1 (2s):
Boom shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like inclusion and marketing. Today we'll be breaking down how to unlock new levels of freedom and growth with an executive assistant. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Steven Neuner and Ryan Cassin into EOFire Studios. Ryan and Steven are co-founders of Superpowers. Together, they are unlocking the incredible leverage of executive assistants and helping fellow entrepreneurs achieve new levels of freedom and growth. And today Fire Nation, we will be talking about do we deserve an assistant? We'll talk about finding and training the right assistant, avoiding the top mistakes and what high performers have in common

1 (48s):
and so much more. And A big thank you for sponsoring today’s episode goes to Steven, Ryan and ours sponsors Sales Evangelist hosted by my friend Donald Kelly is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales. Right now a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world. See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10% discount.

1 (1m 31s):
That's Hostinger.com/ONFIRE in the code ONFIRE. What's up Fire Nation? As I mentioned in the intro, we're gonna be talking today all about unlocking new levels of freedom and growth with an executive assistant. And as I mentioned, I have both Steven and Ryan on the mic today. We're gonna start with Ryan today because listen, Ryan, a lot of people in this world have something that I like to call worthiness issues. So tell us now, do we deserve an assistant?

0 (2m 7s):
Yeah, it's a great question and the answer is probably yes and I'll let Steven hit on the psychological traps we see some entrepreneurs get into in just a second. But the one thing that make you might make you undeserving of an EA is the wrong mindset about this person's role. The best EAs are combining organizational savvy, strategic thinking, follow through. So you know, in our conversations with entrepreneurs, we often hear things like, I've got this menial work, this low value work stuff that just has to get off my plate. But that is a mindset trap. If you have the right EA, the work you hate doing and probably aren't even very good at is someone else's superpower.

0 (2m 52s):
So in terms of deserving an assistant, that perspective of valuing the work itself and elevating the work you are not good at to your EA is a big distinction. It it shifts what you're looking for from a warm body you can find anywhere to demanding a highly selective and thoughtful process about it.

2 (3m 12s):
And from what I would say what I'd add to that, just from a psychological standpoint, a lot of times entrepreneurs have Uncommon paths. That's how they end up being entrepreneurs through life. Sometimes those paths are related to some sort of trauma and that trauma can lead to people feeling like they're not good enough or not worthy. And while that is a blocker to a lot of really great things, as long as you see yourself as not good enough, you'll always view an assistant as an expense and not an investment.

1 (3m 43s):
I love that phrase. In fact, I think you may know that I have a book called The Common Path to Uncommon Success because there always is that both Uncommon and commonality that's surrounding us all when we're doing these things. Which Ryan really leads me to the next question because there are all kinds of assistance that are out there and I think that's one thing that is incredibly overwhelming to a lot of people. They're like, man, I don't even know where to start. So how do we know what kind of assistant is right for us?

0 (4m 16s):
You hit it right on the head. And I think this huge range from va like virtual assistant to EA, executive assistant and and even beyond, I actually think that that causes tremendous analysis paralysis for entrepreneurs and it leads to them delaying or procrastinating on such an important hire. For us, we see a big difference between virtual assistant and executive assistant, even if they're both hired overseas, if they're domestic, it doesn't matter, right? There are lots of different services in this space to help you find your VA or EA. But also, you know, depending on your need, that person might be on like a a community marketplace like an Upwork or Fiverr or you might need a search partner to find that really perfect fit.

0 (5m 2s):
And I think the most important thing is to know who you're hiring. And for us, there's a a three piece framework we talk about. The first P is projects. And for that dedicated marketplaces where you match a specific need to someone willing to do that work is perfect, right? So design, video editing, copywriting projects, go to the marketplaces for that. The second is processes. And for that, a VA is a really great fit. This is where you need consistent execution on sort of a known step-by-step process, right? You don't need the process to improve, you don't need creative thinking. You've got known inputs and outputs and you don't need the critical analysis about the work itself.

