EntreLeadership - #397: Why All Leaders Need an Assistant with Tricia Sciortino

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Time is a limited resource. And somehow it seems to be extra precious to come by when you’re running a business. It’s actually one of your most valuable assets as a leader and should be protected. But how? Tricia Sciortino, CEO of Belay, shows us how finding a passionate, high-performing assistant (who thinks like a leader) can help business owners take back their time and focus on the bigger picture—aka, growing and scaling their businesses.   entreleadership.com/podcast BELAY's website The EntreLeader's Guide to Delegation Schedule a FREE 20-minute consultation with BELAY Review this episode for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card   Want expert help with your business question? Call 844-944-1070 and leave a message or send an email to [e-mail]. You could be featured on a future podcast episode! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a lie that I've told myself. Maybe you've told yourself this lie as well, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a leader. The lie is that my time should be spent getting the work done. Checking off tasks, meeting with clients, pushing projects through. Work, work, grind, grind, and takes all that to get a business off the ground. But at some point, you end up doing a really good job on the wrong things. Not bad things, but the wrong things. They're the things that were the right things when you started, but now they're the wrong things because somebody else can do it.

And you'll never build and scale a peak performing business if you don't start delegating. From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and delegation is something that my guest today knows a lot about. Tricia Shortino, she's the CEO of Belay. And Bale, well, they're friends of ours. They've been friends for a long time. Their founders came to an entree leadership event many years ago, and they have built a peak performing business using the principles that we teach you guys on this podcast every day.

And they're a company that specializes in helping businesses understand the value of their time. They help leaders learn how to delegate and work with somebody who can do the job, sometimes even better than that leader themselves. Sounds kind of easy. But Trish has found that there's this thing that leaders do. I've done this. done this, where we say, oh, no, I don't feel comfortable delegating that yet. And we end up holding on to things too long that we should be handing to somebody else so we can work on the business and not just

in it. And we hang on too long because we don't actually value our biggest asset, and that is our time. There are so many people spinning their wheels and maybe investing in the things that don't have high ROI. I mean, we have such a limited resource in our time. So I personally am so maniacal about what I'm going to spend my time on, how much time I'm going to spend on that thing, and honestly, being really clear about the things I'm not going to spend my time on. And I think a lot of people don't necessarily run that filter through their mind. They think about what they should be doing, but maybe they don't spend enough time thinking about what they should not be doing. And the things you should not be doing could fall into a couple different categories.

It's something that doesn't have real ROI. It's something that isn't going to show up in the business at the end of the day. It's minutia or its back end work. And you can't actually see that in the long-term vision and growth strategy of your organization. I think as, you know, the leader of an organization or company, the things you should and can be focused on are the things only really you can do. And as the leader, it's those high-level things like casting vision for the organization, you know, breathing into your team with your core values and your growth strategy and vision. Those are the things that we all know we should spend time on. But in order to spend the right amount of time on those things, you actually have to say no to a lot of other things. You could work 80 hours a week, but should you?

and then are you the best you when you do show up because are you burnt out and overworked and overwhelmed by all the things you're trying to do? I know one of the things you guys specialize in is delegating to a personal assistant. You guys work with hundreds and hundreds of leaders all over the country and pair them with executive assistant services, somebody that's going to be their business partner and help pick up a lot of those things that they don't personally have to be doing. and I have an incredible executive assistant that I work with here. And knowing how amazing this is at this point and then looking back at all the silly things that I tried to do myself, in my journey, I go, I never should have been doing that to begin with.

I was so naive to think, I'm the best person to do this. I'm just going to take care of it because when my assistant does it, Shelly does it faster. She does it better. She's more efficient than I would ever be. And she actually enjoys it. You know, I found Trisha, so many of these things I was doing. just out of duty, out of, out of like, oh, I just have to do this to be responsible. Whereas Shelly's like, she's wired for this.

Like, she really does thrive in these activities. And it's this beautiful partnership where I'm better off, she's better off, and the team's better off because we're getting more things done together as a partnership. But what do you say to leaders who maybe haven't had that experience? They're going, I don't know. I get the idea of having an assistant. Maybe they run my calendar and book my travel. But, I mean, what do they really do that I can't just go ahead and take care of?

myself. Yes, I love that. I feel the same way about my assistant, Melissa. She really does help me 10x my capacity, truly. To me, it is such an important relationship, an executive and an executive assistant, because they really do, for you up to do those things we talked about, for you up to do the things that only a leader can do. Now, what I love what you said is so true, and we see it all the time, is that most leaders and entrepreneurs don't thrive. in the details. Nor should you be in them. So the beauty of it is that there are literally people wired to thrive on details. They were born and excited about details and spreadsheets and planning travel and calendars and that is their happy place. So you really start recognizing that

everybody has their own zone of genius. And there are people who, complement each other and sit in their different zone of genius. So if my zone of genius may be sales, marketing, vision, and maybe my weak areas are administration, CRM management, calendar planning, well, then you have that partner that can come alongside you and really fill your gaps. You kind of become that ying and the yang where they're able to partner with you and take care of the things that either you're not really good at or you actually don't like doing them. You know, so letting that stuff go and really building into that relationship is so important. I mean, my assistant, Melissa, really gives me peace.

