp. I don't know, I own calendar my own email, it's not that much and then I'm not, I could see if I travel all the time but like speaking personally, I travel some,
[00:10:15] but not all the time. So kind of some of the you know classic ones of like I need them to answer the office phone or handle physical mail or book travel or this sort of thing that I said,
[00:10:27] I don't have enough of and then I had to figure about calendar email, you know, those kind of things. So then what did settle this things? I was really like, I don't know what I would have
[00:10:36] them do. So I know that was there. What would you say to a younger me what I'm sitting there making those perhaps excuses? I would start asking, what do you really love to do in your business?
[00:10:52] What is the, what really gets your juices going for a lot of people me included at sales? I actually enjoy sales conversations. It's, it's strategy and it's that higher level thinking. You know, so by looking at your calendar thinking about a week or a month
[00:11:18] and looking at the things that fall under the column of that zone of genius or what you really enjoy doing and those things that don't fall under that column but still have to get done
[00:11:33] and are your responsibility. And then deciding if there's enough and and can you get over that hump of the quote unquote I can do a faster myself mentality? I wonder your thoughts on,
[00:11:48] and, you know, for example, I we don't have much meal. I'm not doing a lot of travel. So really I was like, I can use a technology tool for my calendar or booking. I can just do the emails
[00:12:05] myself. Speaking somebody whom has amazing executive assistant that now handles my calendar in my email, what would you say to folks that are keeping all that in the cells when maybe because
[00:12:18] like you said that's not my zone of genius. We're organizing things in general, not my zone of genius handling emails and you know the calendar not the I know how to do it. I'm not the best at
[00:12:28] doesn't give me energy doesn't give me joy. Right. So what would you say? Well, I would say email is a very personal thing. So in our business about 50% of our clients have their assistant in
[00:12:41] their email and 50% oh and of those 50% that don't we sometimes step in and say the assistant is not allowed to be in your email because we have clients who are non executive board directors and are dealing with confidential information about you know publicly traded
[00:12:58] companies. And so having a line in the sand on those kind of things is very important. But even taking a step back before that, it's you know do you feel comfortable with this person
[00:13:16] of actually stepping in and handling that for you. I actually know Jordan your assistant and she's fantastic. So I you know but I would say that you know the first week working with her you don't know her from a whole no-all. So what happens normally in the relationship
[00:13:40] is that either you have an executive or a business owner who's used an assistant before and just jumps right in like it's you know 85 degree pool weather or pool water you know jumps
[00:13:53] right in just knows where they're wanting and then you have the other one who's never had an assistant before. And so it's it's gonna take a while it's gonna you know it could take it could take a month
[00:14:06] it could take three months but if you're partnered with a high level executive assistant who's done this for years worked with many different principles they will onboard you just as much as you onboard them and they will encourage you you know Damian you don't need to do that.
[00:14:27] Why are you doing that? You know I can handle that you know and the more of those kind of interactions that you have your brain is automatically going to surface up other instances of things
[00:14:42] that you don't have to do and as you grow a company you have employees and you you you have people who need to go through an onboarding process you have benefits you have you know
[00:14:59] you know as a small business you know you send out invoices you know you track payments you you know that executive assistant can be the good cop you know to your bad cop
[00:15:16] you know they can be the buffer they can be the good cop bad cop they can provide that little nudge to people to make sure that they're moving in the right direction on on those objectives or getting you the principle the information you need.
[00:15:33] So it's you got to be ready for you got to be open to it but it's all a matter of on the one hand dollar in sense but on the other hand what kind of life do I want to live right now?