0 (5m 43s):
And the third P is proactive. And this is where you hire an EA, an executive assistant. That's where we think you're getting simultaneous freedom and growth from. By the way, this is a person who sees around the corner, your assistant's taking the lead in the relationship, they're making decisions on your behalf. They have context and skills to use good judgment for you. They're really working side by side in the trenches throughout the day with you on your most important goals and tasks.

2 (6m 9s):
And what I would just add to that is a proactive EA. This is where it, to me, it really gets fun. This is where freedom and growth occur, which is a proactive EA knows the distinctions between all three that Ryan talked about and without you even prompting 'em, they know when to pull in other people. They know when that five or person's needed. They know when it's outside of their unique ability or skillset.

1 (6m 31s):
One thing that a lot of people freak out about is like, okay, now that I'm understanding, how do we know what kind of assistant is right for us? and you know, there's obviously some good processes about how to find the right VA, EA, et cetera. And I wanna kind of talk a little bit about that Ryan, but I really want to get into the process of the training, the right assistant. 'cause I think a lot of people are like, man, I, I don't have experience in that. I'm not trained to train somebody. I don't have education in that. So let's talk about that process, you know, of the finding, but even more importantly, the training of the right assistant.

0 (7m 7s):
Yeah. So our experience has been that the, the big unlock here is the what we call three C's, coaching, curriculum and community. Those are the three things that make such a huge difference in this role. And so, you know, one of the big challenges with hiring for this role is that you can't go to college or university. There are very limited training programs available to say I I'm a great executive assistant, right? And what often happens is people make the mistake of taking past experience as an EA and thinking that that is setting someone up for success. Our experience has been that oftentimes you're hiring someone else's work style, someone else's mistakes and bad habits all creep into the relationship.

0 (7m 50s):
So curriculum coaching and community so critical. You can find great curriculum resources online. There are programs dedicated to developing executive assistants coaching that can either be from somebody you're partnering with to find this person or one-on-one. But the key there is feedback and closing the feedback loop frequently, especially early in the relationship and then community that can be online communities of fellow executive assistants on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram has these types of communities. But having that peer support and learning is so critically important. And what we've seen is in the first 90 days, there are sort of three different phases and it helps set the expectation for what you're getting in the relationship.

0 (8m 33s):
The first 30 days is dedicated just to knowing you basic stuff, what's your company, what do they do? Who are your direct reports, key customers, that sort of thing. Next 30 days sort of at the 60 day mark understand you. And what we mean by that is you're developing common context and vocabulary. So when it's email Bob about that one thing that you tell you to your assistant, your your assistant says, oh, okay, I know who Bob is and I know what that one thing you're talking about you want me to email about. And then the, the next sort of highest peak of that first 90 days is are we seeing anticipate you? Is your assistant beginning to look around the corner? Are they proactively taking things off your plate?

0 (9m 15s):
Is the nature of the relationship changing where the assistant is leading in the relationship and you are getting the leverage and the freedom that comes from that?

1 (9m 24s):
Wow, I love that idea of the proactively taking things off of my plate. Sounds like gold. Steven, what do you wanna add?

2 (9m 33s):
What I'd like to add is, one, I just have the, the incredible privilege of getting to coach a lot of entrepreneurs. And I've lived in this community for a long time and what makes us great is also our Achilles heel. and we have the ability to really get inspired by by by little things such as we meet the girl at the coffee shop and we say she's the one, she would be the perfect assistant for me. It would be so wonderful, we just totally connected and she's got all the right skills and I'm just gonna hire her. That is a quick shortcut to short circuit, a really potentially high impact hire. If I could just say anything on this, I would just say, you know, if do the work or get someone to do the work, there's so many institutional best practices, but you gotta be intentional if you really want to get the leverage out of this, out of this relationship.

