105: 4 Strategies Top Leaders Use to Be Productive

1. Think about your tasks as rocks, pebbles, and sand.

Prioritize what’s most important to you, find space for secondary tasks, and then fill in empty spaces with everything else.

 

2. The greatest gift you can give your employees is trust.

If you’re struggling to delegate, start with something small and check in throughout the process. This will help you build trust with your team to delegate bigger responsibilities in the future.

 

3. Being busy is not the same as being productive.

Productivity is not about completing a large number of tasks, it’s about accomplishing the most important goals.

Amy Appleton on LinkedIn

BELAY’s Accounting services

(3:31) Amy shares an overview of 4 strategies for productivity

(4:09) How do you get started with structuring an ideal work week? 

(10:33) Why is it important to create an ideal physical space for hybrid work? 

(16:05) Amy explains how leaders can build trust in their employees

(21:25) What does it look like to celebrate delegation?

(23:21) Amy shares her best tips for productive remote meetings

(29:46) What do leaders need to watch out for when it comes to productivity?

(32:11) This week’s download: Get a free copy of our new eBook, “Lead Anyone From Anywhere”

Amy Appleton:

For me, it just comes down to a couple of things. And then what we’re doing on our team is kind of asking, why am I having this meeting? Like number one? What’s the outcome? Because there are so many of those memes out there that are just like, this meeting could have been an email. And so really trying to avoid that for our team.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool, and small step away from growing your business.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

One Next Step is brought to you by Belay, the incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistance, bookkeepers, and social media managers. Accomplish more, juggle less. Modern staffing from Belay.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

And now to your hosts.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Welcome to one next step. The practical business podcast that helps you run your business so it stops running you. I’m LZ, and I’m joined by my fabulous cohost, Ryan.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

Hey, LZ. Let’s be honest, you are the fabulous one. And I am so excited about your fabulous conversation that you’re having today.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Me too. Man. I will be talking to Belay’s own director of marketing, Amy Appleton, about what top leaders do to be productive. Amy and I chat about structuring an ideal work week, developing a daily rhythm, delegation, and conducting productive remote meetings.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

This is some incredibly actionable information that is featured in Belay’s new ebook, Lead Anyone from Anywhere. I can’t wait for you to hear this conversation today.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

But before we jump into today’s content, let’s talk about busyness. Because despite what conversations might suggest as of late, there’s no award for most busy. No cookie, no gold star, no parade or ticker tape. Busy has become an aspirational badge of honor. And that’s why Belay, the incredible organization revolutionizing productivity with subscription based virtual assistant, bookkeeping, and social media strategist services can help you rescind your busyness and reclaim 15 hours every week by delegating just five tasks. Accomplish more, juggle less. Modern staffing from Belay.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

All right, LZ. Let’s dive into your conversation with Amy.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Amy, I’m so excited you are here and that we get to dive into this content today. Thank you so much for taking time out to hang out with me.

Amy Appleton:

I am so excited to be here as well. I always love to come on the One Next Step podcast and riff about productivity and all the good things. So yeah, I mean, I’m excited to dive into this. And hopefully we can give some great tips and some sweet nuggets to our listeners today.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Well I could not think of a better leader to talk about productivity. There’s a lot of busyness that happens in our business day to day, but I honestly have to say the variety and the volume in which you lead and manage is quite impressive. So I’m looking forward to learning from you and how you manage all of that all the time.

Amy Appleton:

Well, thank you. I appreciate that very much. I have a fantastic team of people that all do very different things. We have very few people that are doing the same thing simultaneously. So you’re right. There are a lot of plates spinning at all times and we just got to keep that ball moving down the court. So what questions do you have for me?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Good. Good. Good. All right. Well, let’s start out by giving us an overview of the four strategies of productivity.

Amy Appleton:

Absolutely. So the first one is structuring your ideal work week. So think, your calendar is going to reflect the time that is spent on the things that are most important. We’re going to develop daily rhythms. Delegation. It’s our favorite topic here at Belay. But delegation, it’s just making sure that you are doing what you are best at in your area of genius. And then having effective and productive remote meetings or hybrid meetings, or whatever is going on in someone’s business right now.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Anything that you could say about those? As soon as you start out with structuring an ideal work week, I think that is one of the areas that is probably most surprising to people. So is there anything that you might be able to kind of just tease out to us? Like, how do you structure it? What are the big rocks and the pebbles and the sand? And I’m just seeing jars in my head and highlighters and I don’t know. Like what do you do and how do you start with that?