[00:15:49] Yeah yeah to not be a slave your business have some quality of life and time and just speaking personally I feel like super easy to burn out. You never stop thinking about your
[00:16:03] business it keeps growing there's more challenges but you were last year's not if you need to be this year right I've got a level up and that's part of what I had to realize that I needed somebody to
[00:16:15] take care of these issues so that I could focus on the things that are in my zone of genius and not stay in this stuff that I am mediocre or maybe awful at and so yeah that's that's huge I
[00:16:32] think you're listening it's probably you I would challenge most of you the listening to really really think about that. Ethan tell me how if I'm trying to figure this out and I'm trying
[00:16:43] like my my example I've never had a executive assistant it built some businesses but I just figured I'll do it all myself and what I say that I mean I'm hired for software development or project
[00:16:56] management or technical support or even financial roles like so I hired people but I did hire never hired an executive assistant so if you're me if you're listening you sound like me
[00:17:08] what kind of advice would you give to how I start to think about finding the right executive assistant? Well I think the first part is realizing that you need one and as a business owner
[00:17:25] you know if your goal is to sell the business. Being a keyman is is a lot of times considered a negative and the more that you can pull yourself out of the business through leverage of an
[00:17:43] executive assistant and the rest of your support staff the more valuable your business becomes. So starting there. Determining what is the right level of support for you now? Because there are so many options. You you know Tim Ferriss's book the
[00:18:14] four or work week came out in 2007 and all the rage was higher a five dollar an hour executive assistant from overseas let them run your million dollar business and work for hours a week.
[00:18:30] That still exists those options are still there and they can if they work for you as a business owner I think that's fantastic. Then there is US based virtual assistant companies where you're dealing with
[00:18:44] people who are on shore so they speak like you and me but I think in that situation you have a vast array of experience level and I'm quite frankly most of the industry does not I feel personally doesn't comp their virtual assistant appropriately and sometimes their business model
[00:19:10] makes it so there a assistant has to have six or eight or ten clients. Then there is fractional executive assistant support or remote executive assistant support and that's the space that we play in with pro assisting. We limit the number of clients that are assistant have
[00:19:32] to three maximum and we don't charge by the hour and we charge a flat retainer rate and we pass 80% of that onto the assistant so we're basically like their agents if you will.
[00:19:45] There we get a very high level of assistant and for one third of their resources currently the starting prices 3,000 a month so that's not insignificant and then you go a step from there
[00:19:58] and you can have an office assistant or a full-time assistant and then you can have a full-time executive assistant and so for someone just starting out there's a whole plethora of options that they get to research and compare that against how they envision this person fitting into their
[00:20:23] workflow and then make a decision. So the options are immense and I think when the iPhone came out and then you have the emergence of SaaS products and you have a lot of work happening in the
[00:20:54] browser as opposed to on an operating system so it didn't matter about Mac and PC. Those things were all screaming at us in 2017 when we were thinking about launching our business
[00:21:07] and it was telling us that we could do what we do at a high level remotely and it was platform agnostic. But I think what you did before in person and now primarily, right I mean leveraging things down to task rabbit for in person stuff or
[00:21:29] or what have you and then also getting the work done and being platform ubiquitous and doesn't matter if a client's on an Android or an iPhone or a PC or a Mac, our assistants fit right in and so seeing all that kind of made us realize whoa,
[00:21:55] that's huge. I will go back to like 2005, six, I was at the ad agency, working for Fred, and I go into the IT office which and I had my guy. He was my guy in the IT office because I would
[00:22:16] come running Fred would need something and he would just jump on it and get it done. And I go in there one day and say what's going on? So I can't leave it. Like you're leaving, what do you mean? It's like yeah I'm leaving.
[00:22:31] I'm like no no don't go what are you doing and he's like I'm gonna go start my own business. I'm gonna enjoy just going to be a client of mine and I'm gonna work from my living room.
[00:22:41] I'm like what? And this was in 2006 and I was like oh man I wished in the best of course but I walked back to my desk and I'm like I'm never gonna be able to do that.
[00:22:55] Like that's never gonna happen to me and then now here I am. I think about that and the pace of technology and how quickly it's changed and what it allows for and then with COVID in the pandemic it it's sped up the understanding that that works possible.
[00:23:16] It wasn't a huge inflow of work to us but I didn't have to explain remote work anymore and I don't buy into, I don't buy into many black and white in life.
[00:23:28] Everything is a shade of gray and in office remote hybrid I think should be implemented in all companies. However you want to do that, so I do take a little umbridge with the Jamie
[00:23:52] Diamonds of the world he's the CEO of JP Morgan Chase who says no everybody's coming back into the office and Elon Musk saying remote work never works and I'm sitting here saying hold on a second. The blackberry was released in 2000 or 1999 and we were working remotely.
