Most new clients we work with have never had a remote EA before and they ask questions like this:
❓ “Should I give my new remote Executive Assistant projects to work on or…
How does this work best?” ❓
The answer is “Yes AND…”
Don’t stop at projects!
🚧 Projects is an answer to…
“What can my EA do for me?”
💪 Ownership is the answer to…
“What can my EA continually do for me?”
Different clients start differently with their remote Executive Assistant. Here are two approaches I’ve seen clients take when starting, one is better and I think you’ll see why.
Catch & Release or Integrate & Empower
🎣 Catch & Release:
- There was a thrill in the hunt and now you’ve got a great EA and you’re excited to get started.
- But you never really start.
- You get in your own way, or their way, and do things before your assistant has a chance to begin.
- You become worried about “keeping them busy” and filling the hours, so you hyper focus on time-spent instead of impact made.
- And you sabotage the relationship by not giving them appropriate feedback, timely access and at least one area of responsibility that is on-going.
- So, you keep them for a couple of months and then release them back into the wild because you never really started working with them and you’re right back where you started, overwhelmed.
🔥 Integrate & Empower:
- You utilize a Weekly Huddle and daily asynchronous communication to stay on the same page.
- You utilize a Shared Project or Task Management System so that both of you always know what today’s priorities are.
- Your EA is seen as a partner who has access to properly support you and access to just about everything.
- You provide them with timely feedback as you go so that they can properly adjust to your expectations.
- If they do something the wrong way, you don’t fix it, you show them and they correct it.
- They have permission to push back and give you feedback when what you say you want doesn’t match what you’re doing or asking for.
The difference is pretty obvious. In the first scenario, the investment is squandered while in the second it pays off for a long time!
In our on-boarding process, I’m always trying to communicate that an EA is not just for projects, they’re for the everyday stuff!
It’s been almost 5 years since we started Dream Support to help leaders get out of the weeds. We’re a boutique remote EA agency and therefore I’m personally involved in the whole process and continue to stay engaged with our EAs as they serve our clients.
In the past 30 days, we’ve had 3 clients upgrade their package, kicked off with 3 new clients and I’m currently in a LinkedIn search for the next batch of amazing EAs. I started this search for one client, but just after a couple of days there’s over 250 applicants, so far. We’ll probably end up with over 1,000 applicants. I can already see that this group has a ton of talent.
Perhaps you’re ready to get started as well.
-Micah Foster, Co-Owner