Amy Appleton:

Dinners and everything else. Your calendar. All the things.

Amy Appleton:

So the ideal work week, basically the philosophy is, obviously your time is limited. It’s one of the resources that there isn’t an infinite amount of time in every single day. And so I like to think of the 24 hours as, basically you said it, it’s a jar. And so you have to fill that jar every day. And so with the ideal work week, what we do, we talk about, you want to fill the jars of time just with specific things.

Amy Appleton:

So the first thing is really the big rocks. And by that I mean, they are the most important things that you need to do, and possibly you are the only person that can do them. So based on what you do for your job … Examples for me is like one on ones with my direct team members. I’m the only person that can do those. And that they’re very important. Looking for new opportunities for marketing. That is something that’s also really … So that would be two examples of big rocks for me from a work perspective.

Amy Appleton:

But big rocks should also be, because you’re not just a person from nine to five or eight to six or whatever your work day looks like, it also includes things that are important to you outside of that. So for me, I need to exercise because it’s good for me, so exercise is a big rock for me. Kids, things that are happening in my family, my friends, my children. To me, that’s another big rock, so I’m going to put priority in my day for that. And then eating and sleeping. Also very important. I don’t know about you, but sometimes your day looks like, and eating is supposed to happen more. Even eating as well, is a big rock. You have to eat.

Amy Appleton:

And then there are the pebbles. So those are the things that are kind of second most important. For me, I think those are things like reporting as a great example. I get in our project management system and look at things. They’re actually very important that I do it, but they’re not as important as the big rocks, so I can find time to kind of squeeze those in.

Amy Appleton:

And then the last one is just like the sand and that’s really everything else. So things that are unplanned. I’m really big into trying to build margin in right now in calendars, because you just never … You know those days where you think it’s going to go one way and all of sudden it’s [inaudible 00:07:15].

Lisa Zeeveld:

That’s every day, Amy. That’s every day.

Amy Appleton:

That seems to be happening a lot more often these days. But acknowledging that sometimes it would be all right to have a block of time that didn’t have anything planned, so that just in case you needed to catch up somewhere else. Driving places, there’s one. When you have a meeting, building in the drive. And really having open time for other particular things.

Amy Appleton:

So those are the big things that you’re trying to rearrange basically in your ideal work week. And just listing them all out and then making sure that you’re putting the priority to the big rocks and then putting everything else in around it, just like you would stick it in a jar.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. And then eventually there becomes a capacity in which you can’t fill everything in. And I know we’re going to talk about that in a second, but I think that’s worth saying right now, is that when you start with your planner and you start to create your ideal work week, that it’s kind of like … I’m giving away … What do they call that? When you give away the secret at the end of the book? I’m telling the secrets here, and that you’re going to sit down and you’re going to look at it and it’s all not going to fit, but just wait. We’re going to help you with that too.

Lisa Zeeveld:

So I feel like the big rocks, I can immediately think of what those would be and you gave some great examples, but sometimes it’s going to be a little bit harder to tell the pebbles from the sand. Do you have a good way of helping us identify what those look like?

Amy Appleton:

I think to me, I look at, the pebbles have to happen. The sand is the things that they should happen. But to me, that’s the difference. The pebbles for me are things that, it has to happen.

Amy Appleton:

Now, not to speed forward, pebbles are also things that maybe someone else could do for you, so if you have too many pebbles … And I know we’re jumping forward some to delegation, our favorite topic, but basically also pebbles, you probably have a really long list of those things. That’s the to-do list. That’s like, you’ve got your top five things, and then all of a sudden there’s actually 25 things underneath that. That is the pebbles.