[00:24:17] I was answering emails in line at a Starbucks and you know in 2007 when I got my iPhone but Stephanie was in finance they were handing those things out like tiktoks and I'm like so you never
[00:24:32] want me answering an email at 9 o'clock in night. You never want me answering an email or moving a meeting around at 3 o'clock on a Sunday. Really are you sure? Because we weren't getting compensated for that before. Our comp never changed. Yeah. You know and now you're telling
[00:24:50] me that remote work doesn't work and everybody's got to be in the office. I get it. They're speaking to a large audience but I think it's a little tone deaf around the idea that you know it has to
[00:25:02] be one way or the other. I think it's role specific. I do think it's company specific but yeah that's my I'll get off my soapbox. What if I'm listening help me understand like you laid out
[00:25:18] virtual $5 an hour overseas all the way to you know your company perhaps I don't know if it's in the middle exactly but somewhere in the middle and from my dollars in since perspective all
[00:25:29] the way to full-time executive assistant you know only working for me. How do I even figure that out from listening and I go hmm I'd like some quality of life. I really could get more done. I think
[00:25:41] I could make this work and I know a lot of them are sure that if they're the same spot they go oh I don't want to do like part of the problem are there too many too many variables too many options
[00:25:53] and I think a lot of us we just say well let's just dip our toe in and I'll get the five dollar virtual person. If that doesn't work then I can't make anything else work which I think is not true.
[00:26:07] I hear that a lot. A lot of people come to us because the virtual assistant options both onshore and offshore haven't met their needs. I find a lot of that has to do with the availability
[00:26:21] of the assistant and the turnaround time on communication and since we limit the number of clients that our assistants have to a maximum of three that kind of and they're working Monday through Friday
[00:26:31] 9 to 5 for you they're in and out of your business many times a day. Doing work and as needed and feathering in with other work. So the I think the problem is is that the assistant role whether you're talking administrative assistant or executive assistant or office assistant
[00:26:56] the thing is as I've seen an administrative assistant work at the level of a six figure executive assistant and I've seen a six figure executive assistant only work at the level of a low
[00:27:07] level of admin assistant and it's a utility player and so there are so many different directions you can go with great support that it can become overwhelming or paralyzing. You know we were mentioning
[00:27:27] before you know your executive assistant can have some HR functions they can have some office management functions they can have some IT functions they can have some payroll functions or bookkeeping functions they can have some personal assistant support functions you know so
[00:27:45] when you present a plethora of options to someone a lot of times they pick nothing and it can become overwhelming and so for us in our business at $3,000 a month for one third the
[00:28:03] resources of an assistant are assistants are those six figure assistants that you get access to fractionally I like to tell clients look you really need to be doing north of $500,000 a year in revenue to justify bringing out a $3,000 month assistant. Just from a dollars and sense balance
[00:28:25] sheet perspective but if that's the kind of business you're running and in your north of $500,000 they will find things to do and the other thing is is that we kind of try and take time off
[00:28:42] of the table obviously time is a part of what we do but there is immense value in the exclusivity knowing that you're only sharing an assistant with two other people max and there's even more
[00:28:58] value in the legacy knowledge and information that build up inside that assistant over time about you about your business, about your family, about your community, about your rhythms that has a
[00:29:17] immense value that you can't put a dollar figure on and so that is that's kind of why we're unique in the way we present our business model and that comes specifically from mine and Stephanie's combined over 40 years of experience supporting CEOs of billion dollar companies
[00:29:42] and how that level of person works the CEO of a billion dollar company is they want someone in between them and everyone else that they can have an eight minute conversation with
[00:30:01] and they're to do list of 15 things goes down to two and the thing is those 13 things that they assistant is doing covers their family covers their philanthropic giving covers their art collection covers you know speaking with their attorney covers sitting in on a board meeting
[00:30:23] that they're a part of covers anything in between and so that's where they get leverage and you know it's been said to me many times like I can't believe I didn't do this sooner right yeah yeah yeah and if you're running your business successfully and and you are
[00:30:51] you do have the space in the balance sheet you will find spots to leverage that support that that will pay dividends absolutely so would you say start thinking about it that's your
[00:31:08] one-trick five hundred k and above well no let's for that's for us in terms of where our businesses if you're a solo per newer and you are providing a service and you're making 300 a year