1 (10m 26s):
Fire Nation, Value, Bombs are being dropped everywhere, both Ryan and Steven in full effect. We have so much more of this coming when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Happy 2024 Fire Nation. New one is here and that means new goals, more growth and upgrading your day-to-day workflow. While most sales folks are stuck in the mud of manual scheduling, digging into data and tracking down leads, let me share a better way to win so you can get a jumpstart on your year. The new Hubspot sales Hub is smart sales software for today's multitasking reps. It's built to help you manage every stage of your sales pipeline with ease. It's filled with easy to use and powerful tools that make closing deals and collaborating across departments A breeze.

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1 (12m 31s):
Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10% discount. That's Hostinger, H-O-S-T-I-N-G-E r.com/ONFIRE and the code ONFIRE. Gentlemen, we're back. And Ryan, I wanna talk about avoiding mistakes. When we avoid mistakes, it's amazing. It saves us time, it saves us energy, it saves us money. So tell us what are those top mistakes that we can avoid?

0 (13m 1s):
Totally. And avoiding mistakes in this role means that you can potentially have a much longer, much more productive relationship with somebody who is gonna be working side by side with you. The average tenure of a typical executive assistant in the US is only 23 months, but all the best EA relationships we know are like years and years and years, right? It's practically the point where you couldn't imagine working with anyone else, right? Most commonly we see entrepreneurs hire their EA only after their redlining, and all that does is take it from a strategic hire to a reactive hire. So we're no longer fireproofing our businesses, right? You're calling in a five alarm structure fire here and it's made worse by entrepreneur's tendency to have really high quick start energy and then low follow through.

0 (13m 50s):
That's a winning formula for growing a business. Of course, like we need that entrepreneurial energy. But it's a disaster when you're already overwhelmed and then you know higher and EA after the fact. So there are five big categories and mistakes we see when hiring an EA. The first is a lack of trust. So think of trust as like a bank, not a vase. Mistakes happen. So when they do, it's a withdrawal on that trust that's been built, not a complete shattering of that trust. The second is impatience. We believe good relationships happen in a crockpot, not a microwave cloning, that's a biggie. Entrepreneurs say, if only I could find someone just like me, things would be better. But we think that you have to look for your compliment, not your clone.

0 (14m 34s):
Someone who possesses the skills you don't have. The fourth big mistake is low expectations. Is this person gonna be menial or is the relationship going to be meaningful? Is the work they're gonna be doing menial or is the work they're gonna be doing meaningful? And then the last one is insecurity. So projecting yourself as perfect and having all the answers being in control is usually how that shows up. And that undermines your assistance's confidence, but it also dramatically reduces the activities he or she can help you with.

2 (15m 4s):
And related to that, I would just say that shows up another way, which is looking good. Entrepreneurs especially, they bootstrapped it, they get in the habit and maybe a trap of trying to be all things to all people. The more they can kind of put down the persona of seeming like they have it all together, the more the EA is able to support and fill in those gaps. I mean, my, my assistant knows when I'm likely to get hangry and when I start acting like a turd then, then it might be time to like, hey, like let's, let's schedule in some breaks for him or he needs some free days.

1 (15m 37s):
Get him that Snickers bar, come on, get

2 (15m 39s):
Him to Snickers bar.

1 (15m 42s):
I love this. And what's really cool is that Ryan and Steven have been able to see and work with and you know, they are high performers and so they've recognized that high performers have a lot of things in common. So Ryan, let's start with you by going through some of the habits that the highest performers all have in common that you've identified over the years.

0 (16m 4s):
Yeah, so two things that we've observed that I wanna share. The first sort of a quick start hack for entrepreneurs looking to take that next step, but feeling overwhelmed by it. And the second is a mindset to be more effective in the relationship over time. So that hack, right? One of the easiest tricks is in this remote work world, being able to find somebody, whether they're remote in the US or overseas, wherever they are, is that you can have your assistant shadow you through zoom throughout the course of your first week together, right? So just share your screen in an open session throughout the day and let your assistant learn through osmosis. And this is so great because A, they get this beautiful window into your decision making process, what your typical day looks like, how you work through your inbox, your calendar, your to-do list whatever it is on any given day, but also it's no additional work for you.