Amy Appleton:

So I feel like that’s the difference. And you will have more than you can fit in to a day, and then you have to prioritize or delegate.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Spoiler alert. That’s what I was trying to think of, Amy. Spoiler alert. It was a spoiler alert. But we have to give spoilers because I don’t want people to get ahead of themselves who are listening and go, okay, I’m going to get it all filled out and figure it out, because I have a calendar and I’m going to do an ideal work week. And the spoiler alert to that is that it will help you, but you’re going to need some additional content that we’re about to deliver here in a second. So, put your pen down. Put your pen down, because we’re going to tell you how to make it when you look at your ideal work week, you get excited and you don’t get overwhelmed. That is the key in creating that.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Okay. Let’s talk a little bit about structuring your physical space. Why does that make a difference in your work?

Amy Appleton:

Well, I think it makes a difference because … This is kind a really interesting one for me, because I think it’s going to vary, honestly, to our listeners. So to me, it’s about looking at what your big rocks are in the day, your work preferences, and then what does your physical space and environment need to be in order to do those?

Amy Appleton:

Some people need concentration. Your big rock could be something that you are deep and looking and you have to concentrate on every single thing of it. Your physical space is going to need to be quiet, a place where you like to be, a place that’s comfortable for you. Do you need multiple monitors? What do you need?

Amy Appleton:

You may have a job where you’re talking all the time. You’re talking on the phone all the time. You’re on Zoom meetings a lot of the day. And in that case, same thing, just setting up your physical space so that that works for you, for those big rocks, and not for all the exceptions, but for the things that really are going to be most important for you to do.

Amy Appleton:

And then also, and most importantly, because I think this has to do with boundaries, if you’re working from home, if you’re not in a hybrid environment and you’re in your home office all the time, you need to be able to leave. Whatever that looks like. Because setting that boundary of being able to stop working when you work from home is key. I’m guilty of carrying my laptop to the kitchen counter. That’s a hard place to leave. So having a physical space that you can also leave and have that routine of leaving work and going into home.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Do you feel like creating a space that’s visually pleasing also matters? Like a chaotic space or a space that you feel like you enjoy being in? Does that matter in a work environment?

Amy Appleton:

I think it does. Absolutely. Especially if you’re going to spend a lot of time there every day. You don’t want to dread going in. If being tidy is very important to you, absolutely, you need to be clutter free. Take the time, just like when we all used to be in the office. I mean, I’m assuming everyone did this. I did. I picked up my workspace every day before I went home. Same thing. Clean up your workspace. If you’re a piler, if you’re a filer, if you’re, it’s got to be completely clean on the desk, you can’t have anything. Because I think it does matter. Your visual space can clutter your brain as well, so I do think it matters. What do you find? Do you find that for you? Which one are you?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, I mean, if you look at my desk right now you’d think I’m a piler, but fortunately yeah, I have to have a visually pleasing space, someplace that I want to be. I don’t move around though, Amy, that’s the interesting thing. And I wanted to so bad, to be a mover, because I do think that it helps mentally to kind of change that space.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I would think about, it’s been 15 years, but when I was in an office, you would get up and you’d go to a conference room for a meeting. You would get up and you would go to a restroom that might be further down the hallway. Or you’d go to talk to a coworker. And we don’t have that in a virtual space.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And so I think that this is one of those moments when I say, do as I say, not as I do, that I think it’s really important to be more mobile and to change your work space up, because I think it brings in new ideas and a fresh perspective when you can kind of get out of your space and look somewhere different.

Lisa Zeeveld:

But I do think it needs to be tidy and I do think that you visually have to want to be there. And comfortable. You got to have a great, comfortable chair and all those kinds of fun things too.

Amy Appleton:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s why people just leave and go … Like our Starbucks, if your Starbucks is indoors, it’s open, that you could go. And I think you’re right. People just kind of leave their space so that they can just take a break, get a different view, new scenery.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Right. Yeah. I always say that. I don’t think that this excitement around working virtually is not because people want to be alone. What people are trying to get away from is the awful commute. And they want flexibility. But they still want connection. And so don’t miss the fact that in a hybrid environment with virtual teams, people still want connection, and they still want to get up and move. They don’t want to just be in a black hole. And so I think that whatever you can do to help your team members create environments that they love and spaces that are flexible, will really make all the difference in the world to ultimately, what their productivity looks like.

