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Have you ever wondered when the right time is to hire an assistant? Our answer has always been the same. Immediately. Now. Yesterday, probably.
Assistants clear the path in so many ways to help leaders focus on what only they can do.
Now, let’s go over the reasons why every leader needs an assistant — and what you need to know about them:
Get your time back
A good assistant will come with core skill sets, including calendar and email management. However, they won’t know your preference or the way you would want things done.
So spend the first 30 days training them on your way of doing things, run them through your preferences, and document them. Putting it all on paper will give them something to look back on so they can start to answer their own questions.
And then you’ll start to see that you’re getting time back.
This can be through the aforementioned calendar and email management and also meeting notes and action items, follow-up from meetings, travel booking, CRM data entry, and even returning phone calls on your behalf.
The list of administrative tasks is immeasurable, and it boils down to what you are doing administratively that you should stop.
Start by sitting down and making a list of what it is you're doing every day. And then slash that list in half and give that other half to your assistant.
Accomplish more
As a leader, you should be vision casting, goal setting, launching a new initiative, doing something that really affects the top line or bottom line of your business, investing in teams, recruiting – all the things that are high payoff, high-ticket items.
Those are the things you should be doing more of. So accomplishing more comes down to doing more of the things that really affect the growth of your business and doing less of the administrative things that get in the way of you spending time on those important things.
We could all be busy all day long but with an assistant, you can instead spend your time on the things that are positively impacting your business.
Protect your priorities
It's easy to slide into old habits or find yourself spending time on the things you like to do that come naturally to you, but those may not necessarily be what you should be doing or spending your time on.
A great assistant will help protect your priorities and say no — or push back — on your behalf.
You can use an assistant as the gatekeeper of your time to help you protect what gets on your calendar.
When you’ve set priorities for yourself, such as a 30-minute break in between Zoom calls, your assistant is the one to make sure that actually happens.
Become future-focused
Ideally, your frontline employees and team members are working in the day-to-day and the week-to-week of your business. They're the ones operating the daily functions of your organization.
As leaders, our job is to set them up to be able to do those things in a way that's efficient and effective for them — so that we can be the ones looking ahead.
Somebody has to be looking around the corner, and looking ahead – not just to next week or next month but to the next quarter, next year, and the next three years.
When thinking in a future-focused mindset, consider these questions:
Are there speed bumps in the way I need to clear for my team?
How are we achieving the goals we've set out for ourselves?
Are there things that I need to be looking ahead and around the corner at?
When we have the opportunity to look ahead knowing that the day-to-day is being taken care of by an assistant, we can start working in our strengths.
Peace of mind
Peace of mind can be interpreted in several ways depending on the person.
For our CEO Tricia, it means she has accomplished the things that are important in her day, week and month without sacrificing anything in her personal life such as working out, ending her day at a certain time, taking a lunch break, and spending time with her family.
Peace of mind is knowing that you've spent your time on the things you should spend time on and that somebody has your back for the things you shouldn’t.
In this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, host George Kamel and our CEO Tricia Sciortino have a conversation about why great leaders need an assistant and how an assistant helps them move their businesses forward.
If your calendar is managed, your priorities are set, and you have the freedom to focus on the things you should be focused on, then you have the opportunity to be a future-focused leader looking ahead.
And if you need a Virtual Assistant, you’ve come to the right place.