[00:31:22] it may may be worth three grand a month for you to have someone handling your calendar being the point person that your clients call first that your customers call first you know but in terms
[00:31:34] of if you're running a smaller business you know I mean that's just a guide post but I would say that again there are a large number of options and offshore is not necessarily bad
[00:31:51] you know and if it work if you can get it to work for you and then you grow enough then you may be able to graduate to pro assisting we consider it a win when we're working with a
[00:32:05] start-up founder and they go from one third resources to 50% resources to two third resources we're 14 months down the road they need more they either bring in another one of our assistance excuse me or we help them recruit higher train onboard a full-time assistant
[00:32:41] and then there's been instances what we've done that and then they've backed their current assistant down to one third resources to be that second assistant for their full-time assistant nice the flexibility that the workforce provides now with fractional from the CXO level all the way
[00:33:02] down to assistance, bookkeeping, IT I really think bookkeeping and IT are the two pioneers in this space it gives you a huge immense flexibility on your balance sheet and instead of saying
[00:33:22] I need to hire a chief marketing officer but I also want a COO ACFO and an assistant you can go fractional across the board for probably what it would cost you to hire that full-time
[00:33:37] CML and you know the term fractional I think you know were June of 2024 I think I think it's moving from being a fad to being a true pillar of business because I think there is an immense ocean of knowledge withheld in 50 plus 50 year old plus C sweet executives
[00:34:12] that gives them an opportunity to have a second career share their wealth and the internet wipes the lines on the map away so I think if a start-up or a small business is not leveraging
[00:34:33] that kind of support I think you're making bigger bets than you need to in terms of hiring and finding support you need. So yeah that's what the question I sometimes will ask when people ask me about my journey where I went from no assistant to full-time executive assistant
[00:34:58] which is quite the journey because I'd never had one and she'd never been one so that made it even more challenging and it's been amazing it's been a blessing and I have nothing but amazing
[00:35:10] things to say and I don't think that it always works out that way and I know I got a lot of help along the way to figure that out so if there's somebody that's sitting there and they're
[00:35:23] hiring a CMO or COA whether it's full-time or even fractional but you haven't freed up your time and usually like you said you'd have to sell usually you do like you're probably a pretty
[00:35:34] integral part of the business so that you know just from a dollar's in its insenspective why wouldn't you free up some of your time either for quality of life and or for to drive the business forward
[00:35:46] in a way that very few people could when you're going out and hiring sometimes much more expensive roles and you've missed kind of the obvious ones for folks struggling with that and saying how
[00:35:57] do I get started? How do I mean how do I think my teeth into this problem at all? Where would you recommend they go read your book whether resources what what else would you say to say
[00:36:10] how do I figure out the assistant thing where you know the whole part of it? There's an amazing Harvard business review article that talks about your first hire should be an executive assistant and it's you know I you know being on the sail side and talking to
[00:36:35] business owners entrepreneurs high level executives about their need for an executive assistant it really is it comes down to sales 101 unless the pain is enough that you want you you feel like
[00:36:54] you have to get rid of it you're usually not going to make a move and you're not going to make a change hmm some people have that innate act to be forward looking and envision themselves six months
[00:37:08] or year down the road with an executive assistant drinking my ties on the beach but a lot of people don't and I when I say I like sales it's it's a consultative sale it has to be a symbiotic balanced relationship
[00:37:30] we are not a hard sell company because our agreements are month to month our clients can leave whenever they want you know you they're not firing a person they're canceling a service and so
[00:37:45] it's it's it's about seeing where they are in their business how motivated are they to give themselves back time and that's that's the nub we give back time the most valuable resource
[00:38:00] there is and hopefully some peace of mind along the way as well but if that pain of sending out 85 invoices you know now that we're into June is is painful for you and but yet you can handle it
[00:38:23] you may not make a change you know one of the sales guys that I follow a lot and this is whole is whole philosophy as well as you know I have a toaster and it toasts four pieces of bread
[00:38:44] two of the slots don't work but I don't need four pieces of bread I only need two mm-hmm so I'm not in the market for a toaster but if one of those two slots goes on the
[00:39:01] fritz and goes hey wire I'm buying a toaster tomorrow mm-hmm and so you know it's where are you in that line you know how many double booked meetings need to happen to you before you say this can't happen anymore all right you know how many disgruntled clients call