I tell her all the time when she helps me kind of really just accomplish the things that get done in a given day or week that what she does is she gives me a great night's sleep because I know the things are handled and I don't have to be the one. to handle them. So I'm unburdened by the fact that she's there for me. So she really does unburden me from the details that may sit in what my day-to-day looks like. It seems like you're saying there are people who are really wired for those details. And as leaders, we should not be bogged down in those details. I'm curious, how do you balance this idea of not being bogged down in the details with a commitment to excellence? Because we teach

leaders everywhere that part of having a peak performing business is your product experience, especially, has to be excellent. And that means all the details are taken care of with excellence. And I think it's the wrong idea. And I don't think this is what you're advocating, but we shouldn't just dump all the details off on somebody and hope they just take care of themselves and then never inspect what we expect. I mean, we still have a responsibility as leaders to ensure that the frontline experience with the customers is amazing. But it sounds like you're saying that we're not personally doing those things? How do we ensure that the right things are done if we're not the ones that are personally doing it? So you just recited my favorite quote of all time, which is inspect what you expect. And I think that holds true for your executive assistant. And honestly, your entire team, anybody who reports to you is that you are building relationships with people that work for you. And you are giving them trust. You are empowering them.

to do the job. You are making sure there's clarity in every expectation that they are clear what it is, the company expects of them, what every detail of that looks like, how that shows up to the customer and the client, and what that means for the organization. And then you have, you know, your communication structure that fills all the gaps in between. So like for my assistant and I, we are in constant communication with each other. And I'm very aware of high level, the things that are being worked on, what's being accomplished, and to what degree in detail those things are being accomplished. And again, that's what gives me peace. I think, you know, like any relationship, it's one that grows over time as you give people more and more,

and they show up and prove to you that they can do this better than you thought or better than you could than you're able to give more and so on and so forth. And I think that goes for your executive assistant, as well as any other leader or manager or employee that works for you, is that, you know, it's an evolution of empowerment and trust and delegation. So what you might give to somebody the first three months they work for you should evolve over time and maybe what they handle for you within a year is threefold because you've kind of gained that relationship. You've kind of trained, coached and inspected all along the way. And you've been able to give trust into that relationship.

I remember when Shelley now first started working together, the first few weeks, I had cleared about half of my calendar every week to spend time with her, diving deep into everything I cared about, how I work, all of my quirks, all of my concerns, key people on the team that I want to make sure that she understands the dynamics of these relationships. There was just so much time, Trisha. Like early on, it was literally half of my time, like working through this is why I care about. And then there was this stage where it was a little bit less time, and she was actually speaking into, hey, I've noticed you could be a little bit better at this process over here. Do you mind if I pick that up and take care of that for you?

And a little test would be, sure, take a stab at that. And then she'd come back and it'd be amazing because she's awesome at what she does. And these days, we're just, like you said, we're communicating all the time. But I feel like I barely have to spend any time for her to, the ground just moves. Like she shows up and the ground moves and things just are happening. and she wraps around all of my chaos and organizes it and kind of cleans up the mess that I make and make sure that everyone on the team and all of our customers are taking care of with excellence. And it's just this amazing thing.

But, you know, I want you to say more about constant communication because I think there's this misnomer that you could just hire somebody and not have to interact with them or communicate with them and they're just going to know what to do. They can somehow magically read your mind. What does your constant communication look like? Are you guys having regular scheduled meetings? Is it just all throughout the day? Texting, calling, slacking.

Is it all of the above? How do you ensure that constant communication is there? Yes. Major pet peeve, and we see it a lot at Belay, because we serve so many clients and assistance, is there is this perception that you will start on Monday with an assistant, and by Tuesday, she's going to know exactly what to do and how to do it, and you're going to feel this great relief all of a sudden. which is totally, you know, comical to me. It's like magic diet pills.

Yeah, it's like I, I mean, if I had that pill in a bottle, I mean, where would we be today? But it's just not reality. It's like any person you're going to hire into your organization, there is an intensive training time that goes into this role, just like any other role. I mean, just like if you were hiring somebody on your marketing team. I mean, they would go through, you know, weeks of training and all the things. And it's the same thing for your assistant. You know, for me as well, when I started with Melissa, it was a lot.

And I did even try and scare her at the beginning and say, okay, so I like to run really fast with my hair on fire. And what I need is for you to chase me around and put it out, you know, like that's your job. I think you just described every entrepreneur. And your goal is at some point a year from now, I would like you to get ahead of me. Because we kind of have this joke that I move so fast nobody can get ahead of me. So that was kind of our really silly goal was could she ever get ahead of me, where she was actually looking at something in my future that I haven't even started to think about yet.

And I am happy to say that we actually are to that point. She did a really good job. She took it as a personal challenge that she was going to come in here and as fast as she could get ahead of me because she knew that's really what I wanted at the end of the day. Back to the time. There was no way she was going to be able to read my mind. There's no way even today, even though we worked together for a couple years, that she could still read my mind.