Amy Appleton:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I agree. Just going back to where we were … Although I will never go back to an office, by the way.

Lisa Zeeveld:

No. Me either. Me either.

Amy Appleton:

But it is the flexibility and the lack of not having to spend extra two hours in the car, really.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Totally. All right. Well, in the ebook we talk about delegation in terms of communicating, trusting, and celebrating. Some people really struggle with delegation because of trust. What are some things that they can do to get past that and experience more trust?

Amy Appleton:

First I would say, reframe what you think about delegation, and kind of even trust. So really, the greatest gift that you can give someone else is trusting them to do something that’s important for you. If you go back and think of anytime in your career when people who were your boss, or maybe two levels above your boss, when they asked you to do something and you knew it was important, it actually felt good sometimes, because you knew that they were trusting you to do something that was important. It’s actually a compliment.

Amy Appleton:

So I feel like when people who struggle with the trust, if you can reframe yourself, just stop for a second, try to reframe yourself and be like, oh, you know what? I’m actually giving one of the biggest compliments to someone else, I know it sounds crazy, by asking them to do something that is important to get done. And I’d say that is the first thing, is kind of just check yourself, and maybe that would help.

Amy Appleton:

The next one then is, start small. Don’t give the most important thing in the whole world to start. If you’re a surgeon you might say, hand me the scalpel. You’re not going to say, can you cut over here?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Good example. Good example. I like that.

Amy Appleton:

Exactly. So, start small. Start small, give instructions and directions that actually has the outcome in mind. So that’s like, what does the successful completion of this look like? Give as many details as possible. And really what that’s doing is it’s setting them up to do well. And set that checkpoint in there. Don’t have them come back at the end. Set a mid checkpoint if it’s the first time that you’re delegating to someone or you’re delegating something. And then celebrate that outcome of it as well. Give feedback and celebrate the outcome. Say, thank you. Tell them what they did right. And celebrate that you didn’t have to do it.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. I like the part where you said have that midpoint check in, because I would guess that a lot of leaders have a problem with delegation and ultimately trust because they’ve been burned before. They gave too much away too fast and then they got burned, and they’re like, yeah, it didn’t go very well for me last time. And so now they’re just a little shy to do it again. But I like what you said. Start small. And then having that mid check in, to me sounds like you’re setting everybody up for success. And that becomes a muscle that you use because it goes really well and you go, oh, well that went really well. Let me keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it.

Amy Appleton:

Yeah. I think that the mid checkpoint’s huge. You get to see, you get to make sure it’s being done for the outcome that you want, and that person gets immediate feedback in it. And there is nothing, in my opinion … I hate it when I’ve asked somebody to do something and I’ve forgotten to do a mid checkpoint and they got done and they did a lot of work and it wasn’t what I needed. And I don’t know where it went wrong, but then I’m always like, ugh, they just spent a lot of time on this and now they’re frustrated and I’m frustrated. And I think that’s the burn, right?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah.

Amy Appleton:

And so just having that mid checkpoint at least gives … And not halfway done. Have as many checkpoints as you need the first time. It doesn’t have to be one. It can be multiple checkpoints until you and the other person are confident that you could just hand it over and they would deliver exactly what it is with the outcome that you wanted.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

For more than a decade, Belay has had the privilege of helping thousands of leaders with their bookkeeping. For some, they just need help with accounts payable, accounts receivable, and credit card reconciliation from our accounting clerks. For others, they all the financial bells and whistles from our bookkeepers.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

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Ryan Fitzgerald :

To learn more visit belaysolutions.com.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, you mentioned celebrating that delegation. And again, I feel like with the variety of things that even just happens in your department, I feel like you really knock this out of the park by celebrating the delegation. Because there’s no way that you could do it all, and I feel like your team just does an amazing job at it all. So what does that look like for you to celebrate the delegation?

Amy Appleton:

I think first of all, it is for me just knowing we can’t do it all. Like personally, I can’t do it all. And quite honestly, we’ve grown so much that each one of us can’t do it all. So I think celebrating, it just starts with, we can do so much. We have multiplied what we’ve been able to accomplish by delegating it across multiple people, multiple vendors. Guess what? We outsource and have contractors that we use too. And it just allows us to get the most important things done and not have to wait until one’s over to start the next one.