[00:39:28] and nobody gets back to him in 48 hours how many times does that happen where you're finally not going to put up with it anymore mm-hmm you know and I get it you know business is
[00:39:42] hard um running a business is hard so you know there's business owners who know their numbers and there's business owners who don't know their numbers if you don't know your numbers I don't
[00:39:54] know how you're going to make any decision on hiring at all but if you do know your numbers and you know maybe it is a little bit of a pain and a bite to spend 3,000 a month to get some
[00:40:05] great support in for you but there can also be some accountability there as well mm-hmm you know now that I'm paying for this I'm going to use it and then if the assistant is good they're going
[00:40:22] to show you how to get your money back mm-hmm and um even if that is time then peace of mind yeah what's your experience on the impact to clients or the team? what can speak from my personal experience that it's been just what you said like
[00:40:42] in the last 24 hours is an amazing and it's a prospect and they called and so you know Jordan Reach out and just said he's an amazing can we you know how about this time or that time can we you
[00:40:52] know just in the day of the voicemail you move on to somebody else you go to the next thing but getting a personal call back and just saying hey he's an amazing can he call you this time
[00:41:02] is all the difference between maybe able to speak that person and they've already moved on the other thing that surprised me because I'm new with this is the team my team it's just like
[00:41:14] this is so much better we can get more done we have more clarity we don't have to wait till you know we see you only this often to finally get an answer to a question or there's so many
[00:41:27] things she can unlock and do or them even though she's my assistant she can she can pour back into the business and and so you know what I have to learn you think is I think
[00:41:41] she's no danger this but if I were to not have an assistant anymore and say oh I'm not going to do that think the team would be like are you crazy you have pitchforks so um is that at all normal
[00:41:52] that kind of impact to a team or the client one of the things we say in our welcome email is think about how you introduce your assistant to your team and your client and the amount of
[00:42:15] respect praise and partnership you express through those introductions can go a long way towards alleviating them coming back to you on the back end you know sometimes and usually they're not the right client for us some people look at their relationship with
[00:42:44] their assistant in an an adversarial light trying to catch them in a mistake trying to make sure they're squeezing every single penny out of them and that's backwards it's not the way you should look at
[00:43:05] at at least in our viewpoint you know they're a partner and if you can transfer some of your your leadership and your your voice to them in the eyes of your employees and your clients you're going to get exactly what you're getting
[00:43:32] so I think this has been amazing you think I feel like I could do this all day but to be a good story which I won't but would you tell everybody the best way to find you if they want
[00:43:43] here more learn more about you your business etc. yeah i mean best way to find me is on LinkedIn Ethan Bol, BUL you know my wife Stephanie Bol as well is on LinkedIn and then our website is pro
[00:43:57] assisting.com as you know we are working with the pro assisting academy as well and so we're working with that as well but our main business is pro assisting.com and we provide fractional remote executive assistant support to business owners, executives, non executive board directors
[00:44:23] and high-end at worth individuals. If you're listening or take advantage of that whether you reach out to Ethan or Stephanie or pro assisting.com and then what I can say personally is I
[00:44:34] hired amazing executive assistant but there's been a lot of help I've needed to get along the way reading the book this 29 hour workday, high performers guide delivering junior EA was critical I think
[00:44:45] for both Jordan and I to both read it and compare and contrast and see what we took away what we disagreed with that's not how we're going to do it this is the way we're going to do
[00:44:55] it was really good because it brought a lot of questions, a lot of things that could be turned into a so-p solidified and just takes out the guess work and so if you want to
[00:45:08] read that book I can say that we've read it and it really really helped. It can also say first hand that Jordan went through a pro assisting academy and is a big thing so thank you for all the
[00:45:21] work that you've done to put that on and to pull that off Ethan it's really been just an amazing thing for myself and for Jordan as well. That's awesome if any of your listeners want to reach out
[00:45:33] on LinkedIn let me know they listen to the show I will send them a password protected link so they can download a copy of the book or listen to it on audio be my pleasure. You heard it here guys
[00:45:44] and now either go buy the book quick being cheap or stock Ethan and get a free copy you've got no excuse we're not taking the next step Ethan thank you so much for being on the show today. Damien thank you so much