Actually, if mind reading was a thing, we'd all be in a different place right now, too. But the reality of it is that we even continue to change as leaders and our priorities change over time as our roles change and as our businesses evolve. So the assistant I even needed six months ago is different than the assistant I need today. And she has grown and morphed and changed what she does for me as my role has changed and my needs have changed. So I think there's a lot of fluidity when it comes to what your executive assistant can do for you. It's constantly evolving. It's not stagnant at all.

There are certainly things that she does that are on repeat like calendar management and email. and some of those generic things, but there's so much in between that's constantly changing. And in order for her to be able to keep up with all of that, we have to be in pretty consistent communication. I think to your point, I actually don't have to think very hard about it because we've built that relational capital. She actually knows what I like. She knows my preferences. She knows how I communicate. She knows how I think. So she can be proactive. But it still takes a lot of lot of checking in throughout the week. So we have a set Monday morning, one-on-one meeting. We are a remote organization. So our meeting is actually on Zoom every Monday morning. And I think it speaks to

how I place her as a priority for me as a leader of an organization is she is the first person I meet every Monday morning. I love that. That meeting sets the tone for my entire week. After that, That's a big message you're sending to her. Like, this is my number one is to check in with you. Yes, you are so important. And I want to give you everything you need so that you can have a successful week this week, and you can manage your priorities. And I can help you do that because in turn, everything you're doing is supporting me anyway.

So she's first on my list. I mean, before we have staffing meetings and even before I'm meeting with other officers of the company, because that time I spend with her is crucial for the success of both of our weeks, honestly. I'd love to talk more about this idea of somebody getting out ahead of you. I've worked with assistants in the past who were pretty competent at if I gave them a specific task, they would go do the task and then come back and kind of say, okay, what do you want me to do now? And it wasn't bad, you know, and they would go and next task and then I would go, okay, well, if you could work on this now.

But I felt like I was constantly having to think about all the things that needed to happen to keep them busy. contrast that with what you're describing where somebody is, you know, they're in sync with you and they're making sure that they're aligned on your objectives, but as you said, they're out in front of you. They're anticipating things. They're solving problems that you didn't even see coming before they got to you. And, you know, what are you looking for when you're hiring somebody like that? What's the difference between the person who's just going to kind of do what you asked for and do it well, but they're waiting on you versus somebody who's actually anticipating? Are there There's certain character traits, certain questions you're asking in the interview process.

What is that X-factor thing of somebody that's going to grow with you and stay out in front of you? That is an awesome question, Daniel. So we've been through a lot of assistance, and I've been through a few myself, and I've been in the place where they do good work. But to your point, delegating is something I have to think about because they're not proactive. So proactivity, as really we see that show up in a couple different ways in different people. First and foremost, it's really that this person really has a vision for the future and really has the ability to see ahead and is not stuck in the day to day and can see the ripple effects of what's coming out in front of them.

I mean, it's almost as if your executive assistant has, dare I say, I mean, they're leadership skills, if you will. It's almost like she leads me. So I'm looking for skills that I would look in for a leader, you know, the proactivity, the flexibility, the getting the goal oriented, the hungry person. So complacency gets you to a place where you're just handling what you need to. And we're looking for people who are looking to succeed, who are goal oriented and have something in the future that they're driving towards. And so I know it's a generic word, but we find that the best executive of. assistants are actually driven personality types. So they're really drivers, which is not something

maybe you would necessarily think of if you were going to describe the type of executive assistant you would work for. You might not put the words, you know, their driver and they're hungry and their goal-oriented in that description. But the truth is, that's actually what's going to get you ahead. If you use words like, I want them to, you know, serve me well and be, you know, kind and thoughtful and in the details. Those are all great things you want as well, but those might be the details that keep you in today and not get you ahead and forward. It's like if that was all they were doing, you're missing that driver piece. I love that you're saying that because the best executive assistants around our building, they have that tenacity and that drive and that push, but it's

blended with this amazing humility where they do have the heart of a servant because they want to make their leader shine and they're comfortable being behind the scenes. They're not not necessarily driving to hog more of the spotlight. They're driving to say, I am not going to wait to sit around and see what I'm told to do. I'm going to make sure that we're moving things forward. And they see their number one client as that leader and making them successful. But I love this concept of they're leading us, you know, like as a leader, we're leading the whole team. But a great executive assistant really does lead their leader. And my assistant, Shelly for sure, is better at managing me than I am at managing myself. She knows me. And that's,

In fact, just this morning, as I was coming in and prepping for this conversation, I walk in and just, boom, she pops in my office. Hey, you got everything you need. Hey, here's the notes. Here's boom, boom, boom, boom. I'm like, you're amazing. You know, you're thinking about what is Daniel working on right now and what could he be stressed about? What does he need to be ready for? What are the reminders?

She walked me through my day in about three minutes. Hey, just remind you have this today. Also, you email me this thing. Do you want me to print that out? Do you want me to email it back to you? So you have the top of your inbox? I mean, she's just anticipating all the time. And it's this amazing thing.

where I go, I feel like I'm cheating. I feel like I'm, you know, I'm getting to, to drive with the autopilot has just taken me down the road all the time. And I'm still responsible to drive that car, but I, but I have this extra set of skills that don't exist inside of me, but this other person's coming along with those things and we're better as a unit. And so that drive is, I think it's really key what you're saying that they have that drive. How do you find that person? And accountability. Yeah. And holding, yeah, holding us accountable. She holds me accountable for the things she knows that I say, I shouldn't be doing or should be doing.