Amy Appleton:

And also, I’m just a firm believer that it’s such a gift to give someone else new skill sets, to give someone else new opportunities, to let people try things they’ve never tried before. I mean, I’m sure you can too. I think about all the times, just professionally, where I got to do something for the first time. And then when it goes well, it’s personal growth, so you just never go back. You can never go back to the person that you were that hadn’t done that before. And so to see that growth in your team, to see that growth in yourself and those people around you, I just think speaks vastly to just being a leader in general.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. That’s so great. That’s so great.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Well, the fourth strategy you talked about was remote meetings. So, how do you leverage meetings to make the most of them and not make them feel like a waste of time? Because I feel like that’s another really bad misnomer out there, is that all meetings suck.

Amy Appleton:

I would agree.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And our meetings don’t suck.

Amy Appleton:

Our meetings do not. Our meetings do not suck. They really do not. And candidly, I mean, you know this, we’ve spent a lot of time honing our meeting skills to make sure that they don’t. We’ve read books about it. We have evolved over time.

Amy Appleton:

But really for me, it just comes down to a couple of things. And then what we’re doing on our team, and what’s in the book, is kind of asking, why am I having this meeting? Like, number one. Yeah. What’s the outcome? Because there are so many of those memes out there that are just like, this meeting could have been an email. And so really trying to avoid that for our team and teams in general. So, what’s the outcome?

Amy Appleton:

Number two is, always set an agenda. Know what you’re going to talk about. Set an agenda. It’s really great. It can be a loose agenda. It can be very structured. Your agenda could be like, hey, at the end of the meeting I want to make a decision on this. That’s why we’re here. That’s what we’re talking about. But do set an agenda.

Amy Appleton:

If you could send it in advance, that’s even better. Everybody on your team is not going to be someone who can immediately come up with solutions, ideas. You might have processors on your team, and having an advanced agenda lets those people that like to prepare, it gives them opportunity to prepare, and then they’re able to contribute more than if you had just thrown out a topic on the spot. Your processors will come to you after the meeting and tell you what they thought. So the agenda does that.

Amy Appleton:

Start and end on time.

Lisa Zeeveld:

My favorite. I feel like this is an earth shattering principle that other companies don’t abide by.

Amy Appleton:

So the start on time, I just always like to envision … And I’m talking about hybrid offices and kind of being back in the office, but I feel like that just sets such a tone of, if you’re sitting in a meeting room, it’s very disruptive if people come in late and the meeting has started. So try to start on time. Be respectful of everyone’s time. They’re all busy. Especially if you’re on Zoom. They’ve stopped to come to the meeting. So start it on time.

Amy Appleton:

Do your very best to end on time. I will admittedly say that sometimes in marketing we struggle with this, because if we hit the stride and the ideas start flowing and we have five minutes left, we will struggle. And at that point, what we always do is like, hey, so we have five minutes left. We are probably going over. So if you have something … And then give permission for people who need to leave, to leave in that case. But if you can end on time, do. Same things. People usually have something right after your meeting or something they need to do. And just being respectful of the time.

Amy Appleton:

And my last one is capture either action items or decisions that were made in the meeting. And if you have something formal where you can send it out afterwards, that’s great. But any process where you can actually capture what was talked about and is anyone supposed to do anything? Because sitting in meetings where you leave and then you have the meeting after the meeting where everyone goes, were we supposed to do anything? Who was supposed to do that? They didn’t give anybody’s name. Or you put it out into the universe and you think that people are going to do it, but do you have a name? You just threw it out in the universe and then it doesn’t happen. And having action items and some notes or follow up solves that problem.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. And having somebody who is in charge of making sure that those action items get done. Because that was something that I can say, when Belay was created, that was a new concept to me. Sure, we would have an assistant be in there taking notes when we were in person at an office. But to your point, I sort of felt like it fell flat. There was not the accountability part of that. And here at Belay, we have executive assistants who hold that mantle of keeping people accountable. And so it’s sent out and like, hey, we had these action items. Did you get it done? Yes or no. And then you have to respond to everybody to make sure everybody knows that you’re getting it done.