0 (16m 57s):
You've hired this EA and you're still sort of for the first week operate in the way you always have the way you were before you had the EA. It's a really quick way for your assistant to get a peek over your shoulder. And then the mindset in this relationship, I touched on it earlier, but the executive assistant is the leader and you are the boss. So. that means you set the parameters of the relationship, but your assistant is the one pulling you forward. That's what a high leverage executive assistant does. It means they're in control and accountable for areas that are their responsibility. So things that were previously, your calendar, your task list and your email inbox are now your assistants. And the most effective entrepreneurs, they understand this.

0 (17m 38s):
They don't look down on those tasks as thing that gets, as things that get in the way. They see them as elevations to their assistant superpower

2 (17m 47s):
As having had the opportunity of quote, coaching some of the highest level entrepreneurs in the world, both ambitious and just growth-minded in general. The common d And A that I see of the very best entrepreneurs are their others focused. And so what Ryan hasn't mentioned here is I, we have seen a pattern more and more of the top level Entrepreneurs recognizing the freedom growth that comes from a great executive assistant role and they're thinking of their key people in their business and looking to provide that same level of freedom and growth in their roles through this relationship.

1 (18m 20s):
Now we've had value bomb after value bomb drops and you might think that I've squeezed you guys dry, but I know you have more to give and Ryan, that's what I want right now. I wanna start with you and have you give us one single key takeaway from our entire conversation today. And then Steven, you can use this time to kind of really stew and and find the best one as well. But what's that one key takeaway you wanna make sure our listeners really get from our conversation?

0 (18m 49s):
You are deserving of an executive assistant. The, right? executive assistant will deliver new levels of freedom and freedom and growth, but you have to have the confidence to see the relationship through and put your assistant in the leader role.

2 (19m 1s):
Freedom and growth can happen at the same time. Do not by the lie that it's a teeter-totter. And if you go for growth, you have to give up freedom. Or if you go for freedom, you gotta sacrifice growth. They're both possible. And, A, EA is a key, a key piece of that puzzle.

1 (19m 19s):
Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you've been spending the most time with and hello, you're hanging out with SNRC and JLD today. So you only need two more cool people to keep up that heat. So for links to everything we talked about, visit EOFirecom type, Steven or Ryan or both into the search bar. The show us page will pop up with links to all that jazz and Steven Ryan. Where would you want Fire Nation to go to learn more about you from you? What is your call to action for Fire Nation Today?

0 (19m 51s):
We love sharing our experience about EAs. We'd love sharing best practices. We'd love to have a conversation with any of your listeners who want to be able to, to take that next step. So visit superpowershq.com, superpowershq.com, and let's set up a call. Let's chat.

1 (20m 9s):
Steve and Ryan, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you both and we'll catch you on the flip side.

2 (20m 18s):
Thank you, sir. It was fun.

1 (20m 20s):
Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Steven or Ryan for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation, successful entrepreneurs are great at not one, not two, but three things. I'm talking productivity, I'm talking discipline, I'm talking focus, follow on course until success. That's why I created the Mastery Journal. So you can master productivity, discipline, and focus in a hundred days. Well, I almost said three days, but I, no, it's a hundred days. Step by step. Visit the MasteryJournal.com, I'll catch you there. Or on the flip side, Sales evangelist hosted by my friend, Donald Kelly, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Each week, Donald interviews the world's best sales experts, successful sellers, sales leaders, and entrepreneurs who share their strategies to succeed in sales.

1 (21m 7s):
Right now, a recent episode you should definitely check out is The Five Ways to Do Daily Outbound with LinkedIn. Listen to Sales Evangelist wherever you get your podcasts. Hostinger is among the top web hosting and website creation brands in the world. See for yourself. Head to Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and use code ONFIRE for an exclusive 10% discount. That's Hostinger.com/ONFIRE and the code ONFIRE.