She will be the first one to slap my wrist. If I put my hands on something that I should not have my hands on, she will text me and say, I see you in this spreadsheet. You have no business being in a spreadsheet. You don't get out of there. Or when she catches me not leveraging her for things that she knows she should do and can do very well,

she's the first one to say to me, you have bigger fish to fry. Stop getting tangled in this minutia and get out of here. What can I do for you? She'd call me out very quickly. And that's actually what I want her to do. You know, when I was hiring her, first I tried to scare her. I told her I was running around my hair on fire and I wanted her to get ahead of me. But I also told her that I wanted her to absolutely hold me accountable and that I am not the boss of her.

She's in charge of me. So she absolutely runs my show for me. Hey, I get it. If you're running a business, there's a lot to do. And there can be piles of paperwork, emails, calls to return, bookkeeping, it never ends. But guys, so much of that stuff is administrative. And as the business owner, you need to be working on growing the business, not being a professional assistant. So you should hire a professional assistant.

But maybe you're not ready to do that and bring them in house. and if that's the case, you should talk to our friends at Belay because they specialize in offering world-class virtual assistants and other specialists too, like bookkeeping and web specialists and social media strategist. They've got the right team member ready to help you excel. To schedule a free 20-minute consultation to help you identify how to save more time and get back to what only you can do, just text the word belay to 3196. Again, schedule this free 20-minute consultation. You got nothing to lose. text the word belay, B-E-L-A-Y to 3-1-9-6.

I want you to say more about this because I think we have to really communicate as leaders in a way that makes it safe for our team to do that because there's a power differential. And the typical environment is whatever the boss is doing, they must have a reason, leave them alone and let them do what they want to do. I don't understand it. They kind of internally roll their eyes and go, they shouldn't be doing that. But then they never tell the boss because, well, they're the boss. right and I think we really have to work if we're the leader to disarm and make sure that

one that it's safe and we expect them to give us that feedback and then two when they do give us that feedback how we respond says everything about whether we really wanted or not so how do you have those conversations in a way that gets her to actually slap your hand and feel like it's safe to do that and it's not an insubordinate act it's an actual way of serving you but she has to push on you a little bit and hold you accountable that can be like a foreign concept for people how do I hold my boss accountable, but as leaders, how do we help them feel like it's safe to do so? It takes a lot of work, honestly. You know, that's actually something we have to bring to the table as the leader and set the tone for.

I really have to frequently say, what feedback do you have for me? I have to be palms up. I have to be very mindful of not reacting in a negative way to deter her from ever having feedback again. And I have to constantly ask the question weekly. you know, okay, what do you need me to do and not do? And we talk a lot about feedback in general between her and I and actually just as a team is that really good feedback actually is just great communication and conversations day to day. So you actually can avoid having the

notorious feedback conversation, right? So my way to avoid having a feedback conversation is by just having really great communication in the day to day. And that's a two-way street. So that's me saying, hey, great job on the spreadsheet. You know, I like blue versus green, you know, and it's not a thing. Or, you know, just giving small critical chunks of adjustments, if you will, so that we make micro progress all along the way. And that every day is better than the day before because we made small tweaks together. And so we never got to the place where there's a conversation like, hey, three weeks ago in a meeting, you did this thing and it really upset me.

And then she's on the other side going three weeks ago in a meeting. What? Why are we talking about this now? Well, and then if she's going, okay, if that was three weeks ago and you've been thinking negatively about that, what are you always thinking about that I don't know that's a problem and talking about it? And it just creates this kind of almost like living in fear all the time. if that's all bottled up. Yeah. So I'm a huge fan of, you know, constantly, my poor team, right?

But constantly saying what's on my mind. Okay, my team, my spouse, my children. But I'm going to say if you're not having those conversations, it's not my poor team. I mean, lucky them, because there's so many leaders I think you need to hear this message, Trisha, and that is you've got to communicate all the time. You have to let people know what's on your mind. And even if what's on your mind isn't totally on point. You know, you got to reserve the right to go, hey, I might not even be right about this.

It's just what I'm feeling right now. And it's okay for you to push back on me. And I was in a board meeting yesterday with Dave and our entire board. And Dave was saying some things very adamantly. Can you imagine Dave Ramsey saying things adamantly? No, not at all. And there were several people going, no, I don't agree. I don't think so.

You need to chill out a second. I need to say how I feel about this. But Dave invites that type of environment. He doesn't expect everybody just wholesale to buy in because he's the boss. he expects us to be able to wrestle through and have a conversation. I think that's how the best teams are really built and that culture of healthy conflict and feedback being a regular thing. Yeah, I totally agree.

I tell my team all the time and I tell my assistant as well, these people, you are hired to actually have an opinion and have a voice. If I surround myself with a bunch of yes men who are just going to say, yes, boss, yes, boss, I'll tell you right now, we're going to be out of business and I'm going to have this enormous ego and we're going to be nowhere. So like this isn't about my ego. This is about you actually have been hired to do this job because you're better at it than I am. Yes. My executive assistant is better than me at all the things she handles. Calendar, social media organization, planning and prepping and logistics. Like that is her jam. She's better than me at those things.