Lisa Zeeveld:

And I think that that’s why we have a culture of great meetings, because everybody who’s in attendance knows that there’s a reason for it. What’s the why? Knows that it’s going to be productive. We’re going to come out of there with good, hardcore action items that will move the business forward. Even if it’s just ideation. You’re coming away with an idea that’s going to move the business forward. It’s never a waste of time.

Amy Appleton:

Yeah. I completely agree. We have a log actually. Let’s give away our secrets. Here’s a secret. We have a log and it just stays there and you go and you check it off and you give updates. But it’s great because it keeps everyone accountable and we never question, hey, what was I supposed to do out of that meeting? And it saves follow up too. If you’re the leader, who’s like, how come? The follow up is, go fill out the action item log. And then everyone, all the grownups, go and fill out their own information. And it does. It saves a ton of email honestly, of back and forths.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Yeah. Well, in part one we talk about expectations, and the expectation for our leaders and our team members is that there’s a log and you go and you update it and you keep everybody abreast of what is happening, because those meetings are used to move the business forward. I love that.

Lisa Zeeveld:

All right. As we wrap up, is there anything leaders should be mindful of when it comes to productivity?

Amy Appleton:

I think we still live in a culture where doing and being busy can get confused with being productive.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Ooh, dropping some knowledge, Amy. Wow.

Amy Appleton:

So I think the challenge for really anyone working, leader or not, honestly, is just make sure that you’re doing the right things in your time. Because any single one of us can fill an entire day of things that are busy and tasks, and you did a lot at the end of the day. But I think the real question is, did you do the things that will move whatever it is that you’re working on forward? Your own project, the business, any of those things. Are you doing the right things and not just filling your day with things?

Lisa Zeeveld:

Wow. You touched on some really good points on productivity. And if I had to guess, I think probably our listeners have a notebook full of notes and action items themselves to take away from this.

Lisa Zeeveld:

So thank you so much, Amy. I just so respect you as a leader, and I’m always impressed on how you lead your team and how productive you are. So again, totally honored that you would come and talk to us about these few things.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Would you mind sticking around, because I would love to kind of pick your brain on maybe what are some of your favorite tips on hosting virtual meetings? Is that okay?

Amy Appleton:

Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I’ll stick around. A hundred percent.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Awesome. All right, guys. Well, you definitely don’t want to miss this amazing content from Amy. We want you to stick around so you can get all the goodness. But in order to hear that clip, I need you to subscribe to our email list. And then we’re going to send you a link to this bonus content. You can also visit onenextsteppodcast.com where you can find a link in our show notes.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

LZ, what a great conversation with Amy. I loved what she said about how we live in a culture where feeling busy gets confused with actually being productive.

Lisa Zeeveld:

I know. And it’s so true. Hustle culture is not the way to build a healthy team or a healthy life.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Now, as you know, every week we offer one next step for our listeners. And today we have a free download of our brand new ebook, Lead Anyone from Anywhere, which is packed with leadership lessons for the modern hybrid team.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

Well, thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s one next step to make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And while you’re there, feel free to leave us a rating. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com.

Lisa Zeeveld:

Join us next time for more practical business tips and tools to help you advance your business one step at a time. For more episodes, show notes, and helpful resources, visit onenextsteppodcast.com.

Ryan Fitzgerald :

Join us next week when Tricia will chat with Rob Herold, a Chick-fil-A owner/operator, and his BELAY virtual assistant, Mindy Brewer. They’ll share how they started working together, what makes their working relationship so effective, and some tips and tricks for other business leaders who already have or are thinking about hiring a virtual assistant. Here’s a quick preview.

Rob Herold:

BELAY, as I did research with the company and I knew some other people through Chick-fil-A who had worked with BELAY, I had a lot of trust in y’all’s corporate values and the things that you do. I really liked the relational aspect of what you do. You didn’t just pick someone for me and said, “Here, work with Mindy.” I was introduced to Mindy and got a chance to get to know her for a little while. And I got to choose that she was the person that I wanted to work with. And I really appreciated that.