And all of the directors and leaders that work for me, they're there because they're better at something than I am, and I actually need that to show up. I don't need, yes, man, I actually get annoyed if someone does not have an opinion about something in a conversation. And I'm like, what do you have to say about that? Can you please contribute to this? You know, agree, disagree, contrarian. So we like to welcome. I love the idea of explicitly saying you have an opinion, you have a voice, and we expect that. And to the degree, it's almost like if you're not doing that, you're not doing your job. And you make it. And that's absolutely it. Yes. You are, you are expected to contribute to the conversation.

That's good. You know, what do you say to leaders who have maybe had a bad experience with delegation? I can think about, I had several assistants that I didn't train them well or I didn't pick the right person. And in those experiences, I remember traveling one time and thinking that everybody was taken care of on the team and had their travel information and flights booked and I just show up to the airport and I get to the airport and I come up to check in. And the flight was booked, but it was the wrong time.

And so I'm there four hours late and I'm going, you've got to be kidding. Like, this is so basic. And I had this feeling, Trisha, I'm never going to trust this to anyone else again, okay? Because I miss my flight and now I've got to scramble. Now I'm stressed. And now the other end of the trip we're supposed to see a client get out there in time and I'm embarrassed. And I just, I had all this fear that really welled up at that point of I don't know if it's safe to delegate thing. Like there's certain things I need to hold on to to make sure that they're done right. And we've been talking this whole time about they're better at it than you are. So clearly this person in that case wasn't better at it or I didn't train them well or they never booked travel before. I don't know what the thing was. But, you know, the point is I think we have to be okay with some failures in continuing to iterate towards this perfect relationship that we're describing. And it's never perfect. But this harmony where we actually have peace all the time because I didn't have peace. I mean, earlier you talked about your assistant.

you peace. I did not have peace. And I think there's a lot of leaders who have had an experience that they go, I don't have peace with delegating. What do you say to them about taking some risks and trying it and continuing to lean into figuring out how to delegate and get to that sweet spot where you do have peace all the time? Yeah, it is absolutely a process. And we're going to mess it up. I'm the CEO of an organization whose job it is to figure out how people can delegate. Yes, yet it is something that I am continually sharpening my skill on. So it really is an evolution. It's like you never really arrive at figuring out how to be the best

delegator. However, I think to your point, the first thing you can do is set the relationship up for success in the beginning by investing the time necessary to do the training and the preference checking. And I think preferences might sometimes be the soft skills that we forget to talk about, or we think are not relevant. So soft skills, you know, for me are like, hey, please don't email me after 4 p.m. Because I'm trying to wrap up my day and I'm not going to, you know, handle it.

So maybe that's a soft skill. Or it's like, I expect you to respond to me within X amount of time frame. So it's the things that are the soft and fuzzy, maybe immeasurable things that sometimes people forget to talk about when they're onboarding people, especially somebody who will work with you so closely. I mean, your executive assistant will probably work with you closer than anybody else on your team, honestly. So they need to know all the intimate pet peeves, preferences, details, and kind of arming them with all of that information in detail in the beginning, I think will set the tone for good things to come. But then you're constantly building on that over time and building that relationship by making sure that they understand. understand your preferences. And here's the other thing about people. We're not perfect. A lot of the times

we screw up. I mean, I like to tell people, you know, 50% if something, if something missed an expectation, it is likely 50% your fault. Did you? Did you forget a layer of detail? Did you forget to ask a question? Did you not inspect what you expected? Or the vision was never clear to begin with, right? The objective wasn't defined. You didn't give all the information, you know, to the other person. So they made their best decision based on the limited information they have. So I do kind of say, you know, really go back and look at those instances and say, were there gaps on my side, are their training gaps on their side? And it's okay that we fail. People will mess up. So I have a story. I was a virtual assistant years ago as well,

and I worked for a leader who was a high profile leader who was going on a book tour. And they were doing 100 press PR interviews in a month for this book tour. And I was the virtual assistant, and I was scheduling all of these 100 interviews for this executive. And I'll tell you what, Daniel, I messed up three of them. Wrong time zone, wrong link, wrong phone number. And I could not feel more awful because I had messed that up for my leader. Here's the beauty of that story. is I immediately went to my leader and apologize, hey, I've totally screwed this up. I own this. I will do everything I can to fix it. I will reschedule it. So I think, you know, as an assistant, owning your mistakes and professing to make them right as quickly as possible is important. But in return,

what that leader said to me was, my boss at the time, he said, hey, that's three out of 100. You get a 97. I'm pretty sure that's still an A. That's great. That's great. So we have to remember like it's never going to be perfect. No, it's never going to be perfect. And where we learn those those tough life lessons is through some of those non-fatal mistakes. We make mistakes and we go, we have those moments where we go never again. Okay, I'm going to make sure next time, that's how we learn. That's how we grow. You know, I think it's key that we call out this idea that as leaders, really just as humans in general, we're fickle. We have a lot of nuance. We have a lot of things that we prefer and they're weird. They're unique to us. And I think the mis number is we assume everyone else has those same preferences and so surely they would just do it this way too right and i know for me as a leader i'm even inconsistent with what i prefer given what day is it in my energy levels what's going on at home and you know and so to try to put it all into this workflow that if this then that every time no matter what i'm not an algorithm i'm a human i have emotions i have

moods i have different things that i'm excited about at different times and so all of that communication with our assistants, you know, one of the things that Shelley and I talk about a lot, she'll ask me, how's your energy? How's your energy? Where's your head at? And what that is, is it's a bid for her to say, do you really care about what you said you cared about a month ago because I'm checking in because I know it can be a moving target? And I'm going to go, well, right now my head is stuck on this thing and this issue and this problem, and I vent about how I feel like I don't have any time and I'm not going to be able to get it on. She goes, okay, I know what you said your priorities were a week ago, but I can tell what your actual

priorities right now because of where your head is at, what you're focused on. And so I think that communication about all of our humanness and how much we're emotional and moving around to different things based on the evolving landscape of our businesses, it's so key to invite our assistance into that discussion. They're the one person that I think we really have to completely take our mask off all the way and go, look, I got into fight with my spouse this morning. I'm having issues with my kid. I'm supposed to be game on on this meeting, but my head's not even in the game right now. You just need to know that. And then magically, they can start shifting things around on your calendar.

They can bring you a cup of coffee. I mean, whatever they can go, all right, I see you. I see where you're at. Now then, how can I help you perform today at your best, given what showed up in your inbox this morning or given this unexpected surprise that we're dealing with all the time as leaders? Tricia, we're always dealing with surprises and things that are unexpected. Every day's a new day. I mean, my assistant would say that's part of what she actually enjoys about her job is it's not repetitive and redundant.

Every day is a new challenge. Every week is a new opportunity. It's constantly evolving and changing. And to your point, so am I. And so is the work. And it keeps her actually very challenged. There is no status quo being a great executive assistant to her leader. They're going along this journey with you. Yeah. I want you to, for the leaders who are still thinking about maybe I need an assistant, maybe not, I'm not sure. Every leader needs an assistant. Let's talk about this. I agree. Every leader. It can feel like it's not worth the investment of money. It can feel bougie. It can feel like, well, I don't really just need a secretary. It can also feel like I'm not sure I can. We've hit on all these objections of why you wouldn't have an assistant. But in the opening part of the conversation, you said that your assistant, 10x is. your capacity. And I think when a leader really understands their role and their ability to build and grow a peak performing business, if the biggest asset of a leader is their time, then any time spent doing something that someone else can do, they're actually stealing from the opportunity of the organization. They're stealing from their team. Break this down for leaders who are going,

okay, I'm hearing this. I think I probably need to get an assistant, but I'm still just, I need to be convinced this is the wise thing to do. Yeah. So I had my first assistant when I was a director, and she worked for me for 10 hours a week. And my boss, Brian Miles, the owner of Belay, insisted that I have an assistant. Same thing. I was like, I think I'm good. I think I can do all the things. He says, no, I want you to have this because I'm going to need you to continually do more and grow. And I can't keep giving you more and you won't grow if you don't. If you don't don't let go. And that honestly is the truth for every leader. So I probably had an assistant long before the average person might have an assistant. I was not an executive by any means.

I was kind of down and rank in the organization. Honestly, it was the biggest gift. I mean, I learned really early on the value of my time. And that really my job was, no matter what seat you sit in an organization, whether you're at the top, middle management or anywhere else, that the job, if you're working through a thriving, growing organization, what you need to do tomorrow should be greater than what you're doing today. And you're not going to be able to do more. Look ahead and figure that out if you don't have more capacity. So making sure that you are available and free to professionally develop and take on additional, even if it's something physically you're doing, but it's you're thinking, your brain.

your mind, your time, that you're processing or brainstorming or working through hard decisions for your organization, whether it's product line issues or client issues or new services or sales strategies, whatever those things are. If you expect your company to grow and you want to grow with it, you have got to be available to be better tomorrow than you are today. You're not going to be better tomorrow than you are today if you are bogged down scheduling calendar and booking travel and taking care of email and worrying about social media posts and whatever that is you really want to free yourself up before that all is going to come to you so it was always my job is always to figure out how to delegate more so that I had more capacity so that my leader could give me more

And so the more free and available my time was, the more my leader delegated to me. And then I was able to kind of rise through the organization. So how I went from at Belay, starting at the bottom and now sitting as CEO, is because I really made sure that I was open, free, and available to do the bigger things by delegating the smaller things. I love it. Well, it sounds like you're saying you have to have the time available to step into the next opportunity, even before you're clear. on exactly what the next opportunity is. And as business owners, you know, if we're growing our business, healthy things grow, growing things change, there's going to be more opportunity that you as the leader need to

come attack the new opportunity with all that you've got and all your mental horsepower and all your ingenuity. But if you're bogged down with everything, that opportunity comes and you go, I don't have the capacity to go seize that opportunity. It'll pass you by. Yeah, because then you get stuck in the, oh, God. You know, you find yourself if you're already overwhelmed and your plates are already full and some great opportunity has just fallen in your lap, you know, your first reaction might be, oh, gosh, how am I going to do this? I don't have the time. Right.

Versus being, wow, this is awesome. I'm going to charge at this because you actually feel free and unburdened to do those things. Yeah, I love it. Tricia, there can be a stigma about what an assistant is. I've talked to certain people who are like, yeah, I don't need a secretary. You know, if you think of Madman and the, you know, the classic 1960s, they bring your coffee and they file things and they take your calls and leave you notes of who called when. And, oh, welcome back from lunch, sir. It's just a very white male old school second. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about somebody who is your business partner, team members, somebody that's really in it with you.

But what are the tasks and activities and projects that are really great. assistant does that's way beyond going and getting coffee. I mean, because we're, I mean, they may be doing some of those things occasionally, but that's not the job description that we're talking about. No, not at all. And if you're me and we work remote, she can't bring me coffee anyway. She can order it to be delivered. Maybe. She could. She could totally order coffee delivery, but that's not on the priority list. Yeah. So I think it's exactly your point is that this person has to be such a trusted partner. for you because you really want them.

It's like you said, Daniel, you want them to be able to intimately know you and what you need at every layer. There will be so much personal investment that goes into this relationship and they will know you personally. I mean, a lot of what my assistant does for me is personal. Family vacation planning, scheduling doctor's appointments, dentists appointment. I mean, there are things that she does for me as a whole person, not just as work, Trisha. You know, we aren't always just our work selves. We are whole people. And so really, you know, my assistant knows so much about me more than anybody else that honestly I work for because she is supporting a person. And it's not just about the work that she does. Now, as far as the work that she does, it's constantly evolving, like I've kind of said, but there are the basics that, you know, support any leader. The calendar management, she helps me with some of triaging some of people.

my email and booking my travel, a lot of meeting logistics planning, like, you know, Zoom links and location booking and having lunch brought in and all of those things for sure. But it's a lot of the miscellaneous one-offs that happen in any given week, like, oh, this opportunity came up and now you're going to be at this event. And her being able to, instead of me worrying about how am I going to be at this event. I have these other things planned. I mean, she's just going to swoop in, make it happen, again, being, that she's giving me peace of mind, make it happen, adjust schedules, and be the eyes and the ears that I actually don't want to be. Like, I don't want to stress out about what my calendar looks like and these two meetings are overlapping with each other and people

are requesting my time that I don't have. And she really can set priorities for me and guide my, my time for me. And then I'm able to leverage her in so many miscellaneous ways. One thing, right, I've mentioned a couple times is, you know, she helps a lot with my social media and LinkedIn connections and board meeting prep and notes and follow-ups. You know, the latest thing I've had her working on for me, which has been such a tremendous help, is, you know, she's my follow-uper. Go chase them down. I'll step out of a meeting. Yes, I'll step out of a meeting. And there's a list of like 14 things that somebody is going to do, and usually it's not me, right? Somebody on the team is going to go do this thing and this person's going to do this thing. And so it is awesome to say to my assistant,

here's the 14 action items that came out of this meeting and who they're assigned to. Let me know when they're all done. Yeah. So now she's helping me inspect what I expect, which is we've gotten to the place and that's a gift. That's a beautiful thing, the eyes and ears. You know, Trisha, how do you get your friends and family used to the fact that you have an assistant and it's not weird if if my best friend texts me and says you want to grab lunch and my best friend gets a text back for me uh i'll have my assistant reach out to you they may be going come on bro what really you know and yet all of my calendar and all of my time runs through my assistant because we have a rule daniel doesn't touch his calendar because when he does he breaks it he messes it up it can it can feel funny for people

I mean, my wife and my assistant and I, we all communicate a lot together and even personal things are scheduled and my assistant will put those on the calendar. But we have to be careful that we don't alienate our closest relationships and all of a sudden the gatekeeper that's supposed to be keeping the noise out of our lives, all of a sudden people are experiencing that person in a way that they're like, who are you? I can't even have a relationship with you. And it's transactional now because I'm having to talk to your gatekeeper. Yeah, that is real life. actually, I had this conversation very recently with a dear friend of my Megan Hyatt over at Michael Hyatt and Company. Yeah. We talk about as women, and it goes for anybody, right, you know, when and when it's not appropriate to bring your assistant into some of those personal things.

And we were sharing a story about her assistant working with scheduling something with one of the teachers at the school. And so now, you know, is the school now going to have this perceived notion about something because, you know, you're, Air quote, assistant is scheduling for you. So I think a lot of it is preference. So for me, one of the things I do to avoid some of that awkwardness is I have open blocks of time on my ideal work week because I keep a pretty maniacally locked down calendar of when I'm going to do what I'm going to do and when I'm not doing anything. I have blocks of time when I will and can do personal things and lunches.

So like every Friday afternoon is my I'm open for lunch spot. And then I have a Thursday afternoon other spot, you know, coffee date spot as well. So I kind of reserve time. So when those personal things come up, I actually don't lean into my assistant. Yeah, you can just stay on free on Friday. Yeah. I already know. She knows.

Keep it open so that if. If I personally commit to something, it's available for me. There's that ability as well, you know, to leverage them as much as you want or not, depending on how comfortable you are and who you're dealing with. I think some people wouldn't care, but the ones that do, you can leave them out of it. Well, you know, Trisha, a lot of business owners out there having a really challenging year this year, trying to figure out how they get above it, how they work on the business, not in it, how they scale in the midst of all the disruption that's been taking place in the market.

As we close up here, and you're working with hundreds and thousands of business leaders every day with what you guys do at Belay. What are you seeing about the leaders who are winning right now and how would you take what you're seeing and encourage all the men and women listening to this today? Maybe they're low on hope. Maybe they're low on optimism. What would you tell them about the future of business and what you believe would be a little bit of wind in their sales as we wrap up today? 2020 has been a year for sure for everybody. but we have seen so many organizations, especially small business, who we primarily work with, thrive and survive, honestly. We have seen so many leaders and executives really dig their heels in,

get creative, pivot the word of the year, and make it happen. I'm so encouraged by what we're seeing here at Belay by the leaders who have really just done all they can do to get on the other side. We have seen actually an influx of people come to us and say, I'm not going to survive if I do this all alone. I'm ready to build a team. I need people around me to make this happen. So we have seen more and more people really recognize that teams go further together. and people have really invested in their people. You know, we've also had an amazing opportunity to provide great work for all the many people out there who are looking for work right now. And what everything is telling us from what we see is that we're going to get on the other side of it.

And this will be a season. And at some point, we will look back and know it was hard, but be proud we got on the other side of it. So what I say is keep looking forward. the future is very bright. Tomorrow will be better than today. We just have to have a lot of patience, which is ironic for me to say because I'm the least patient person. But I do believe the economy is, it will come back. It is a virtue. I've heard. Yes. Patience. It's coming. We're going to be all right. We're going to be all right. Well, very encouraging. She is Trisha Shortino. One of the premier voices in this country, I believe, on delegating specifically when it comes to working with

an assistant. They work with thousands of leaders and pair them with assistants who can help them do everything we've been talking about on this podcast today. Guys, you've got to value your time. Your time is your company's biggest asset. If you're the owner, if you're the leader, and so we really want to encourage you to lean into this idea of having an assistant that you can work closely with so that you can scale up. Trisha, leaders that want to know more about how to do that, what do you tell them how they can get more information about what you guys are doing and learn a little bit more? It's very simple. You should visit us at belaysolutions.com. There'll be tons of information about our virtual assistance. And if you want to talk to somebody, we'll be available to chat with you as well.

Love it. Tricia, always a joy to speak with you. Thank you for what you guys are doing to help business owners win. And that's what we're doing here. And it's great to have a partnership with you guys as we lock arms together in advance entrepreneurship and small business in this country. Thank you so much for what you guys do. Thanks for your time today. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Well, if nothing else, I hope at this point, if you're a leader, you really understand the value of your time. And you really understand that the things that you do early in a business to get it going can't continue to be your job description. You've got to replace yourself.

You have to delegate to somebody that can do that. Why? So that you can work on the next level of things that only you can do as the leader. Guys, you've heard me say this all the time. Healthy things grow. Growing things change. And as leaders, we have to be ready to step in to the opportunity that's changing in front of us, to cause it to happen, to get the vision clear at the next level, to cast the vision, to build the team, to scale the business up. That's how we become peak performing companies. But if we're not doing that intentionally, if we're not delegating as leaders, well, we can become the bottleneck on the growth of our organization. not being the bottleneck all starts with a healthy assessment of how much our time is worth and fighting for our time just like in your personal finances you have a budget for your money

and every dollar counts and you have to make sure every dollar performs for you and goes exactly where you want it to go as a leader in a business your time is just you have to have a budget for your time you have to have a plan for your time and you have to make sure that most of your time is going into the things that really matter you guys know that your business can't grow unless you learn to trust other people to help you win. We talk about this all the time in Entree leadership. Delegation is a skill you have to master. If you want to peak performing business, you have to delegate all the time. You have to do it well and the team has to get it. Our coaching team is talking with business owners about this idea all the time and they've put

together an incredible free resource just for you guys about this very thing. It's the Entree leader's guide to Delegation. In this guide, we're going to teach you guys how to properly properly delegate. It's going to allow you to focus on growing your business instead of concentrating on those everyday minutia tasks that you might be getting bogged down in. And it's incredible. It's a great resource. So get the free guide by texting the word delegate to 33444. Again, text delegate keyword to 33444 or just click on the link in the show notes. Guys, you don't want to miss this. It's a great resource. And you're going to be well on your way to building a peak performing business. Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Entree Leadership podcast. If you did,

Love for you to share it with your friends and talk about it on social media. Also, for a chance to win a $25 Amazon gift card, you can review this episode and take a survey. Tell us what you think. All you got to do is click on the link in the show notes. Be sure to follow us on social media at Entree Leadership, and you can follow me on Instagram at Daniel Tarty. This episode was produced by Tim Hull. It was edited and mixed by Will Rutter. I'm your host, Daniel Tarty, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening.

Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.